The thing lurches to the side, dragging the girl along its destructive course to nowhere.
She tries to cry out, but her voice is caught in her throat. Her head slams against the cold metal grating, and she can barely utter a sound.
It's terrifying.
Her mind is blank. A complete slate. There's nothing there. There should be something there! Why can't she focus on anything? She can only feel the cruel metal grates beneath her, pulling, pulling, pulling her away. Away from what? She doesn't know. She doesn't know! Why isn't anyone there? Why is she alone? Was she always alone? Was there ever anyone else? All she can feel is a void, a dull blank hole inside of her where something used to be.
She begins to shake, her body trembling in time with the thing as it turns sharply, throwing her against the walls like a ragdoll, pathetic and limp. She is completely helpless; why can't she move? Why? She needs to scream; she needs to speak; she needs to get out. Get out!
Her head hurts, it hurts so bad. It pounds and ravages in a desperate search for something that isn't there. What isn't there? What is it? She doesn't know anything - she is hopeless. She can't even move.
She begins to claw at her face, her eyes, her hair; Anything to make it stop. It won't stop. It won't stop! It continues its journey, guttural creaks resounding within her in a frenzied chorus, unending. The sounds, the loud bolts, intruding her mind, forcing their way through her ears. She clamps her hands over her ears, squeezing. She needs to block it out. It's still there. Why won't it go away? She can still hear the terrible buzzing, the organized chaos. It's horrible, slithering into her body, targeting all her most sensitive parts. Everything hurts; her hands feel numb and rough and sting painfully. They lie limply at her sides. It's useless. It won't work.
She has to lie still, pretend the nothing is not there. If she stays still, it will go away. If she doesn't move, it will go away. It was never there in the first place. She's alone. Completely alone. It's just her, nothing else. The thing is not there, constantly moving and pushing her into nowhere. She's not drowning in nothing, the rancid air pressing down on her, the walls enveloping her like water, blanketing her like compressed air.
Then there's something. In her despair, the girl glimpses it. A flash. A shard of broken glass, shattered from her memories. As soon as she sees it, she wishes she hadn't. A face. An inhuman face. A disgusting face. It is brutally distorted; green pus pulsating in gloops from a gaping red wound, pouring out in bursts of froth. One of the eyes is gone, and in its place a thick red mess of blood, all tangled up with strings of muscle hanging from the empty socket. The mouth split into a crazed grin, showing no teeth but layers and layers of torn up flesh, peeling from the stretched hole that served as a mouth. The girl knew the face. It was someone she knew!
The girl channels her strength to bang her fists against the cold metal grate, scrunching her face up in her effort to remember. She lets out a guttural howl, forcing her mind to work. It needs to work, she needs to remember! She screams at herself, unaware she is screaming out loud as well.
"Work! Work! Please! Oh please! I just- I just! Please! Work! Oh please! Pl-please."
At this point, she realises she is crying. Sobbing her heart out, all the pain mounting until it breaks. All of her frustration - she needed them to hear her. Them, the awful, awful monsters who put her in the thing. The people who left her with nothing. Who would do this to her? What had she done wrong? She was sorry. She was sorry! Please, if they could just let her know what she'd done! No-one deserved this, the torture of the thing. The isolation, the confusion, the nothing.
"I hate you!" She shrieks feverishly, her voice breaking with emotion. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
The girl repeated this over and over again in her head, as if she did it enough times they would surely hear her. They had to.
But there was no use. She curled up into a foetal position, recoiling into herself as if she could shield her heart from the pain of nothing.
She didn't know how long she'd been in the thing for. She'd tried counting and had reached a thousand before the thing suddenly stopped shaking. The girl also stopped her internal chanting, caught off guard by the complete silence. All she could hear was her own uneven and laboured breaths, and the fast, irregular pounding of her heart in her throat.
The thing opened from above, and the girl was blinded by a bright light seeping into her. She closed her eyes tightly, suddenly desperate for the familiar darkness of the thing once more. It was too bright. It was too bright!
"Oi, Harriet? I guess we really are getting people from the Box thing."
The girl gingerly opened her eyes, saw the silhouette, and fainted.
A.N: So I'm new at this, and I hope you like the prologue/first chapter! There's much more to come so stay tuned! Feedback is definitely welcome, and so is constructive criticism. This is my first fanfic on here so cut me some slack for mistakes, yeah?
Good that!
- Azume
xoxo