Pleasurable Venom
I love any and all reviews and comments. Unfortunately I do not own Black butler, but I do own my OC.
Chapter 01: Anywhere
"There she is!" The gruff male voice echos off the walls and chases after me. The same voice I am trying to run from. The strong unyielding sound of a dozen footfalls follow and seem to gain volume. The word no runs laps in my head and screams at me to run faster. Please, I don't want to go back. Not there. Bars, cold metal, I don't want to be there anymore.
Keeping my panic at a low level I focus on my heartbeat, the strain in my muscles from running for a long period of time and the winding twists and turns I need to make to outrun my pursuers. I must keep running. I must run until I am free. Somewhere they won't find me.
My foot falls forward and instead of solid cobblestone my foot slides in a pile of damp dirtiness. The unexpected slip forces my body forward, gravity kicking in to pull me to the ground. My left side makes a hard impact that send pins and needles through my side and shoulder. I must not stop. I bite my lip and grit my teeth as I push up off the ground and begin my run again, ignoring the pain. Just run. My eyes catch a darker area on a wall and I twist my direction towards it. Quicky, I lunge behind a set of wooden crates and the rough skin on the underside of my hand scrapes across the stone wall, both padding my stumble and tearing a few layers of tissue.
After a brief moment the temporary sting fades and I focus back on my breathing. Each breath rushes out in an unstable stutter. My pulse pounds in my ears and slowly, ever so slowly, each one gets quieter and less ragged.
I glance down at my quickly healing palm and faintly notice the torn, barely there scrap of fabric I use as clothing. It serves nothing against the chill plaguing London. Each gust of wind encourages more shivers through my skin.
The storm of enemy footfalls hastily pass me. I hold my breath and tense, ready to flee my hiding spot at any moment. Each one seeming to rake through my nerves and send tumors through my being. I know that if I make even a small movement it could lead to my recapture. Seconds stretch into minutes and they slowly tick by. Yelled voices, and any sign of life fade into the night. The noise slipping and falling through the cold night air. Each footstep, lost in the dark, like the fog from my breath.
A shaky but relieved breath trips past my lips and my body relaxes against the unforgiving wood of the crates. Tense still, yes, but relieved and relaxed.
I am free…"for now, at the very least." The words follow a thick cloud of fog and a small smile.
A breeze crawls over my skin, casting a faint spell of drowsiness over my fatigued mind. It sends my thoughts to my next goal. It's cold, too cold for me to function for long without experiencing difficulty. Cautiously, carefully, I peer over the stack of wood boxes. Looking back and forth, and once behind me, I sigh and slip silently into an ally only a few quick steps to my right. Every step, requires a relatively large amount of effort. The biting cool of the air seeping into my skin and slowing down my movements, all adrenaline from my escape long gone. With every sluggish movement a danit little shuffle accompanies my steps. A leather pouch, hidden beneath the thin fabric of my poor clothing, rubs against my outer thigh, reminding me of its existence. Inside is a small silver earring, the type that hugs your upper ear and dangles past your ear lobe. The small chain that falls off the ear resembles a silver snake, and at the end, red rubies dot its face as the eyes. Always hidden, always out of sight, in my throat. That was until I found the pocket size pouch in my flee from that horrid place. Another shudder, the mere thought of that dreadful hell shoving reason to the side and pushing to the front of my mind. My skin burns with the ice water thrown on my skin, my breath scrapes against my throat, just underneath the rough, calloused hands blocking its way. The feeling seems so real. Hot tears slide over my cheeks and into my hands. I can't breathe.
My fingers clutch into fists and relax. It's okay I am free. I remind myself. Yes, the floor turns from metal to cobblestone, the air returns to my lungs, and the hands at my throat vanish. After a few minutes only the ghost of my hell lingers.
Delicately, but expertly, my thin fingers undo my white braid, then brush through the strands before redoing it. The end is tied off with a small thread, originally coming from my clothing but it had long since been separated from the poor cloth. Another involuntary shudder runs through my mind. The metal bars, the white cloaks, and the pain. All of it flashing through my head. Why the pain? Was it my looks, my gender? What was it that made those horrible people do what they did? I never did anything but listen and yet they still hurt me and laughed at my skin. And the only thing different between my skin and theirs, are the small patches of thin scales dotting here and there. Every little thing they could find that made me diffrent, gained me an extra few hours of pain and humiliation. And all I could do was let it happen, just sit and look at my hands until they had their fill of laughter and twisted humor, until they had their fill of beating me. That was it. Never once was I allowed to so much as cry in front of them, otherwise it brought me even more bruises and cuts.
The sky clouds, the silent blanket of grey fluff blocks the moon from my view and soon drops of cold water hit my skin and roll off. The trails they leave behind chill my skin. Soon enough my vision blurs and I fall asleep. My blood goes numb and I don't feel when my body slumps onto the ground.
Flash back…
"200 dollars for that." A meaty, dirt covered finger point directly at me. I follow the finger up and arm and to the body of an overly fat man with greasy hair and drenched in an unattractive set of yellowed teeth. A confused expression passes my face and I blink back at him. Is he here to take me to a better place? The glint in his eyes tells me no, but i can't help but hope at least a drop.
A name, I need a name. I whisper different names under my breath and frown at them. Each of the syllables and sounds fall off my tongue in a distasteful manner. Soon I am shaking my head and frustrated. I have been called a number of things but I doubt they are proper names. They are after all reserved for the lowest vermin.
Quickly my previous cages flash to replace my current one. The dull grey of steel bars at the freakshow show the longest. That's the worst one. The one that labeled me an animal and put me in front of people to be laughed at. From there it shifts back to the current metal, steel still but more rusty and different dents. It is smaller and is rusty. But i hate them all. Every last cage, no matter the size or material, they are all horrid.
The man shakes hands with my owner and just like that, with the exchange of a bundle of paper and a handshake, I am his now. His property, his to do whatever he wishes. Not a person, never a person, just property.
I cringe and cower back as two bigger men push towards my cage and open the door. Scrambling back, my spine hits the cold bars and I gasp at the sudden change in temperature. That second is all they need and they tangle their sausage of fingers into my white hair and pull, hard. I gasp and kick as they pull me out and onto the ground. I watch the ground blur as I push up onto my hands and knees in the muddy dirt. Looking up from the murky brown, I meet a pair of frightening eyes, the kind that scream at you to run.
"What pretty blue eyes you have, little bitch. I will make you cry and see how far you can go before you are broken, and when you are I will make you my slave." A flash of yellow teeth and I am crammed into a cage barely big enough from me to sit in. My lips pull back over my fangs and I narrow my eyes at his back as he walks away, replaced by a tall man in a white coat. The sun catches the needle in his hand and the glint blinds me. I hiss and push at the man's arm but soon the sharp sting of the needle digging into the patch of scale behind my right ear causes a thick fog to cloud my vision and removes my ability to move anything but my eyes. A haze of blur glazes my vision and not a moment later the swimming sea of metal bars and the muffled sound of chains fill my senses.
End FlashBack…
I blink awake, my eyes straining to focus on the dirt and cobblestone in front of my face. I stay still and slowly regain proper sight. The weight of being forcefully put to sleep by the temperature lays heavily on my shoulders and stiffens my joints and muscles. I stretch and knead them out. One by one my body regains comfortable flexibility and feeling. Thinking back on the amount of time I had been inside a cage, the only thing popping up, is years, many of them. I forgot the days, months, weeks, but never the years. Nineteen, I think. The general feeling of years, long years, always the years. And each one adding to a lifetime, of nothing but pain, hurt, and the stretched silence of being alone. The brief ghost of ;augher tickles my ear and I immediately rub it off with my fingers.
"Not even your mother loved you…" I blink again and tears prickled my eyes. There and threatening to break me.