Chapter 35
The chains ground together, tugging at the raw skin of my wrists until I stopped moving altogether, staring down at the dribble of blood starting to form along the rusty iron. I had always heard about cuffs rubbing someone's skin raw but never been able to fully understand why. Police checked that there was a finger's width between skin… I guessed the key was to eliminate any space. It was pretty impressive that only a few short hours had made the skin around the cuffs all but disintegrate, allowing the cuffs even more space to cut into my raw flesh.
I blinked, a dull headache starting to beat at the back of my eyes as they tried to focus on… anything. Another great tactic to make someone lose their mind - pitching them into total darkness. It wasn't until all you had to look at was nothingness that your body started to doubt itself, the mind narrowing and expanding as if it were a limb trying desperately to find something solid to ground itself. I shut them tight, the headache pounding and pounding becoming louder and louder until the white noise of my lunges expanding and compressing, my blood pushing through narrowed veins, my heart thumping and thumping -
Snap! My head jerked to the side, cheek rubbing against gravel and dirt until my neck strained with the movement. My fingers spasmed, the cuffs rubbing delicately against the raw skin even as I tried to still my body. Someone was outside the little cell that harpy had brought us to. I could sense it. It had to be. Someone needed to be -
Minutes became another hour and then more time and more and more and more - Or was it less?
I didn't want to call out. I could just… Saliva slithered down my throat as I gulped, my tongue already crusty from too many hours without water or food. I could just… go to sleep. I shut my eyes again. It's odd how in a world of light, darkness is the thing that lulls us to sleep at night. Close your eyes and you can drift off somewhere else. But here, when the dark is already there crouching over you, there wasn't any escape. It became crushing. It made it hard to breathe.
How long had they kept me down here? Was I even down? Maybe I was up. Maybe they were keeping me in a tower. It had to be days now. The foul stench of my own waste and vomit was starting to get suffocating. Not that the air hadn't already been hard to come by. Breath, I had to remind myself. Take another breath. Breath, dammit. And then the air was coming too quick and I was seeing too many colors popping up in the darkness, lighting the cell-like little fireflies, and then -
Out, again.
I'd never passed out in my entire life but already I'd done it twice, panicking in the darkness and silence until I scrambled to my knees and threw up dinner and then water and then nothing but air, hacking, gasping air as my body cried out for me to stop because it couldn't give anything else.
The first time water came raining down from the metal slats above me, I cowered away from it, afraid that they were trying to dump acid on me or some other noxious liquid that would burn off my skin. It wasn't until later when my body told me that that had been a mistake. Now I had to crawl over to the puddle of water just in the corner and gulp down the muddy swill that was left. I couldn't entirely say that it wasn't deserved though.
The next time, I stayed where I was, opening my mouth in a feeble attempt to get whatever clean water they gave me and then gagging as I tried to keep it all down.
They knew what they were doing. They had to know that I was losing my mind. And so fast. Wow, if that wasn't an ego boost, I didn't know what was. The poor truth was that if you give a human nothing but air and silence and the whispering dark to survive on, they drive themselves mad.
Quickly.
Unforgivingly.
I wanted Eric, I blinked back to the burning in my eyes, wanting desperately to cry but knowing that my body couldn't even afford to give me that little bit of comfort. I wanted his skin beneath my nose and his hair beneath my fingers. I missed him. I missed the feel of the bond of his blood running through me, his mind tapping at mine like a distant beacon always telling me that home was close by.
I had made a mistake. Now that I had spent days torturing myself with the images of those people. The image of that final mare - My stomach soured, the darkness suddenly swinging me around and whispering to me once more.
Do you really think that this is a mistake? It seethed back at me and not for the first time I thought I saw a shadow - a shadow within the shadow, a void within static. Being tied up in the dark is nothing compared to what you did to those poor humans. You knew they were under her influence and you still had the gall to rationalize it as a mercy. What a monster. How would your gran look at you?
An image so vivid of my grandmother's lined face, her lips pulled open in obvious horror, her eyes crinkled in disgust and shame flashed across my mind with such vengeance that I let out a small wail. I shut my eyes and it only made it worse, the image hammering into me with the strength of a hammer driving into a nail over and over again until I could barely draw in a solid breath-
"Oh, I love it when we get to use the mini-dungeon." My head snapped up so quickly that the bones in my neck cracked. Something a bit above me creaked and groaned, metal grinding against metal. I heard footsteps, twigs crunching and cracking. Or I was going mad. Maybe I was imagining the sliver of light that became brighter and brighter until I flinched away, squinting up at the night sky with its too-bright stars. Two faces peered down at me, angular, the moonlight creating shiny patches like cleaned glass against their otherwise dark complexions. White, sharp teeth flashed down at me. "Smells like death."
"She's been down there for three days already," the other mare murmured, taking in my pitiful form impassively. "Looks a bit worse for wear doesn't she?"
"Hard to believe that this is the one that's been causing the Elders that much trouble."
"Vampire-fucker," the other one whispered venomously and something wet and warm and thick rained down on my face. Had she - had she just spit on me?
A low tsking bit through the air as I reeled, the rough ground beneath me almost unbearable as I moved a bit. "Don't be disgusting, Empress. Her life is already going to be hard enough when we get her up."
Light bit at my vision, making me blin away uncomfortable tears. The chains attached to my neck and wrists yanked at my vulnerable skin, making already open flesh gape a bit wider. The two mares dragged me up from whatever pit they had had me in like a hog being hoisted from the feeding trough. It was near dusk, barely a sliver of sunlight dampening the surrounding trees as they hauled me forward, my legs so unused to the weight of my body faltering.
I swallowed against the overwhelming urge to throw up - the churning of my empty stomach feel like the grinding of gears. I was surprised I was walking. Surprised that my body still had enough strength to carry me.
"Kneel." The one who had been called Empress, gestured down to the dirt, her eyes uninterested. I glanced around the empty clearing once more. Where was I? Trees as far as the eye could see surrounded us, creating an odd sort of isolation. Where the hell were we?
Something hit the back of my knees and I went down with a grunt, the dirt and grass digging into my face as my whole body gave out. Breath puffed gravel into my lunges, making me grit down a cough. Weak. I had become so weak.
Soft sounds like material rustling and footsteps reached my ear before two pairs of bare, clean feet took up my vision. A long flowing white gown that looked light and too clean for the woods, curved lovingly around the curvy figure of a woman. My eyes slid up and up some more, the feeling dizzying. Milky white eyes curved nearly closed in a smile stared down at me.
"You." The words felt like sandpaper rubbing along my tonsils, the energy that it took to say them almost astounding. Her eyes crinkled, even more, the sharp edges of her teeth becoming more and more apparent.
"My dear, sweet Runa," she purred and her voice sounded just as whimsical here, in the real world as it did in my dreams. If it was possible for my stomach to sour any further… "Have you had fun?"
I stared up at her. Answering would be a waste of my energy.
Something sharp jabbed into my ribs, making me hiss out a breath. "The Elder asked you a question."
Elder? My eyes sprang back to the curvy woman, taking in the stillness of her features. She - she didn't feel like an Elder. My eyes narrowed. She felt like an equal.
"It's quite alright, Helena," she purred, flicking a hand at the silver-haired woman. "Runa here has had a hard couple of days. I'm sure the lack of food is really wearing on her nerves."
Bitch.
I gritted out a breath through clenched teeth. No use in playing games. Not when I was starting to see black splotches in the corners of my visions, dancing in the trees.
"What do you want with me?" I breathed out and watched as light twinkled in the Elder's eyes.
"Oh nothing much really," she mused, crouching down in front of me. A delicate finger reached out, toying with the matted mess of my hair. Those strange eyes cut to me. "You really won't have to do anything."
"Cut the crap," I hissed, unable to put any real sort of emotion behind the words. Another jab to the ribs and I grunted.
"No fun," she sighed, dropping the putrid knots of my hair. She got up, rubbing her fingers together, her eyes staring at the brown muck on her skin with vague interest. "We're going to sell you, Runa." Breath wheezed out of me, all of my senses narrowing down to her in that second. Sell? My mind spun dizzily. Sell me? Her lips peeled back in a wretched smile. "After we take away all your powers. A human life really is the best path for a girl like you anyway."
It's been a really dark couple of days. I honestly didn't even want to post this or write at all but a Ukrainian influencer asked that we continue to post our content as usual so... I guess that's what I'm trying to do now.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people in Ukraine. I'm sorry I can't do more.
