Year/ position: 6th Year Hufflepuff
Category: Short Story
Prompt(s):
THC: [Word] Tattoo
From Rose: [Action] Force Feeding
Title: TAKEN
Wordcount: 1965
Beta(s): Aya, Sasha, Rose, Pix
A/N: Warnings: Gore, Kidnapping, Torture, Force Feeding, Muggle!AU, sleep deprivation, tattoos(idk, but like, I am being as careful as possible rn), College age Ginny and Luna, OOC behavior, Canon-Divergent, Non-Canon, VERY AU, pre-slash Ginny/Luna(idk), Violence, Dark Content, I think that's all for my warnings. I really enjoyed writing something not in my comfort zone and I hope it turns out well.
I shiver as I step into the cold of the winter night, away from the warmth of the Hogsmeade Café on Twenty-Fourth Street. My brain is still somewhat discombobulated. I'd bought a tea and a piece of apple pie. Both were delicious, and I could've sworn I hadn't paid. But the barista at the counter said that I already had.
She was gorgeous and I couldn't argue with her, though it'd give me more time to talk with her, and maybe some of that beauty would've rubbed off on me. She had beautiful brown eyes, such a warm eye color, much more warm than my cold silver eyes, which puts people off when they speak to me. I guess it helps them not stare at other places instead.
She had reddish orange hair that she'd tied up in a messy bun. She had some freckles scattered around her face and on her shoulders, at least what I could see of them. She wore a gray sweater that hung off of her shoulders, and black straps peeked out of it, revealing a black rose tattoo. It is beautiful, yet scary, and it draws me in.
I'd taken her word and left the café anyway, feeling her gaze on me till I was out of sight. I breathe in the cold air, and as I exhale my breath is visible. That's one thing I love about the winter, you can see your breath, and it's quite fascinating. I head down the familiar road back to my college dorm that I share with four other students.
A street lamp goes out beside me and I jump. That's not supposed to happen, these are new streetlights. The path in front of me seems darker and drearier than it was a minute ago. I hear a soft chuckle behind me and jump as I turn around. I see the barista, and she smiles at me, still laughing softly. I breathe a slight sigh of relief, but keep my guard up.
"You okay there, Luna?" she asks, smiling. My breathing increases slightly at the mention of my name. I don't think we exchanged names when we spoke over the counter.
"H-how do you know my name?" I ask, weary of the fact that she couldn't know who I am.
"You gave it to me as the name to place your order under," she answers me, almost too quickly.
"My name's Ginny. So now we're even, if that helps anything. I walk home this way to my college dorms as well. I'm a cooking and psychology major. Before you ask, I couldn't pick one so I chose both."
She smiled while telling me about herself, and I still felt a bit wary, but I motion for her to walk beside me, tugging my sweater closer around me for a better sense of protection as I walk.
Looking to my left I see that Ginny didn't pull her sweater up. Well, she did somewhat, but it ends up falling down her shoulders every time, so she's stopped trying.
"May I ask how you got your tattoo?" I ask, breaking the awkward silence that surrounded us. She rubs it, seemingly out of either force of habit or from the cold.
"Uhm….well. I got it on a dare, stupid as it may seem. But I love it anyway," she says, a fond smile on her face. I can only imagine it hurt like hell.
As I smile, a van drives by and I feel a sharp sting in my arm. I look down, suddenly sleepy, and find what looks like a tranquilizer dart stuck in my arm. I look up to see Ginny's panicked face and hear footsteps behind me. I turn, slightly lazily, as my arms and legs seem to stop moving when I don't concentrate on them. I look to see figures dressed in all black come up behind Ginny, and I see her go limp and fall to the ground. Before I can even attempt to yell for help, a cloth covers my mouth and everything fades into darkness.
It's dark, and cold, and everything hurt. No light could be seen, and everything aches too much to even try to look. What...happened?
I try to think but I'm greeted with a splitting headache. I attempt to look around, or at least feel around, and find my hand hitting something hard. It feels like stone. A wall, maybe? I couldn't be too sure. If my eyes were more adjusted I'd be able to see.
I try to look around more, faint shapes suddenly appearing. What looks like a body in the corner, lying lifeless, is the first thing I see. I cover my mouth with a hand to suppress screaming, and slide back until I hit some sort of corner. My breathing is heavy, and I feel tears begin to well up in my eyes. I look back to the lump that I presumed was a body, and see it begin to move, I make myself as still and lifeless as I possibly can and scout my surroundings instead. I see what looks like a bed. A tiny window with bars where dull, silver moonlight peeks in. I saw more walls all around me, and a door, the handle glinting a few times but then disappeared. This gives me some hope, there is still a way to escape.
"Hello?" comes a noise from the side of the room, the voice is female, and slightly hoarse.
"Hi," I respond, my voice sounding odd to me. And then I see a glowing outline of a rose. It is the rose tattoo like the one that I'd seen on Ginny.
"Ginny, is that you?" I ask, my voice slightly more accustomed to talking, but still hoarse.
"How could you tell?" comes a slightly sarcastic reply from the other side of the room.
"Your glowing tattoo, you never told me it could, well... glow," I say, breathless. How had I not noticed it before? Maybe she'd been laying on her arm. She sighs, and I see her, well, her outline and the glowing tattoo, walk close to me, and hear her slide down the wall.
"I'm scared," I say, not bothering to wait to state how I felt, that's what happens in every horror movie, and they end up dead.
Great, now I'm relating my life to a horror movie.
I feel a soft hand reach down to grab mine. I let it happen, and squeeze Ginny's hand, she squeezes back. I hear the sound of keys in the door, then three clicks. One was slightly low pitched, the second a higher pitch, and the third another low-pitched click, some kind of sequence that could be important. The room is flooded with light as the door opens. Three men enter the room and grab me, leading me out into what looked like a hallway. I struggle the best I can, but nothing seems to be enough. They sit me down in a chair where three more men enter the room with white lab coats, holding odd machines. I realize now what is going to happen. If I am going to be held against my will, I won't go down without a fight.
I kick and clench my jaw as hard as I can, pursing my lips so they can't get in my mouth. Then I feel the pain. Some sort of metal cuts my lip clean through and I feel the blood trickle down my chin.
I can't scream, even though I want to. If I do, they win. They can't get past my teeth, and begin to try and pry my jaw open. The metal begins to scrape at my gums, trying to get me to open my mouth in any way possible. Soon enough, too soon, my jaws give out and a rubber tube is jammed down my throat.
I gag. I notice that there are are some bags beside me. They hold liquid diet, a combination of the nutrients the human body needs to survive, but only just enough, not too much.
I remember these bags from my Criminal Psyc classes. As they take the tube out I nearly vomit. I am too tired from my previous struggles to fight much as they take me back to my prison, but I still attempt it in vain. As I'm thrown into the cell they grab Ginny, I want to yell out to warn her. But I can't, I can only lay down and cry.
After what seems like ages they bring her back to me. She crawls over and cries, and that's how it goes on. Day after day the same thing happens, until it hit me. We keep undergoing the same routine over and over, morning and night we'll be taken, tortured, and then brought back to our cells with much struggling on our parts.
These terrible people are used to this routine. They are so used to it that they go about it almost mindlessly. We are allowed some time in the outside world, that is our only luxury, to spend time in the small garden, no supervision. I begin to steal bits of metal and things to create seemingly life-like bodies. I also make a replica key. I am going to break us out of this hell-hole, at the least get to the phone I'd seen.
So, on some day, it'd been almost three months by now, according to the markings on our cell walls, I set my plan into motion. The guards come, and Ginny and I hide. We let them take the replicas, proving how mindless they truly are, and then they leave. I set to picking the lock with my replica of a key. The first click, lower, the second, lighter, and the final is lower, having remembered the sequence from when our captors open our cells.
Ginny turns the knob and we run towards where I'd seen the phone and I dial nine-nine-nine as fast as I can. I quickly explain our situation to the police, hoping that they'll come quickly. Sure enough I hear shouting, our captors have caught onto us, I grabbed Ginny's arm and try to run, but I'm too weak to run again and my head was spinning, due to the extensive malnutrition we've endured. I hear a loud siren and voices before everything goes black.
When I wake up all I see is white light and tubes. The sound of machines beeping reach my ears as they try to keep me alive. I attempt to turn my body to the left, but that hurts tremendously. So I settle for the less harmful option of turning my head. I see Ginny, so thin and pale, lying on a bed similar to mine.
Are we in the hospital? I see her glowing tattoo, and I try to get up but immediately fall back down. A person in a white lab coat enters the room, and I prepare to fight. More follow with blue masks on. One puts their hand on my arm and I struggle with all of my might to shake them away.
"Hey, calm down, you're okay," comes a muffled female voice from beside me. I try to speak but all that comes is a raspy breathing as I fail at forming words, my voice too weak for it.
"You've been through so much, just gotta wait a little longer, you're safe now. Now sleep." I'd been through so much, she doesn't even know the half of it, but I do need to sleep. I look over at Ginny one more time, I see that she is breathing evenly, and focus on her rose tattoo as I drift off to sleep.