AN: So I'm changing the rating to M, for reasons I'm sure will be made obvious
Trigger Warning: Needles, violence (torture), Drugs and alcohol mentions
Disclaimer: Don't own one piece.
CJ felt her mind slip from a drugged haze into semi-consciousness, the grogginess from what ever drug that had filled her system remained but was beginning to dissipate. The thick cotton like fog that enveloped her mind was not enough to block out the cold dread that was beginning to build in her belly. Something was wrong but she couldn't quite acknowledge what was setting of all of her alarms.
Her senses seemed to awaken one at a time, adding some extra information about her surroundings gradually. She had opened her eyes when she first woke but couldn't make sense of any of the images that were being broadcast directly to her mind. She saw herself lying on a large slab. She had no clothes on, her palms were facing towards her, but the image began to spin before she could make sense of the obvious hallucination above her. An out of body experience was one thing but she was sure she could feel her limbs, even if she couldn't quite control them properly yet.
Her surroundings smelt like damp wood with just a hint of copper. Finally some information that she could understand, though she wasn't entirely sure if she was smelling the copper or tasting it, the two senses were quite closely linked and in her drugged state she could easily confuse the two. Did I get trashed last night? CJ asked herself. She didn't feel like she had a hangover but maybe she was still drunk. Though she didn't recall any drinking and in her past experience she had never been so drunk she couldn't remember drinking, and she had quite a bit of experience.
She was ripped from her quiet questioning by the sudden spike of pain she felt. She gasped. It was every where. She felt like she'd been beaten half to death, then had her back dragged through a pit filled with glass. The pain in her back quickly over took all the other aches and she tried to roll off of the tender area, but her arms and legs were pinned in place by thick metal bands. What? She thought to herself, her eyes snapping open once more. The spinning had stopped, though the image above her wasn't entirely stationary.
She could indeed see herself, trying to wriggle out of the bands that seemed to have been molded to her arms and legs. She stopped struggling when she realised she was making no progress what so ever. The remnants of whatever drug had been coursing through her system seemed to have been completely over ridden by the sudden spike of adrenaline, though her memories were still just out of her reach.
CJ took note of her nakedness and shuddered, she felt vulnerable enough as it was being pinned to some kind of slab, the only thing that covered her besides the metal bands on her arms and legs was an odd collar around her throat. A thick chain ran from the left side of her neck across the metal table she was on and down to a metal hoop on the floor.
Her body was covered in bruises, each studied injury jarring her memory, but the only image she could muster was that of a man with ice cold eyes and a voice that didn't belong to him. "Tell me everything." Was all the voice ever said. CJ curled her fingers over and shuddered. All of her fingernails had been removed, leaving only scabbed fingertips. Torture? But why? Something was ghosting around the edges of her consciousness, but CJ couldn't quite reach out and grab the knowledge she knew was there.
The next wound CJ took note of was the the purplish scar that was located between her right hip bone and her navel. It was a fairly simple brand and one that was familiar enough to unlock the memories that she couldn't quite recall. The perfect circle was the size of her palm with the three triangles at the top of the circle pointing up towards her rib cage, the fourth triangle pointed down towards her leg. She had been marked by the hoof of the soaring dragon.
Her mind swirled with the sudden influx of information. She had been pulled into the One Piece universe, she wasn't sure exactly how long she had been there, but it had to have been months at the very least. She was the property of a World Nobel who wanted to use her for information. She had been tortured. She was probably about to be tortured.
CJ rolled her head to the side, trying to take in more of the room. She could feel the dread in her stomach increase. She needed to stop speculating, if she could just figure out what she needed to prepare herself for she could stop letting her imagination run wild. The room she was in was unfamiliar, though she knew it was a part of the ship she had been imprisoned on since she had been picked up from Loguetown a few days after her arrival.
The walls were made of plain wood, and the room seemed completely unfurnished, other than the metal table she was bound too. There were however some brownish stains on the wooden floor, which suggested the room was not completely unused. The room she was usually taken to was almost identical to this one, except there was, what CJ assumed to be, a one-way mirror in one of the walls, a small table with a Den Den Mushi on it and she was usually bound to a chair instead of table. The change in location didn't make sense and there was no Den Den Mushi to be seen so there was no way for him to question her.
CJ whipped her head around when she heard the creaking of a door being opened. The plain wooden door was swung wide and the man she had heard others call Komodo strolled in, pushing a large trolley in front of him. Komodo was a quite large, with muscles that bulged through the thin fabric of his shirt and a height that easily towered above six foot he cut an imposing figure. But CJ new better than to think that this man was her main problem. In one of their earlier sessions CJ had managed to wiggle free of her cuffs, at the cost of two dislocated thumbs, and though he had incapacitated her within a minute she had managed to tear his shirt in the struggle, just enough to let the brand of slavery to peak out from the blue shirt.
All the same CJ could no longer bring herself to feel sorry for him. At first she could only see the emptiness in the man, something she had very easily linked to years of being treated like dirt. She knew very well that psychological warfare was capable of changing a person and knew that what she saw in him was a potential future for herself. But after a while she began to note something that would ignite in his eyes when he heard her cry out in pain. It didn't take her long to determine what the emotion that flashed momentarily in his eyes was, in fact, joy. And CJ felt any sort of pity she held for the man slip away.
"You're awake." He said once he reached her side, parking the metal trolley beside her head.
CJ was shocked for a moment, this was the first time she had heard him speak. She tried to look at what the trolley contained but the surface was too high for her to see anything so she looked up at the mirrored ceiling. The trolley held an array of medical equipment, all neatly organised. Scalpels, needles, scissors, a pair of what looked like bolt cutters and many other items she couldn't name.
Panic filled her and she began to struggle once more. It was all to reminiscent of a recurring nightmare she had been having lately and if that nightmare were to become a reality she doubted she would survive. Perhaps she would live through the ordeal but she herself would change into someone else entirely. She had already felt parts of herself slip away, any naivety she had left for example. She tried to push herself upwards, willing to tear flesh and break bones to escape the metal bands, but she couldn't get enough force into her movements.
Komodo stared at her writhing body and opened one of the drawers in the trolley. He pulled a metal vial and read the label carefully before picking up a needle with his other hand and poked the point of it through the top of the metal vial. The syringe filled with a green liquid and Komodo discarded the now empty vial before rubbing the crook of CJ's elbow gently with his index finger. Finding the vein he quickly injected her with the liquid.
CJ swore the syringe had been filled with some kind of acid. Her veins had begun burning the instant he had begun pushing the plunger. CJ clenched her jaw to prevent any sounds of pain leaving her lips. No need to give the man any joy out of the experience if she could help it. She could feel fire rushing up her arm and across her chest. The pain reached her pounding heart and the fire spread in every conceivable direction. The sensation stretched across the entirety of her body, blocking out the rest of her pains until suddenly it stopped burning.
She could still feel the pain in the rest of her body, the wounds on her back, which she now realised was from the lashing she had received a few days ago, were as painful, if not more painful, than they were when she had first felt them. She tried to take up her previous struggle again, but found that she couldn't move. She couldn't even move her gaze from where it had rested on the mirror above her. CJ willed her body to move, even just a twitch of a muscle would be enough to give her some hope. But all that she could see moving Komodo and a very faint rise and fall in her chest that indicated that she was still breathing.
In a way CJ felt more terrified than she had at any time since her incarceration. Being unable to protect herself from Komodo was not a new experience, in fact the very rarely could do more than struggle against her bindings, but being unable to even struggle was something else all together. She felt completely helpless for the first time in her entire life. CJ was proud, she knew that was one of her largest faults, but she couldn't help herself. Often times she had earned herself extra punishments through smart arse comments, comments that were completely unnecessary, but she clung to the only form of defense she could use. Now she might as well be a corpse.
Komodo pulled a pair of latex gloves from a compartment of the trolley. The snap the material made against his skin started CJ's forehead to prickle with sweat, despite the chill she felt. He selected a scalpel from the trolley and placed a hand gently on her bare flesh, pulling the skin of her stomach taught. He rested the scalpel lightly on the skin between his index finger and his thumb then pressed the blade down, biting into the bruised skin and running it smoothly up to her sternum. Blood began seeping through from the incision and Komodo began to take some of his other equipment from his trolley to stop the wound from bleeding too much.
CJ barely felt the pain. The scalpel was sharp and the skin had been severed quickly, but the cold prickling sensation of wrongness was already getting to her. CJ had a high tolerance of pain, but seeing what was being done to her was another matter. That and knowing what was going to happen next. She tried to stop herself from focusing on the image above her but she honestly couldn't readjust her focus.
The bleeding had been stopped fairly easily and Komodo continued on, making two incisions that ran from her sternum, over her collar bone and stopped just before the tops of her shoulders. CJ felt revulsion as she watched her flesh being parted each time. She watched in trepidation as Komodo finished stopping the third incision from bleeding and picked up the scalpel again. He grasped the edge of her flesh with his free hand and CJ felt a spike of pain. The pain she felt from his touch was completely demolished by the agony she felt as he began to pull the edge of her skin back. CJ would have screamed had her voice box been in her control, but she was not even allowed that minuscule amount of release from the pain. She felt the inside of her throat start prickling when she heard the slurping sound of wet swimming material being pulled from flesh being emitted from her own body. But the rush of vomit never came.
It was all too much for her and finally CJ's mind gave her some respite. Her last thought before slipping into unconsciousness was to pray to whatever deity there may be to let her die.
CJ jerked awake. She was curled onto her side, one hand forcing her pillow into her mouth to muffle her screams, the other gripping the handle of her large knife. She felt the tremors beginning to slow and pushed herself upright. Her cheeks were still damp from the tears that had been shed while she relived her worst memory. She forced her fingers to release the knife, leaving it lying on the mattress for the moment. Her fingers were stiff, clearly they hadn't altered their grip on the handle of her knife since she had passed out the night before.
After realising that she must have dreamed hearing the rumor of Zoro's capture and confused it for a conversation she had actually had, something that happened far to often to her, she had determined that her only option was to hang around for the three weeks it would take Luffy to arrive. It hadn't taken her long to find a cheap Inn and though usually it would be out of the question for her to spend so much money on her sleeping arrangements she had decided to pinch some money from the ship she had sailed over on. It was only fair since she had to deal with the assholes that sailed it.
CJ's scars were aching and she clutched at the scarred portion of her sternum. Being so tired from her lack of sleep CJ had returned to her room the moment she had found some tranquilizer's and after taking twice as many pills as the chemist had instructed and pulling her knife from her bag she had flopped onto the bed and passed out very quickly. As per usual her dreams before the memory had been choppy and unrealistic but the average tranquilizer's could never quite stop that horrendous memory from resurfacing.
She rolled off of the bed and began to rummage through her bag, the cream she was searching for was fairly close to the top of the messy bag so it didn't take her long to find it. She sat back on her heels, placing the container next to her bag, before pulling off her singlet and wiggling out of her sports bra. The tight fabric had left an angry red mark around her rib cage and CJ made a mental note to stop falling asleep fully clothed.
The moment the cold cream touched her scars the pain began to fade away. She wasn't sure why the cream was so effective, but for now it didn't really matter. Perhaps Chopper would know what it was about the special mix of plants that CJ had developed that stopped the ache she felt, or perhaps it was all psychosomatic. Whatever, it doesn't matter. CJ thought to herself, she had more important things to worry about, like her mandatory morning coffee.
AN: So I was planning to complete the romance dawn arc this chapter but... that did not happen. I want to keep these chapters between 2'000 to 3'000 words and the flash back was a lot longer than I intended. I will definitely finish the arc off in the next chapter though. Even if I have to post a slightly longer chapter.
So I was discussing ratings with some friends and family aaaaaand I discovered that my ability to properly rate something is nonexistant to say the least. Honestly I can't really tell so I'm deferring to the advice I have been giving and upping the rating to M.
Next time: CJ finally meets Luffy and Zoro and the adventure really begins.