The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three

by Mike Marlinski

Chapter Twelve

  Simone awoke on the floor of Severov’s interrogation room, covered in a clear slimy discharge. It was all that remained of her squid-like attackers from the night before, and the smell of the unsettling substance reminded her of a poorly kept public bathroom.

  Once she was able to focus, she realized that both the chair and rope were gone, and that her clothes had been shredded. Her shirt was ripped at the neck and hung loosely off of her body, revealing her right breast. Her jeans had small tears in them, going up and down her legs, but were still tightly fit around her waist. In a panic, she thrashed around and stared up at the dark ceiling, awaiting another assault from the horrid creatures above. She listened for the awful slurping sound that they made, while staring intently into the shadows. From what she gathered, the creatures were gone; or so she hoped.

  After her abrupt panic attack, she found herself barely able to move. She was still very weak from the night before. She could also tell that she had been drugged with something. It felt as though she had been given a heavy sedative. She had no way of knowing if Severov had drugged her, or if the creatures had forced some kind of venom into her bloodstream. Either way, she was almost completely paralyzed from the neck down, and knew she needed to avoid exerting herself, in order to regain her strength. She had then just begun to ponder possible means of escape, when Severov reentered the room.

  Severov was wearing a thick black Ushanka and his familiar black trench coat. He quickly handed them both to the guard standing outside the door, revealing a gray, Russian military uniform. The guard then handed him a wooden folding chair, and locked the door. Severov opened the chair and calmly set it down next to Simone. He then reached down, placed one hand on her right shoulder and one hand under her legs, then lifted her onto the chair. Simone whimpered, as she felt herself beginning to lose consciousness again.

  “We can’t have you doing that; now, can we?” Severov whispered, as he pulled a syringe from his pocket. “You’ll have to excuse the uncomfortable concrete floor. My slimy friends made quite a mess of your restraints from last night. They also have a tendency to show gratitude to their party hosts, by filling them with a toxin that weakens the muscles. You’re not paralyzed, as I’m sure you could tell. You’re just not in any condition to run off on me.”

  Severov then smiled and injected a clear chemical from his syringe, into Simone’s neck. She yelped in pain, as her eyes widened. She then found that she was able to think and speak clearly again.

  “Mother fucker!” she yelled.

  Severov laughed and said, “That’s just a little something to keep you awake. You still won’t be able to run away and cancel our luncheon, but you will at least be able to answer my questions. Speaking of lunch, did you want something to eat?”

  Simone just stared at him coldly and replied with a simple, “Fuck you.” Winston then pulled a second syringe from his pocket and said, “Mrs. Hammond…considering you’ve just recently become a widow, I can understand your frustration. I once had a wife. We had an amazing life together. It was truly magical, I assure you. But when Drellic came and opened my eyes to what the world could be, my wife decided that he was a monster and joined a resistance group, who tried to have him killed. Long story short, it didn’t take long before I knew what had to be done. I was lost and devastated. But when Drellic told me about how he executed his own wife, for the greater good of his people, well…What can I say? It was a revelation!”

  Simone became disheartened. Her eyes filled with sadness and in an emotionless tone asked, “You murdered your own wife, because Drellic told you to?”

  Severov just smiled, gave her a quick wink and replied, “When you want something badly enough, there’s nothing you won’t do to get it. Right?”

  “You’re right,” Simone answered, without hesitation. “There’s nothing I won’t do, to see you suffer and die for the things you’ve done.”

  “I know that,” Severov answered, with his familiar sadistic grin. “That’s why your journey ends here,” he continued, as he pressed the second syringe against Simone’s neck, in the exact same spot he had given her the first injection. “It’s Sodium Pentothal, dear,” Severov whispered. “It’s not typically my style to implement James Bond movie tactics, but you’ve left me no choice. You knew Drellic better than anyone in his final days. He told me that I was well on my way to becoming his second in command, but never once opened himself to me.”

  “You sound like you were in love with him,” Simone scoffed, as she was becoming disoriented again.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Winston replied. “After all, how could one not love the greatest gift ever given to mankind?”

  Simone’s disgusted expression didn’t last very long, as the truth serum began to take its effect on her. A strange sense of euphoria came over her, as she tilted her head back and prepared for the inevitable. Winston proceeded to probe her for hours about the details of her time spent in Sydney, as Drellic’s prisoner. Simone talked at great length about Drellic’s delusional state, during which he had begun to confuse Simone with his long deceased wife Moya, and how he wanted to share his new world with her.

  As she continued to reminisce about Drellic’s plans to make her his bride, Winston started to show signs of discomfort and jealousy, which Simone instantly attacked, without mercy. Her inability to withhold her thoughts, merely enhanced her usual forward and aggressive personality. She proceeded to mock Winston and repeatedly accused him of being a homosexual, who was disappointed he never got the opportunity to play with Drellic’s genitals.

  After her last few comments about Winston’s sexuality, he nearly beat her death, by knocking her to the ground and repeatedly kicking her in the stomach and face. He then left her bleeding on the floor and exited the room. By then, she was bleeding internally from her abdomen and her face had been disfigured beyond recognition. She had a broken nose and jaw, and her eyes, mouth and nostrils looked like tiny bowls of blood.

  Simone spent the next several hours writhing in pain and screaming in agony. Finally, she could no longer handle the intensity of her pain, and she was completely certain that she was going to die there on the cold concrete floor. Upon that realization, she rolled onto her side and stopped struggling to breathe. She curled herself up into a ball, to help her in coping with the throbbing pains throughout her body. By then, she was just waiting to die. She rocked herself back and forth against a wall, and prayed that she would fall unconscious again, so she could die in her sleep. Her final thoughts were of Callum, as she felt herself drift away from the world.

  To her disbelief, she later found herself waking up to the sound of spinning helicopter blades. Six hours had passed. Simone struggled to open her eyes, only to have to close them again, because the blinding sunlight coming through the windows of the helicopter, she had been strapped inside.

  She squinted, as she looked over her surroundings. She had been strapped to a stretcher. The lower portion of her head, her chest and stomach were wrapped in thick white bandages. She was also wearing a fitted neck brace, as well as a back brace.

  Although she was unable to move her arms and legs, she was feeling surprisingly alert. The majority of her pain had subsided and she could feel her strength returning. She turned her eyes to the right, as far as she could, to get a look at the people around her. There were two pilots that she couldn’t see, passed the bulky backs of their black leather seats, and a middle aged military man with a thick mustache, and strapped in behind one of the pilot’s seats. The man whom she hadn’t met yet, was Marco Gropovski, Severov’s second in command.

  In a groggy voice she uttered, “Why am I still alive?”

  To which Gropovski replied, “Because we need you to be. You’re going to help us, Simone.”

  “Help you do what?” Simone asked. Gropovski leaned in closer to her, looked upon her battered body with sympathetic eyes and replied, “You’re going to help us bring down Severov.”

 
; “What? I don’t understand,” she said groggily, with a confused tone.

  “Not everyone agrees with what he’s doing. And there aren’t many of us left,” Gropovski began. “You do not yet realize the magnitude of what is coming. Ten years from now, something terrible is going to happen. Something that I believe will cause mankind’s extinction. Something even worse than Drellic. And you are going to help us prevent it.”