Here we go at last!
Plot! Character! More than just a person sitting in a room alone! It took so long to get this out because I knew (in no small part because of the very little response) that no one was going to keep reading small chapters with little real action (which should not have come as a surprise).
Laura woke up the next day honestly uncertain of what to even attempt. Their was, quite simply, no obvious route to even work towards an escape.
The shackle most certainly was not coming off of her foot, she had tried that already. The concrete block was obviously not coming out of the ground. And hours of pained stabbing and scratching had proven well enough that the chain was not leaving the block.
That left confronting her kidnapper.
"But what could I even accomplish? Under the overwhelming chance they are a vampire, I could never even put up a fight. Not free, and sure as heck not shackled."
Laura knew she would need to come up with a daring new plan if she was going to get out of here alive. Every conventional method of escape had already been exhausted. The only options left were to either draw attention to attract help, or confront her kidnapper. Considering the completely isolated nature of her mountain prison, the former option sounded far more viable.
However, an almost insurmountable problem still faced her in the form of how to survive an encounter with her captor. For that, Laura turned her attention to the table she had largely ignored since arriving.
It was old, wooden, and almost pathetically rickety; just like everything else about the shed. The most rational explanation for her captor not removing it was to leave her computer on it. Maybe in case of rain (though it seemed doubtful it could survive anyway considering the ceiling might as well have been a net), or maybe just to give her a better angle for the camera. In either case she had made no use of the table, Laura was hardly motivated and it stood at the limit of her chain.
Now however, now it was very much an object of interest.
"If I could detach a leg then maybe… I could possibly craft a stake and embed it in the wall."
A stake alone would be useless in fighting a vampire. She was no Danny, nor did she have a mob backing her like Perry. Not to mention the whole 'shackled to the floor' thing. However, if she could take the vampire completely by surprise, then maybe she could do something at least.
Laura set to work on her plan.
She started by snapping a leg off from the table, choosing the back right do to it being the least visible from the door and allowing the table to remain supported against the wall. This proved extremely easy given the condition it was in. Next, she broke the table leg in two.
"Now for the hard apart."
The ramshackle nature of her prison that she had noticed earlier would finally play to her advantage. A portion of the walls were rusted sheets of aluminum siding, common to outdoor sheds, the rest were rotted squares of plywood—a few covered by tarps that she could glimpse through the sundry selection of rot holes. Laura scoured those aluminum sheets for sharp edges, one sturdy enough to hold.
"Score!"
She excitedly held the siding in place with one hand, and began to whittle away the broken wood into a stake with the other. The process was terribly slow, this was not a blade of any sort. The only saving grace being that natural wear tends to sharpen otherwise flat metal edges, as countless unfortunately souls in contact with heavily worn metal can testify.
Unfortunately, wear also comes with a price. Laura groaned as the metal snapped in her hand barely after starting. Still, she had anticipated this possible outcome. With a resigned sigh she began searching for the next edge capable of use as an improvised blade.
The process took hours; fortunately time was the only asset Laura had no shortage of. She worked tirelessly, scrapping wood until her blade broke, finding a new edge, and repeating. Her fingers bled, she pushed out of her mind the fear of what infections she might contract in this place. Time and time again the process repeated itself until finally, how much later she did not know, Laura held a solid, sharp stake in her hands.
"Finally! I'm making some progress."
The next stage of her plan was simpler, in hard labor at least. She worked to firmly embed her newly crafted stake in the wall at such a location as someone entering the building would be unlikely to see it for the door, but said individual could still be forced onto it. Thankfully, the easily shifted panels in the wall and readily available loose nails made the process more frustrating than difficult.
With that completed, Laura began the final stage of her plan:
Waiting.
Again.
Patiently, the tiny prisoner waited.
She knew that her captor would come back. If they delivered food once, they would do it again.
It was painful. It was exhausting. It was perseverance.
In time, the sound of the door being opened came. Laura had been careful to attune herself to the slightest sound from the outside. She knew there would be very little time to attract her captor's attention, and that she would need to make the most of it.
"Hey you! Couldn't handle having your mom killed? Or maybe you just got scared."
She knew it was a gamble to rely on it being Will, but she knew of no other choice. Just shouting random things would never attract her captor if they were this determined to avoid confronting her. She needed to somehow rile them up, goad them into making a move. Taking a gamble on being right seemed the best way.
"I always knew you were some kind of weirdo, playing the quiet, self-absorbed prick in the background all the time. Why don't you just do something right in your life and face me?!"
Laura knew she didn't have the sharpest tongue for mockery. Being the small town gay, with an overprotective slightly crazy dad to boot, put her on the receiving end of a fair amount of it, but she usually found more creative ways to get back on the rare occasion she felt the need to.
"Hopefully this will be enough to get his attention."
A moments silence passed. For the briefest time Laura thought they had gone away already, but then light footsteps could be heard entering the cabin. She scrambled to her feet in preparation.
No preparation, however, could steel her to what she saw.
"When did you figure it out?" A familiar husky voice penetrated the room.
"Carm?"
"Oh thank goodness Carm, you're here!"
The suddenly energized Laura flung herself onto the surprised vampire with wild abandon. In her exuberance at the sight of her vampire girlfriend crossing the threshold, Laura completely ignored the words that came out of her mouth.
"Some lunatic kidnapped me when we were trying to escape. I think it may be Will. I can't believe you're finally here." The words poured out in a constant stream.
Carmilla seemed taken aback by the energetic display of affection.
"It's alright now." She mumbled, slowly hugging the tiny girl back. She seemed hesitant and unsure how to react, which wasn't terribly surprising given the vampire's track record on emotions and comforting. "Just lie down, take a deep breathe, and calm for a little while."
She gently lowered both of them to the ground. Laura tried to wriggle loose.
"I don't think we should-"
But her protests died as she felt Carmilla's strong arms not loosen their grip. Despite the niggling worry in the back of her mind, she melted into her vampire girlfriend's arms and let herself relax a moment.
The sensation of lying down wrapped in the cold yet comforting body of her undead lover again at last was deeply soothing, and Laura let herself surrender to those feelings. To her surprise she felt Carm begin gently kissing the back of her neck.
"Ohh…" She softly moaned. "Really," She haltingly started. "Now's not the time. They could come back any moment. Could you break the shackle?" She gestured to her ankle.
"I-" Carmilla seemed hesitant, upset even. "I can't do that."
A brutal chill stabbed through Laura's form like an ice pick. She all too suddenly recalled the vampire's unusual words upon entering the shed.
Abruptly, she pulled herself away from the undead woman; almost as if she had been burned.
"What did you mean by 'figure it out'?" She demanded.
"Laura." The raven haired woman seemed deeply upset, almost on the verge of a breakdown. "Calm down please. You seemed to know-"
"No!" The tiny girl screamed with sudden venom. "No, no, no! I didn't know, but you thought I did. I'm not stupid Carm. I was just too shocked to think about it."
"Please Laura. Let me explain this." Carmilla pleaded.
"Fine! Explain this: Were you the one who kidnapped me?" Laura asked forcefully.
"The Dean isn't really dead." The undead woman blurted out as quickly as possible, to prevent Laura from interrupting. "And she completely controls the villages around the University. I know; I've tried to bring girls out this way before. If you went out, they would kill you. If you returned, she would kill you. This was the only way I could save you."
Laura looked positively furious.
"You don't get to 'save me'!" She screamed. "I make my own choices! You could have just told me what I was walking into. We could have talked about it. But no, just like last time you decided to 'save me from myself' the human pet doesn't get a say in it. No, the only people who get to make choices for me are apparently everyone else. I'm sick of it!"
After exhausting herself on her rant Laura settled into glaring at the older woman. Who, entirely unlike her normal outward demeanor, seemed honestly pained.
"If I had told you." She slowly began. "You would have either made some brave plan to plow on into the face of danger anyway, or worse you would have insisted on turning back to save everyone; and you would have died. I have regrets Laura." She laughed a cold, bitter laugh. "Hell, I already have more regrets than you ever will. One of them is that you will probably hate me."
She moved closer to the small girl. So uncomfortably close that what Laura might have once found comforting instead left her cringing away in fear as the vampire sensuously sniffed her from her shoulder to the top of her head.
"But in you I found a love—a meaning in life—that I hadn't felt since Ell. When I weighed those regrets, I realized that between seeing another one that I love murder, as much my fault as if I myself had killed them, or seeing them grow to hate me; I know that I couldn't keep my sanity through the grief of another loss. The choice was clear I'm afraid."
The small girl pushed her away roughly and turned her head in a vain attempt to hide the tears she was holding back.
"Get out! If you aren't going to release me just get out!"
The dark vampire slowly rose to her feet and moved towards the door.
"I'm sorry." She quietly mumbled. With a gentle nod of her head, she left.
Laura held strong for a few more moments to ensure the vampire was gone.
Then she wept.
At this point I need to make two things clear:
This is not just a random OOC story. This was inspired almost entirely by "alt-Carmilla". The extremely disturbed, immensely clingy Carm Laura found in the alternate timeline. Essentiall, this story just ponders what might have been if our beloved useless lesbian vampire manifested those traits a little earlier; at the mere thought of losing Laura rather than in response.
Secondly, no rape of any kind will be in this story. Not even a little. No effing way. The thought of Carmilla doing that to Laura is deeply disturbing.