Someone held sea shells to her ear. That must have been the reason why this whooshing sound filled her ears and climbed up her arms. Or it could have been the fact that she hang upside down, her ankles tied to ropes attached to the ceiling and swinging like a useless little pendulum. She liked the sea shell hypothesis better.
Opening her eyes, she could not make out much. Her vision blurred when she tried to take anything in her surrounding into focus. Everything seemed hazy, dark, and red. Her legs throbbed, her head felt like it would explode. This constant puckering in her head wouldn't stop and she sure felt some wounds and bruises on her body.
A sound appeared from somewhere to her right. Footsteps.
"Is she awake already?" a gruff voice asked.
Over the rustling in her head she could barely hear the whispered "She is waking up."
In her focus on herself, she didn't notice that a person was here – where ever here was. A sound caught between a gurgle and a painful moan involuntarily escaped her lips.
More sounds, clinks, and rustling followed.
Suddenly, she felt herself sprayed with an ice cold substance. Hopefully water. She let out a shocked gasp.
"Wake up!" the first voice demanded and yanked at her hands, making her swing around.
Her mouth felt dry, her eyes were swollen. She tried to open them, but it just hurt; her head filled with more blood, the rushing intensified.
She heard murmuring, but for now she couldn't care less.
Painfully, she landed awkwardly on the floor and cracked her elbow on the hard pavement.
"Wake up and tell us where the supplies are," the rough voice spoke up.
Her head hurt, her elbow screamed in pain and everything seemed foggy and hazy. In slow movements, she brought her hands to her head and buried her face in her palms.
She opened her mouth to utter a word, but only a dry scratching sound wants to come out.
"Speak up!"
Squinting her eyes, she lifted her head and tried to bring the man into her focus. Slowly, her vision came back to her. She was in a dark room, candle light filled up the middle, but hid the shadows of the corners. It seemed old; the walls were made up of rough stone. On the floor, she saw dirt, wet dark puddles, and could detect splatter of blood on the floor. This was a torture chamber.
Looking to the man again, she noticed how tall he was. Though, given the fact that she lied on the floor, everything seemed gigantic. He stared down at her with hard, blue eyes that were surrounded by wrinkles, dirt and the soulless expression of someone who did this way too long.
"Answer." He spoke through gritted teeth.
"I don't kno-" he interrupted her answer by kicking her hard in the stomach. She felt the air leave her lungs. Coupled with the fact that she hang like a pig ready for slaughter for god knows how long, her energy left her and her vision blurred out: leaving her in darkness.
"Kneel."
She was shoved down violently to her knees, but the force behind this shove pushed her over and made her fall on her face. Her hands were tied behind her back. She could feel the rope digging into her skin, eating away at it and leaving open wounds along the rope.
With a grunt and a lot of energy, she could sit upright on her knees. She felt the solid pavement crushing her knees from underneath.
Her gaze wandered around the big room, illuminated by torches installed to the walls. At the sides of the room, people were positioned, looking at her with fascination.
Letting her head swivel to her right, she notices other people bound and gagged, being shoved onto the floor next to her.
She knew what these people were. They were the scum that society would have chewed up and spit out in a dark alleyway only for them to crawl into a dumpster and die.
But society as she knew it was dead. In this place, these monster prevailed. After hours of interrogation, bruises, and threats, these people knew one thing: She knew nothing.
Internally, she was seething at Sebastian. He tricked them all. She didn't know exactly what happened, but one thing was clear: Sebastian took off with their supplies, left their group at the hands of these people, and earned some money on the way. Money in this case means ammunition, food, and clothing.
While raiding a small little village Sebastian recommended to check out, they were ambushed. She saw Emily drop to the ground with a nasty wound on her forehead. Markus and Oliver tried to defend themselves, but got shot in the process. She saw her group die one by one. Looking down the row of prisoners, she scanned to see if anyone might have survived. That gnawing feeling of claws ripping her apart from inside her, wanted to crawl up her throat. Inhaling sharply, she saw the bent over form of Sam. She sent a silent prayer up to the stone ceiling. She tried to get Sam's attention, but he was bent over, breathing heavily. She feared he might not make it. A prickling sensation hid behind her eyes.
The room, the noises, and the people came rushing back to her senses. A buzzing went through the crowd, silencing them, but having them shifted with nervousness.
From the right, a wooden door opened, and a swarm of people came into the room.
Slavedrivers.
In the middle of four people, a woman walked in, with her head held high. She stopped in the middle of the room in front of them and positioned herself with her face to the crowd scattered at the walls of the room. In an exaggerated movement, she lifted her arms with a welcoming gesture
"Welcome everybody," her voice seemed eerily happy.
"This world is a hard place to live in. When we find these poor people," she pointed behind her and drew an imaginary line in the air along the row of stocked up people, "they can't take care anymore of themselves."
"But we are humanitarians and people are important." She took one step back closer to herself. If she would have wanted to, she could have jumped forward and bit this bitch in her Achilles' heel. But the guns all around her made her avoid acting on this impulse.
Bitchy McCrazy Pants stood beside her and for the first time could she really see the leader. She was of medium high, her hair slicked back in braids. Dirt and crust of god knows what seemed to find a permanent home on her face. In no way was this woman a beautiful girl, but her intense eyes were fascinating for her. If she would not be a bitch and trying to sell her as a slave, she might have hit up on that. But these were neither the circumstances nor the right time to entertain those feelings and thoughts. A black leather coat that reached to the floor accented this woman's power and eeriness.
"We save them, we feed them, we bring them back to life and for that, they owe us a debt. They can pay of this debt by bringing us supplies in exchange for their services. When you buy a person's service, you not only saved their life, but you make sure we can save more people from a horrible and gruesome death."
No one of the people standing at the wall seemed impressed or shocked by the news. It was their way of excusing this practice. Everyone knew the scam of it, but this idea was what kept the slave drivers alive. And it seemed, that this woman believed in it wholeheartedly. A shudder went through her body.
Bitchy Ass stepped aside and gave the buyers space to look at the goodies. Her gaze travelled up and down the row of people interested in buying slaves. Her face got stuck on this blonde haired, tall, and stone faced woman, who flanked the side of a man with a short Mohawk and a calculating look on his face.
The man seemed to be the leader of this little group, but his look would swivel to the blonde haired woman. On the other side of the man, stood an Asian looking guy, as tall as the blonde woman, having a hand on his hips. He seemed tense and scanned the room constantly.
A clap rang through the hall.
"Good. Now that you saw the people willing to work for you, let's start the action."
"Puck, I give you the honor of first buy. You were always an excellent customer."
Puck, the man with the Mohawk, dressed in loose dark green pants, black combat boots, a grey undershirt and a brown (seemingly self made) leatherjacket nodded and stepped forward, still flanked by the Asian man and the blonde woman with the striking eyes.
His eyes roamed over the row of prisoners.
"Who is it going to be?" Bitchy Pants stepped behind her, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and yanked her head back. Her neck exposed to Puck, she tried to keep in her struggling grunts.
"All of them."
She could hear the intake of breath behind her.
"But we ain't paying."
With that, his hands went quickly to his belt and drew a cocked clock. A shot fired through the air and she heard the dull sound of a body hitting the ground. She curled up on the floor and tried to get out of harm's way, as all hell broke loose.
Blonde and Asian girl imitated Puck and immediately started killing off the slavedrivers, while the other customers just stood shocked at the side of the wall.
"Listen up, bimbos," Puck's voice boomed over the corpses and the still shocked people.
"There ain't a trade going on. If I ever see one of ya at 'nother auction, I will personally cut off ya head." With this he lifted his clock. Awakening from their stupor, people started scrambling out the door, while she could hear gunshots go off in the distance.
"Show's over."
She felt gratitude, but also fear and anxiety curse through her body. Slumped over on the floor, she didn't notice how someone came closer to her cowering form until she felt hands untie the ropes. Weakly lifting her head, she saw the blonde woman with an emotionless face untying her.
"Your name?" first she thought the voice came from the blonde, but looking over she saw Puck hovering over them.
She opened her mouth to speak, but just a scratching sound came out. She cleared her throat and whispered hoarsely: "Santana."
Hello friends!
I know the prologue is extremely vague and that is on purpose. I will not tell you what is going on, but know it is a post-apocalypse type of story. Of course its Brittana, duh.
I will plan to update once a week. Have fun and enjoy!