Tai cringed, cautiously opening his eyes. It was dark, but still, the lighting seemed to hurt his eyes. Did that make sense? His head was pounding. 'Where am I?' the feel of the "ground" beneath him was enough to tell him he wasn't home... or at a friends. The carpeting was to coarse, and uncushioned. His arms felt like lead and his back was feeling like his head. 'Ok, pull it together. What's the last thing I was doing?' He could visualize the soccer field, and his team practicing drills... 'Well that tells me a lot... What happened?'

Squinting, he glanced around. Well, that explained why his back hurt. He was curled in a ball. He couldn't move his arms, because he couldn't feel them. His hands were behind him, and the angle had cut off his circulation. Though he could feel a pressure on both of his wrists that didn't bode well. Now that he was more aware, he could feel something around his neck. It was uncomfortable, and worrying, but he could breath normally...

He was either in the smallest room ever (though it really did feel like a box), or he was in a... Ochre eyes widened as everything registered. He'd been walking home from soccer practice with Koromon! Now, he was apparently riding first class in the trunk of some kind of car? Strange as it was for him to understand, he could hear the sound of road coming from somewhere under him, and now that he looked, he could see the tail light housings. "What?" his voice was raspy and nothing more than a whisper, but he could still imagine his shock bleeding into the word.

"Koro... mon... are you ok?" Whatever was around his neck dug in painfully at every word he spoke. He tried to shift, and he gasped at the pain that shot down his spine. How long had he been in this awkward position? His whole body was stiff! "Koromon, are you here?" He hoped Koromon wasn't... but at the same time, he hoped his partner could get him free.

The bump took him by surprise. Hurt like Hell too. 'Who knew a speed bump could cause so much pain?' he grouched to himself, hissing out loud. 'Wait... a speed bump means slowing down... which usually means we're in a parking lot and about to stop...' He forced himself to move, working out the stiffness as best he could in the limited space he had to work in. He wouldn't be stuck cornered simply because of a bad cramp. Without his hands to support him, the plan that raced through his head would be hard...

Didn't stop him from finding his footing the second he heard the sound of the trunk release. He pushed the lid with his shoulder as he stood, jumped down from the car (far less gracefully than he'd hoped), and ran. The world spun, and his vision was blurry. He suddenly had a new found respect for one of his soccer drills... coach pulled it out only once in a while, but it helped him find his balance now. Who knew an exercise that required the use of a bat, leaning over said bat with one eye as close to it as possible, running around it in a ridiculous circle several times and running to the starting point could be so useful?

He recognized the area. Mostly anyway. He knew the park... it was real close to where he lived. He'd been here recently with Hikari on a random walk they'd taken together. He was here with Sora before that, sometime in the last year... but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out which direction he needed to go to find safety. Home or otherwise... and there was no one around. It was dark outside, and the moon was the only source of light. 'Just keep running...' he told himself, 'Someone'll help. They have too. Someone will notice I'm not running for the hell of it... I'm still in my school uniform! How could they not realize? I need help, and I don't care how stupid I may seem... I know they're following me, someone please help!'

"Unh!" he cursed himself for tripping. He cursed when he couldn't find his footing again. He cursed as he felt hands grab him roughly around his arms and pull him up. He felt his heart stop as he got a good look at the person holding him. Uniforms. They were cops.

The predatory smile didn't seem like one a cop would wear. The one on his right leaned down, and whispered closely in his ear, "Bad move kiddo." The other cop was still smiling evilly. "Shouldn't have taken off like that. All we wanted was to talk." For the second time in a row, Taichi felt the cold sting of a needle at his neck, and all hope he had died. No one would save him. He wouldn't have another chance like that. He was a prisoner.

He shivered in true fear in that moment, as everything slid out of focus further.

The drill I wrote of was an actual drill we had in ROTC PT once. It was hard as all heck to run straight, because it frags with your center of gravity and you tend to pull off in the direction you were spinning when you start running back to the start point.2) The trunk thing was inspired by the new Hawaii Five-0 TV series.

This is the beginning of a my newest story. I think it's going to have a mystery genre (and perhaps I'll try my luck with romance later on), if only because of this opening. I haven't forgotten about Forgotten, I swear. I am ultimately stuck on it. So, I've switched away from Transformers for a while to try my hand at Digimon.

Hope you all had a fantastic New Year! =) ~ Shimmershot