Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Despite all my rage I was stuck in a cage

I usually like to think of myself as an intelligent, forward thinking person. I also like to think of myself as quite crafty and aware of the potential consequences of my actions.

With all of this bravado and intelligence one would therefore expect that I’d have thought of all the potential consequences of a plan before I implemented it. In the case of me deciding to set a wooden cage on fire that I was locked inside, I apparently didn’t do any of that. As it was only after I grabbed the wall of the cage that it even began to occur to me what it meant to be locked inside. And it was only after the wall went up in flames and I had to scurry to the other side in a hurry to not get burnt myself that I realized… I… was trapped.

I had started by laughing maniacally. But as the rest of the cage begin to burn I found myself desperately trying to fight back screams. For whatever reason the floor of the cage still hadn’t caught fire. But I knew at this point that it was only a matter of time.

My captors had immediately swarmed the cage before giving it a wide berth. I could hear calls of “how did it catch fire???” as I tried to yell back, “please let me out!” But given these people were here to off Annalise, I mean me, I also knew I was in deep trouble.

There was a loud explosive burst of flame from in front of me as the wheels on my cage burst into flame next. I had placed my hands on the ground to scoot more towards the center as I felt the planks beneath me finally began to catch fire as well.

My captors screamed again as the cart lugging this whole contraption went up in flame next. It was getting harder to breathe, and I was becoming very aware there was no one here to save me. There was another bang as a low hanging tree branch went up in flames next. It came crashing down next to my flaming coffin as my captors started to scatter.

“Shouldn’t we wait to see if she dies?” I heard someone yell.

“Only if you want to be roasted too!” someone else yelled back.

I could barely see them through the flames but it was hard not to hear them scurry away. It took another moment before I heard something even scarier, complete silence. I was now stuck in the burning box all alone.

Time seemed to be moving very slowly as I tried to force my way out of the side of the cage. Even though my hands were on fire, for some reason the burning wall also hurt too much to touch. I tried to punch through the roof next. I did a last ditch jump upwards as the searing pain knocked me back down on to the smoldering floor. I had just about given up when I felt myself start to free fall with a loud crack.

It took everything in me to roll out of the way as the walls of the cage started to cave in on me next. I crawled as fast as I could past a burning tree as I felt my lungs start to burn. It was surprising it had taken this long for the smoke to get me. I sputtered along as I continued crawling, it was like I had superhuman lungs. I continued crawling, albeit a bit slower this time, until a black paw stopped me in my tracks.

I looked upwards to see my cat friend standing there staring at me as if I were insane. “Fire…” I mumbled as I pointed back at the burning cage and nearby burning trees. It continued to stare back in a completely unnerving kind of way. “Aren’t you going to run?” I asked. This cat was getting more and more bizarre by the minute.

I nearly gasped as a pair of boots walked up next to the cat shortly afterwards. I slowly panned my eyes upward to see the strange man from Victor’s yard earlier staring back at me. This was even more bizarre to me. “Fire!” I yelled at him, “you guys need to run away.”

He continued to stare at me in a sort of unnerving way as a group of men that looked almost identical to him passed us and walked towards the flames. “Oh no,” I said, now aware that I may have crawled my way into even worse trouble. I wasn’t even surprised when I felt two of them grab my arms and begin to lift. Mere seconds later I was being rapidly carried away.

I wasn’t sure where we were in relation to the town or Victor’s at this point. But I could see that my hands were still on fire and I was still stuck in the stupid forest. I was dragged to a clearing that had more wooden cages. But these ones honestly seemed more cartoon like and even maybe a bit more modern than the previous one I had just been locked into. Surprisingly no one tried to drag me into one either. Instead the similar looking strange men had huddled into an corner and started discussing something as some of them shot back looks in my general direction. My cat friend licked its paws as it stood slightly off to the side. Not sure what else to do I started talking to it like the crazy person I was continuing to rapidly devolve into.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“So uh thanks for drinking that poison for me earlier,” I started as I tapped the ground and stared around our new strange surroundings, “any idea how to sneak out of here?”

The cat continued to blink at me for another minute before slowly sauntering away. I waited to see if any of the strange men were going to approach me for another minute before I slowly started to back away. I nearly jumped as I felt my back knock into another cage I hadn’t expected. To my surprise this one was occupied. The cat was standing there a bit away staring at me again. This time I turned to follow it as it took me down a row of the cages filled with what appeared to be random villagers and the like. I was trying to figure out exactly what was going on when I saw him.

There, at the end of a row of random persons stuck in cages, was Victor.

He practically jumped when he finally saw me. He looked even more startled to see the cat. “Annalise?” he mumbled.

“What are you doing in a cage?” I replied.

“What do you mean?” Victor shrugged.

“You didn’t think I wouldn’t have any questions about why you’re here locked in a cage and not running whatever errand you’re supposed to be running?” I replied.

He shrugged, “this always happens.”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“I’m supposed to be here until, you know…” he mumbled. He looked incredibly alarmed after he’d said this, almost as if he’d just revealed a terrible secret. I knew he knew about the plot. And I knew he knew that I knew that he knew. What was the point of any of these charades anymore anyways?

I realized I had been so distracted by the cage fire, games, and poisoning I had also completely forgotten why I wanted to escape in the first place. “Victor I found the notebook,” I said flatly.

“What notebook?” he replied.

“The one in your study,” I said slowly.

He still looked completely clueless. “You’re going to just pretend like you don’t know me in real life and never were… stalking me?” I said.

“Annalise to me, this is real life,” Victor said flatly, “I’m not stalking you. You’re free to leave the manor as you wish.” He wrinkled his nose as he finished, “Or when your hero shows up.”

“Nothing you’re saying makes any sense,” I said, “and not only that why are you even in here?”

“I think this is the holding area,” Victor shrugged.

“Holding area for what?” I replied.

“Not sure, I assume for until you get back from whatever shenanigans caused you to be in these woods to begin with,” Victor replied.

“You want me to believe everytime you disappear you just come hang out in these cages?” I asked.

“When have I ever disappeared on you before?” he replied.

“I don’t know,” I said, “what I do know is I found a notebook you wrote and it was filled with stuff about me. And now you’re in a cage. And someone at your house tried to poison me, this cat here drank it and was knocked out instead…”

Victor to my surprise seemed totally nonplussed at the first few statements and stared with eyes wide open at the cat when I said the last, “you found the cat?”

He looked up nervously next down the end of the line of cages, “Annalise you should go hide.”

“Why? Those weird men brought me here and have left me wandering around…” I shrugged, “wouldn’t they have thrown me in a cage if they were going to do so already?”

“Not if they knew you probably weren’t going to leave,” Victor whispered, “but I recommend you get out of here.”

I surprised myself with my reply, “How about I get you out of here too?” All of a sudden I felt the eyes of everyone down the line of cages. I looked around as I tried to pretend like I wasn’t hyper aware they were now all staring at me.

“These men…” Victor started as he seemed to choose his words carefully, “keep the world together…”

I wasn’t able to hear the rest of what he was about to say. Because as soon as he said it, the ground began to shake.

“Victor we need to go and I don’t know where to go or how to get out of here so I’m taking you,” I replied. Like clockwork my hands immediately lit on fire, clearly surprising even Victor.

I ignored his protests as I started towards the cage with the fire hands. “Annalise I’m locked in here, if you set that one fire I won’t be able to get out,” Victor pleaded, “also did you know your hands are on fire?”

“I know,” I grinned, “how do you think I got out of my last cage?”

Before Victor could even finish the sharp “what?” he had started to utter, the cat once again solved all of our problems. It jumped up and slammed open the cage door, somehow breaking the lock with its paw swipe and sending Victor tumbling back to the outside. I instinctively reached for him as he shook his head aggressively no and backed away.

“Oh right, fire hands,” I mumbled.

Victor looked from me to the cage again. “Well would you rather stay here in this earthquake or come with me to, somewhere. I don’t actually know how to get back…” I replied.

“The ground has never started shaking like this before,” Victor replied. He almost sounded scared.

“Then we really need to go now”, I replied.

We both looked up as the strange man appeared at the end of the row of cages. Victor sighed as he hopped to his feed and finally looked ready to run.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. But I was pleased to see him finally take me by my elbow to start our escape. In retrospect, maybe I should have listened to his protests, or even asked the strange men why they were doing what they were doing when I had the chance, but in the end none of it mattered. We were about to start down a new crazy storyline. And even then I could tell things were about to likely get very weird.