Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28088262-20140708182755

A homeless man named Ted had always been sitting underneath the tunnel which lead to the train station before last December, waiting for the few coins he managed to receive every day. Nobody seemed to notice or mind the fact that he’d disappeared until police released a missing persons inquiry with his photo on the top. The only difference people ever noticed was the silence in the tunnel, which used to be filled with the melodic sound of a violin. And many new residents weren’t aware of even that.



The main suspects in the police investigation were a group of people called ‘The Taipans’. They were on suspicion of mainly abduction, not murder - that was how they functioned; The Taipans recruited members to expand their forces and commit all sorts of hideous crimes such as abduction and torture most likely for entertainment. No one knew how they organized the members, and no one could say for sure why they committed these crimes. All anyone knew was that their police database files were destroyed by one of their allies, and starting from scratch, it was almost impossible to track them down again.



Ted woke up facing the ceiling. He could tell from a glance the room was spacious, and the whole building looked like a giant metal warehouse with all the pipes and rods protruding from the walls. Amidst the vastness it was fairly dark, but any objects were still easily visible from the few windows which let in light at the top of the room. He turned over onto his side and tried to get up, but lay back down again as he felt the rope tight pull of the rope binding his arms. His violin was nowhere to be seen, and as he looked over his shoulder, his heart began to race.



Beside him was another man, lying on the floor with his arms bound behind his back. He was turning his head slightly to survey his surroundings; however there was no look of panic or confusion on his face. His actions were fluid and calm – it seemed like he knew what was going on. Shifting to the other side, Ted sat up slightly and was shocked to see many, even hundreds of people lying on the cold metal floor. There were people of all ethnic backgrounds and ages; some were even women and children. Some had only their arms bound like him, but others had their legs bound, bloodstains on their clothes and even a piece of cloth wrapped around their mouths too, showing that they must’ve put up some sort of fight against their captors.



However, they all seemed very calm now and even though many of them were already awake, no one made a sound. Ted wondered why that was. Did these people know where they were? He certainly didn’t, and that made him feel worried. All the other people who were lying so still didn’t make him feel any better, just more concerned about his situation.



“Hey, hey,” he whispered into the man’s ear, trying not to disturb the eerie silence within the hall.



“Hey, can you hear me?”  The man looked at Ted, but refused to reply. He turned his head back in the other direction. “Do you know where the hell we are?”



There was still no response. Ted lay back down and sighed to himself. There was no way he could know what was going to happen to him or the rest of the people. He would simply have to wait.



<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Suddenly, he turned his head abruptly as he heard a loud creak from the opposite side of the room, causing him to bump his temple on the floor. As he groaned from the pain, he noticed several muscular men enter the room accompanied by other men and women of a smaller stature. All of these people were wearing clothes which covered every part of their bodies except for their backs, revealing a snake-like figure which had been painfully cut into the skin. They began untying the ropes of the people lying in the room and escorted them in lines out of the large building. The serene look on the faces of those walking one behind each other unnerved him more than anything he’d ever seen in his life.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Let go of me!”  Yelled a voice. Hundreds of heads turned to look at one man in the middle of the crowd, struggling against the grip of a woman wearing a business suit with the snake carving on her back, trying to pull him back into the line.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“What are you people? What’s going on here?!”  The man continued to yell at the top of his lungs. Slowly, a muscular man with red hair walked over to him as he looked around, bewildered. The man with the red hair nodded and the woman stepped back, stiffly holding her arm out behind the man who wouldn’t stop yelling. Before he could realize what was going on, the muscular man suddenly grabbed him by the neck and pushed his upper body down on top of the woman’s arm with such force that his back snapped across her elbow. A sickening gargle came from his mouth, gasping his last breath with his head hanging towards the ground and his spine stretched over the woman’s arm, wishing that he’d kept quiet from the beginning. She let his lifeless body slide down onto the ground and left him in a heap as she walked away. Two girls picked his body up and carried it out of a door in the back of the room.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Ted felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his face. All that had just happened so quickly and now a man was dead. The same woman approached him and started to untie his ropes. Instead of trying to get away, he decided it would be best to keep quiet and follow the rest of the crowd. He happened to be the first in his line, and followed her obediently like the others as she lead the string of people out of the building.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">The lines all gathered in a separate room just as large as the first. This time, there were tables with plates of bread next to each other and there were already some people seated in the spaces, eating their meal. Everyone was instructed to sit down at a table. Being the first in his line, Ted was seated next to a man he hadn’t previously seen in the first room.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Ted noticed this man was different; while all the other people had serene, expressionless faces, this man had a look of anxiety in his eyes. He occasionally looked around when the people with the snakes on their backs weren’t watching, and didn’t eat his food chewing like a machine. Ted longed to talk to him, to see if he could tell him what was going on or where they were, but didn’t dare to for a while. What finally set him off was when he heard the man cough, something he’d never heard anyone else do since he woke up.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Excuse me,” he whispered in the lowest volume possible, “Do you know what’s going on here?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">The man next to him was so shocked that he nearly fell off his chair, but regained balance just in time before a snake-backed woman turned to face him. After a while, he whispered:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“So you’re still sane, huh?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Ted looked at him with a confused expression.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Sane?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Yeah, I guess you are.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“…Do you know where we are or what we’re doing here?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“The headquarters of The Taipans. They’ve captured us.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Why?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“They’ve taken defenseless people like me and you to –“ he stopped speaking abruptly as a snake-backed man walked past.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“To commit crimes,” he continued, “they’ve brainwashed everyone.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Ted kept quiet to himself as tried to comprehend what the man was telling him. All the information confused him and simply sparked more questions in his mind.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“They’ve tried to brainwash everyone with their machines, but there are some people like me and you who don’t suffer the effects of it. They’re going to use us to capture more people.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Suddenly, it all made sense. Even if what the man was trying to tell him was completely unbelievable, it was the only fitting answer to all the questions he’d been presented with from the start. The reason that the rest of the people were being so robot-like and emotionless, the reason that man had his spine broken in the metal room for trying to speak out. ‘The Taipans’ were building an army full of brainwashed people to expand their territory.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“It’s terrible. I’ve been here for a month, and they made me do all sorts of things like killing a family down in the north. The others just did what they were told automatically, but I was pained. In the end, I decided my life was most important, and I…I killed them.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">He took a breath and carried on.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“I know some people who aren’t brainwashed yet. We’ve formed a group and meet in room seven to discuss during the night. We’re plotting against them, and our revenge will come soon. What’s your name?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“I’m Ted.” They continued to eat their bread after a guard turned around with a suspicious look on his face.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Part three

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Cautiously, Ted made his way to the last door along the corridor. It lead to another, which made a sharp turn on itself. The second room on the left down this corridor seemed to glow with warmth - it was Room seven. The only place where sane human beings existed in this endless hoard of robots. It wasn’t even clear who their leader was; maybe everyone was brainwashed to brainwash each other in a vicious cycle. He pushed open the door gently and looked into the room: it was fairly dark; however he was sure that he only saw an empty void with no people. Perhaps they were hiding out. Entering, he surveyed every corner for signs of anyone being present, but it seemed that the man he’d talked to earlier had forgotten his promise and abandoned him.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">There were no beds or windows in these rooms – all the humans slept next to each other on the floor unable to feel the discomfort normal people could. In this room however, there were items of furniture and a desk which seemed to overflow with paperwork and files. Upon closer inspection, Ted discovered many pictures of different people, including people he had seen before in the building.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">Suddenly, he heard footsteps in the distance, followed by a man’s yells. He hoped they wouldn’t approach him but they did, and the volume increased by every second. Flailing and struggling could be heard alongside the footsteps. Ted hid underneath the desk, pulling the tablecloth further towards the ground and shrouding the area with bits of paper to cover his feet as he listened to the commotion outside.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“This guy?” said a voice.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“Yeah, him. He’s been here a while now,” replied another.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“He must be a great actor if you ask me. How did you find him?”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“We heard noises and whispering from that room over there, so we went in and dragged all of them out. We poured salt into their eyes and the ones that resisted were immediately restrained.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">“After we dispose of him, it’s important we don’t let that happen again or we might go to shit. Tell the crew to search every nook and cranny in every room.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">The door opened with a creak. A man with a snake carving on his back turned on the lights, and looked around the room. The room was a mess as always, but it was empty as far as he could see. Nevertheless, cabinets and drawers in the corners of the room needed to be inspected. Closing the door, he walked over to the cabinets at the far end of the room and checked them, opening each one up individually. Nothing there. The wardrobes in the opposite end of the room were too high and small to accommodate a man – even he himself needed a ladder to reach the handles. He decided it would be unnecessary to survey this room any further.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt">And just as he was about to turn off the lights and leave, he heard a light bump come from underneath the desk.

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