SPARKS: The Smoke & Fire Series (Prequel Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment,
he came awake to the men holding something under his nose. As soon as he
regained consciousness, his pain packed nightmare resumed.
     
    ****
     
    Countless beatings pushed Mycale
beyond any limits he recognized. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to his
parent’s lessons on how to pray? Attempting to pray for himself and the rest of
the kids, he hoped his desperate words were somehow heard. It seemed the
mission of his captors were to kill them all, but he wasn’t ready to die. He
begged, “Please God. Don’t let these people kill us. We are only kids. We don’t
know what they want.”
     
    Starved, thirsty, battered, and
beaten, Mycale started to believe this was the last place he would ever see. A
pair of children began to disappear and not return to the beds with each
emergence of the man and woman. At first, there were four empty beds, then ten
stared back at him. Either the children were dead or they had shown the man and
woman something impressive enough to be sent back home.
     
    Back at the cubes, this was his
third time being teamed with Ivan.  This time, the men used electric prods,
like the ones farmers used to prod livestock. Mycale knew he would later
experience the painful sting of the prods. Ivan lost consciousness twice, but
it didn’t stop his abuse.
     
    Rage and anger seemed his only
friends, a toxic cocktail of emotions that made Mycale, of all things,
extremely hot. Touching the glass, he realized he had literally become hot
enough to melt the wall. Pushing against the wall, his hand sank into the
glass. At first, only his face was hot, then his entire body. Since the man and
woman refused to set him free, Mycale embraced the rush of rage and anger as it
coursed through his body. His hands emitted a light glow that scared and
excited him at the same time. Since he possessed nothing as strong as his anger
and rage, he was convinced the intangible emotions had been converted into
heat.  He wondered if anger was the key to giving the man and woman what they
wanted.
     
    They finally noticed what he was
doing to the glass. It seemed his actions impressed the man and woman enough to
stop Ivan’s beating. His distraction was a short lived one. Focusing, Mycale
saw Ivan one moment and he was gone the next. Ivan had vanished.
     
    Ivan’s sudden disappearance drew
everyone’s attention. The man and woman, along with the large men searched
calling out angrily for the boy. While everyone was busy searching for Ivan,
Mycale slipped through the jagged hole he’d melted into the glass.
     
    Once free, Mycale ran down a
second hallway towards what he hoped was an exit. The only thing on his mind
was getting out of this place and finding help for the rest of the children.
Just as he pushed against the large metal door marked ‘exit,’ he was jerked
backwards by strong hands and tossed over a sturdy shoulder.
     
    He didn’t fight while being
carried back to the soundless room, but the sight of the bed drove him to start
kicking and yelling again. Luckily, he gave a good enough kick to make one of
the men cover his eye. Pain was evident on the man’s face, but Mycale’s small
victory was short lived.
     
    The force of his body connecting
with the hard mattress took his breath. A blow to his mid-section sent his
stomach contents flying into the air. Weak and winded, he was unable to block
or move away from another fist traveling toward his head. Just as his brain
registered pain, his world went black.
     
    ****
     
    Mycale was at number nine for the
repeated cycles of torture he had endured.  He had been spat on, urinated on,
nearly drowned, electrocuted, splashed with acid, deprived of sleep, and
starved of food and water.  Trapped in an endless cycle of abuse and pain, he
began to reject the notion that this world was real. Was it possible he had
died and landed in hell? His grandparents always preached about hell, but he
never believed their stories until now.
     
    Countless beatings and