A chosen light in the darkness

CW: Sensitive topics such as gore, physical violence, sexual violence, and abuse might disturb you, if not please proceed with caution.

The credits had ended, and the room went completely pitch black. Soft murmurs amongst the crowd of people erupt into slight concern. You look at your partner, Galene, with a curious glance. She always knows what to do. So organized and proper. Her brain files must be placed in alphabetical order.

You on the other hand, are the exact opposite of Galene. Scatterbrained and constantly frazzled, yet still smiling after enduring all of the chaos.

To your surprise, Galene does nothing. Has she lost her edge, being overwhelmed by the quiet chatter in the audience? You gently shake Galene's cold, stiff arm, which all the muscles were tense. You noticed that she was gripping her armrests tightly, much so that her knuckles became a fleshy white.

Her eyes were wide open, almost looking like they were about to rupture out of her eye sockets. Through gritted teeth, you heard Galene whisper, "Look at the screen."

You did as you were told, and you saw that the movie WASN'T over. Or was it? Maybe it was a preview of the sequel? But no, it was something else entirely. A figure, seemingly in flames, appeared on the movie screen, standing in a blank white room.

"HI!" A peppy voice called out, echoing around the amphitheater. The figure presses its face against the screen, grinning widely in a way that seems fake but endearing.

You squint, scanning the features of the flame. It has eyes, round and oval shaped. No iris or pupil though, only just glowing white eyes. It apparently has canines. About six foot five inches is its height.

Suddenly, the movie theatre's doors slam shut, stopping any of the more braver audience members who tried to escape.

"As you can see, you are forbidden to leave. Why would you want to, though? There's everything you could ever need here! Food, drinks, entertainment... all in one place! Who cares about the 'real world'? It's a burden to all of society." The fiery stranger claims proudly.

The crowd starts to panic, pulling out their phones but the figure was one step ahead of them. Their phones become too hot for them to hold, and the phones get electrocuted.

"Nice try, but you'll have to be more creative than THAT to escape me. You may roam the theatre, eat, rehydrate, and mingle with your fellow captives. Or in my case, my guests." The blaze might've been expecting a reaction, but everyone was dead silent.

It falters for a second then brightens back up, "Oh wait! I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Flint. Your friendly and fiery captor!" It bursts out of the screen and lands perfectly on the red velvet carpet. To your utter fascination, the carpet didn't even get burned.

"Enjoy your stay." it says in an eerily calm tone, smiling manically.

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Everyone scrambled out of that theatre room, everyone except you and Galene. You could see that Galene is glaring at Flint as he makes his way up the steps, gazing dreamily at you. Galene jumps up and points a sharp dagger at Flint's throat.

He chuckles darkly, "What's THAT going to me? It'll just melt once it comes in contact with my body." Flint scoffs, tactically weaving around her. He stops in front of you, stroking your short dirty blonde hair. His hand is warm, despite that fact he's a living flame and should be burning you to a crisp.

"See you soon Uri... very soon..." He disappears in a puff of smoke and you violently cough, waving the smoke away.

"Uri? That's not even your name." Galene pulls you up and out of the recliner chair. She grabs your wrist and is pulling you towards the exit. "Come on Mikelle, let's go investigate."

You yank your hand back, and you shake your head. "How? We're locked up in here!" "We can find clues..." Galene rolls her eyes, gesturing that she thought it was obvious. "Screw that! Leave that for the police. Let's just find a way OUT of here." You run out of theater eleven, rushing to the entrance to the movie theater only to bash head-first into an iron wall.

Galene, who was casually following you from behind, picks you up. "And how do you propose we leave if there are huge metal doors blocking our escape route now, genius?" Her face breaks out into a wide, smug grin and you pout.

"Fine, we'll go with your plan." You groan at your terrible lack of common sense knowing that Galene would know what to do. She is constantly radiating high intelligence and sometimes you get kind of jealous of her.

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"We found out that the supply of food and drinks are transported here from other employees. We could disguise ourselves as employees and sneak all of the captives into the moving van, then escape this horrible nightmare!" Lydia explains while Hugo nods in agreement.

"Good job, twins." Galene turns her attention to another group of captives, questioning them and their progress so far.

You sigh, feeling useless in this situation, you walk over to the universal restroom and enter it. You open a stall door, locking it, then sits down. Burying your head in your knees, you suddenly feel soft tapping on the top of your head.

Looking up to see Flint standing there with a curious expression, as if to examine you. You flinch and scurry to the door, but he stops you.

"I-I can just l-leave and go to a-another stall..." You stutter, then feeling embarrassed at how intimidating Flint is even with a kind smile across his lips.

Though, that very smile had turned into something more deviously planned. He pins you against the stall door, so close that his nose was touching yours.

"Oh, my little Uri. I'm glad that I was able to talk to you alone, without those rioting imbeciles around." Flint purrs in your ear ominously.

His hands trail down from your shoulders to your waist. You were highly uncomfortable at that very moment and wanted to flee the scene before things got ugly.

Galene has this sort of sixth sense where she has this gut feeling that you're in trouble, so you knew that Flint was going to get mauled. But nothing happened. She didn't show up. Galene must've been so absorbed in the escape plan that she couldn't feel the knot forming in her stomach.

You squirm in his grasp as he kisses you with a needy passion, you tried pushing him away, but Flint was too strong. Then you hear a click. Your eyes snap open and you scream as loudly as you possibly could with Flint's tongue dominating your mouth.

Mellan bursts through the door, zipping in to grab you then bolting back out. In what seems like a blink of an eye, You and Mellan were in hot pursuit, with Flint right on your tail. You hear him growl and a huge firewall appeared in front of you and Mellan. Screeching to a sudden halt, you split up.

To your utter surprise, Flint was chasing Mellan instead of you. Though stunned for a moment, it sunk in. Flint must've been so furious, that he'll hurt Mellan instead. You run into the room where Galene and the others are at, and you quickly explain what happened.

They all jump into action. Once you and the group had finally found Mellan, it was too late. Flint had gotten to her.

Mellan was covered in third degree burns, coughing up blood. Cuts across the stomach, inner thighs, armpits, and ankles. It was such specific wound areas that it seemed that Flint had planned on where he'd cut her.

The twins were aiding Mellan to the best of their ability. You and Galene carry Mellan back to the previous room. The group that had stayed behind had taken certain employee's uniforms and now they're getting ready to initiate the plan. In disguise, the entire group had finally finished sneaking the other captives into the truck when Flint reappeared again.

"If there is one thing you should know about me, is that I'm not dumb." He yanked you towards him, putting you into a chokehold. "Get out of the truck, before I permanently make Uri go unconscious." They all reluctantly obey his command, but he didn't let go because not all of the captives were there.

"Where's Galene?"

"Right behind you, Flame-boyant!" Galene had been in Flint's blind spot the entire time and poured a gallon of water onto him. He disappeared into a puff of smoke, leaving this world forever. All of the captives were home free.

You look at Galene was pure astonishment, "How did you do it?"

"Don't fight fire with gasoline because that won't get you anywhere. Fight it with water."