Patricia sat up in bed quickly, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead. She bit down hard on her lip until it bled, holding back a whine of anguish from what she had seen in her dreams. Her parents had just disintegrated this time. Although she had not seen them die, nor heard their causes of death, it didn't stop her dreams from showing her new and horryfing possibilities every night. The small girl wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, squeezing tight her shiny blue eyes, tinted red with the urge to cry. She threw back her bed clothes and tiptoed across the floor as quietly as possible, knowing there would be hell to pay if she were caught.
After a few slow, agonizing steps, Patricia had reached the bed of her best friend, who'd been staying with her and her parents for about six months before the incident. Since she'd lost her own parents not too long ago, Patrica's family took good care of her and treated her like their own flesh and blood. Until, well... Patricia nudged at Marie gently, prodding her face. Marie's eyes flickered open with a deep yawn, and, when she saw Patricia's face, grew concerned. She lifted the edge of her covers and allowed Patricia to crawl in, holding her gently while she muffled her weeping against her front, gently rubbing her back.
"I miss them too, Patricia. It's alright to cry." Marie gently reminded her, pinning back her fringe a moment to gently kiss her friend's forehead. She held her while she shook with despair until the sun came up, and Patricia slunk back to her own bed a few hours before wake-up time. She curled into a ball in the middle of the bed, hauling the sheets over her face, wishing that she could have slept just a little more.
Soon came the footsteps of the Nuns, and Patricia sat up straight in bed, smoothing back her short hair. Many of the other girls did the same, knowing that if they did not sita at attention at their beds on time they'd be punished.
The Nuns came around to each bed, nodding at each girl sitting up until one came to a bed with a still-sleeping girl. The Nun slapped a large ruler into the palm of her hand, and the others looked toward her and quietly came forward. Silently, they all looked to each other and held up their rulers. Patricia felt the urge to yell out and wake the sleeping girl, but she knew the consequences of that were far worse by experience. She watched all eight rulers come down on the the girl in various places and plugged her ears with two fingers as she screeched out. One of the nuns gave her another slap for being noisy. The girl muffled her cries in much the way Patricia had the night before. She averted her eyes and stared at Marie, who offered her a look of silent comfort.
The Nuns assembled, four on each side of the room, and one made an announcement in her shrill, old voice. She held high a large box over her head and placed it at her feet.
"Dress yourselves, girls. We are going on an outing today and we want you looking your best. You will not allow yourselves to be an embarrassment to God's house nor to the rest of His children." The Nuns all ducked from the sleeping chambers and the girls filled out of their beds, discarding their ratty night dresses into trunks at the end of their beds. Their clothes were never to be washed, and reflected it quite well. Once nude, the girls shuffled over to the box, plucking out large envelopes with their names written upon them. Patricia beamed excitedly, hugging the package to her chest and joining Marie on her bed.
The girls looked each other in the eye with a smile, holding out their packages to each other proudly.
"New clothes!" Marie beamed. "I hope this time I got a pretty dress!"
"Maybe!" Patricia returned. Usually they were just given a new outfit every six months, nothing special, but these packages seemed to have a different air about them that had the whole orphanage in an excited buzz. Marie held up 3 fingers cheerfully, taking one down at a time.
"Three, two, one... Open!" Both girls tore open the envelopes, holding up the contents to each other excitedly.
"A blue dress!" Marie exclaimed, hugging it tightly and rubbing her face against the fabric. "It's beautiful..."
"Mine's yellow!" Patricia gasped, dropping it to her lap to dig inside the package. She produced something else as well. "They even gave us stockings! They're really going all out today, huh, Marie?"
Marie nodded repeatedly with a sunny smile. "Maybe we're getting adopted!" she added.
Patricia and Marie both did not like the idea of having new parents, but they had both agreed long before that it was much better than staying here with these abusive nuns. Both girls quickly dressed into their pretty new clothes, hoping for a brighter future to come of their trip.
Soon the Nuns returned for the girls, clapping their hands at the door. The girls lined up single file in front of a Nun holding a holder full of umbrellas.
"Unfortunately we do not have enough umbrellas for all of you. Those at the front of the line will have top priority for getting here the fastest. Those at the back of the line will have to deal with soiled dresses. You will be punished upon arriving home by having your hands scalded in water that has been brought to a boil if you return with a dress in poor shape." Patricia mentally counted the umbrellas in the stand, then the girls in line. She frowned in a troubled manner, looking back to Marie.
"You're the beginning of the end, I think. But it's okay. We can share." Patricia smiled at her friend, who smiled back hopefully. Patricia and Marie had always done what they could to keep the other from the cruel punishments of the twisted Nuns. One by one the umbrellas were handed out and the girls were taken outside to wait for the others in the rain. Patricia met Marie at the door, holding the umbrella carefully over her dress to keep her dry.
The Nuns lead the group of girls down a noisy cobblestone path, down a few alleys, and well away from the street. Confused chatter came from a few of the girls in front, and a few of the girls in back were busy weeping while imagining their imminent punishment for having gotten their dresses wet. Marie touched Patricia on the arm gently, crooking a finger to bring her ear closer to her lips.
"They probably just want to keep us away from the public. No one wants to see a bunch of orphans running around, I'll bet." Marie whispered. Patricia nodded in agreement with a light sigh.
The procession came to a stop outside of a large, brick building. The Nuns instructed the children to wait as they ducked inside the building, cussing at them to stay put or else.
"That was a rather un-nunly way to put that..." Patricia blew her bangs from her eyes. Marie giggled gently at her joke, looking around at the scenery. A look came over her that Patricia couldn't place. It seemed to be born of worry. It bothered her a little, but the bother was soon replaced with a new one.
A group of large men bullrushed the group of young girls, manhandling and grabbing and stealing them away. A couple of large men grabbed Patricia by both arms, hoisting her into the air. She kicked and screamed and cried out. A hand groped for Marie's arm, but she slinked away and ran. She didn't even look back. She just ran off screaming, leaving Patricia all alone with these weird men who were dragging her away. Before she knew it, tears streamed down her face.
The men took all the girls they could carry away into a dark alley, into the back doors of the large brick building the Nuns had disappeared inside of. Unbeknownest to Patricia, all eight of them were inside sipping tea and smiling beside a large stack of cash. The men carrying Patricia carried her up a long flight of stairs, holding their arms tight around her own. One held his arm over her mouth, but she bit it and was repaid with a hard punch to the face. She felt a little blood trickle down her temple, but she remained defiant, spitting and kicking to the end. They discarded her into a room seperate from the other girls, one of the men making an offhanded comment about "having a feisty one". They threw her hard onto the concrete floor, and she spluttered, having had the wind knocked straight out of her. The door shut with a heavy clang and the sound of a heavy lock echoed the small room.
It took her a moment to be able to breathe again, but when she composed herself finally she sat up gripping her aching sides protectively. The room was completely dark, she noted, squinting to try to force her night vision to come in. After some waiting and straining, she was able to make out some splotches on the floor in front of her. She reached out to one in front of her to see if she could make out what it was, and her hand came back sticky. She sniffed the residue on her hand cautiously. The tinny smell seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place it in her state of panic. She curled her fingers to her palm a moment before attempting to crawl forward. She reached one hand before her and made her way forward slowly before feeling a smooth surface. A wall. This was a good start. She followed the wall with her hands before she felt a cold, metallic space inlaid into the structure. A door? Yes, it had to be a door. Patricia pressed the side of her face against it, listening intently for what seemed like centuries. She didn't bother to call for help or bang on the door. She knew whoever was out there had no desire to help her at all. She just waited for a chance to escape.
Clack.
She heard the echoing sound of the lock being undone, and she shuffled backwards, covering her mouth. This was her chance. If she could just somehow take out whoever was behind that door and slip past them and outside quickly and quietly enough, she'd be safe and she could find Marie. She rolled her tongue in her mouth, feeling her incisors for sharpness. Perhaps if she could bite his ankles hard enough—
The door swung open, and Patricia didn't even take a look at the person who had opened it. She just launched herself for the ankles and bit down as hard as she could, digging in her nails. The leg reared back and kicked her hard, causing her to detach and smack into the wall at the other side of the room and lose her breath once more. She coughed hard, gasping for air, and dislodged a splotch which matched all of the others on the floor.
Blood.
The small girl's stomach quickly emptied, and her head was swimming. At least she'd cleared the fluid that was impairing her breathing. The door slammed shut behind her captor and he switched on a bright, fluorescent light which blinded Patricia. She lifted her arms to shield her eyes, but she felt hands grab her forearms tightly and force her onto a table. She felt a sensation like being squeezed, and when her vision returned she looked down at herself. She was belted in. Panic spread all through her body and she wriggled around, trying to free herself.
"We were hoping there'd be a naughty one we could make an example of," Her companion smiled in an eerie way, sliding a small table of surgical tools beside him. He sat on a small stool beside her, fitting a clamp into her mouth to hold it open. "You see, our slaves need to know what'll happen to them if they don't obey us or their masters, when someone buys 'em up, honey. You're my lucky canvas for the day."
Patricia's eyes darted around in horror. Had they really been captured by slave traders? So many thoughts swam around in her mind.
Thank God. Thank God Marie got away. Thank God she ran.
It seemed odd that the most prominent of her thoughts in this situation was one of relief. She almost immediately accepted that she would die, but that seemed okay if Marie could live. That Marie could have a better life.
The trader's thick hands intruded her mouth. She tried to bite down on his fingers, but the contraption was holding her back. She couldn't see what he was doing, but she felt something prop against her bottom -front teeth, and then something striking it and pushing them painfully out of place. She cried out, and a salty copper flavour flooded her mouth and throat.
"You shouldn't've bitten me, sweetheart." The man said with a mock-kindness that made her skin crawl. He continued on every single one of her teeth in a painfully slow manner, vacuuming away the blood in her mouth with a small dental tube. He wasn't done his work yet, no. This is not how he intended her to die at all.
"Hmm," he mused, wiping a few stray tears for the small girl's face with a thumb. He turned to a television tacked up in the corner of the room and switched it on, and old black-and-white cartoon filling the screen. Mickey Mouse tightly held the wooden wheel of steamboat, cheerfully steering and whistling. The man chuckled gently and nodded his head.
"A classic!" he raved, picking a shiny metal blade from his table of tools and lifting her shirt. She felt the cold steel begin to cut along her skin and tear through her muscles. She focused on the television, allowing the cheerful whistling of the cartoon mouse drown out her screaming.
How fun and easy it seemed to be a cartoon. Even if you hurt, you'd come back just fine the next week as if nothing had happened. Everything was silly and games. Oh, how great it seemed to poor, poor Patricia, who was lucky to be clinging to life as the pile of pulp she had been reduced to.
It seemed she had drowned completely into this world of cartoons, not reacting to mutilation or pain or the entrance of more thugs. An acme anvil had fallen on Wile E. Coyote's head. Patricia laughed happily at the onscreen antics until a large man bent down into her face, plunging his fingers deep into her eye sockets.
That was the last thing she saw for quite some time.