by Jacinta Jade
‘Enough.’ The cold voice was disinterested, bored.
Siray curled her legs in and wrapped her arms around her body as she fought to get air back in her lungs, forcing herself to breathe. That effort alone was painful enough to make her almost gag, but she fought the impulse off several times.
She perceived movement beside her an instant before she felt a gloved hand grab her chin and force her to look up into those eyes of ice.
‘It would be a shame to damage you in any permanent way before we learn anything useful. Especially given the interest his lordship has in you.’
‘And what’s so interesting about me?’ Siray spat the words at the mask and eyes before her, the pain still radiating through her, numbing any sense she might have otherwise employed.
Silver, as she now thought of him, raised a hand faster than she could have thought possible, and Siray braced herself for another blow, closing her eyes. When nothing happened, Siray opened her eyes to see Silver’s hand drop back to his side, and she realised the movement had actually been a silent signal to her guards to stop whatever else they had been about to do to her. He was still squatting before her, and Siray stiffened as those blue eyes drew close enough that she could feel warm breath on her face.
‘Lucky for you, I find your … passion amusing.’
Moving just as quickly, Silver drew away and stood, and Siray saw him nod his chin towards the middle of the room. ‘Strap her in, and we’ll get started,’ he said. Dismissing her again, he turned and moved away to another corner of the room as, once more, Siray’s shoulders were seized, and she was lifted from the floor and carried across the room.
Twisting as much as she could in her captor’s grip, she saw that a chair that had been set up on a small elevated platform in the middle of the room, a number of machines placed around it. Siray’s eyes widened, but then a guard was at the chair, and the world spun as she was swung up and then slammed down into the seat, the back of her head smacking against the hard headrest. Dizzy, she tried swiping at the guards as they strapped her down, but one of them simply smacked her hands away, as if she were no more than a bothersome insect.
Refusing to give up, Siray thrashed even as straps were tightened across her arms, wrists, legs, and ankles. Then a wider strap was placed just below her breasts and tightened so that it restricted her breathing enough to be felt. Restrained as she was, she still managed to shake the chair with her efforts to loosen her straps.
She stopped and looked up at Silver as he approached and then shivered with revulsion as he trailed his fingers up her arm.
‘Now, now. You can struggle, but the calmer you are, the better reading we’ll get. Of course, if you insist on making things difficult …’
One of the guards stepped forwards menacingly, and Siray tensed.
Silver was watching her carefully and smiled when she stopped moving. ‘I thought that might make you want to cooperate.’
He motioned again, this time to a guard who stood at a nearby terminal, who looked down and began operating a series of screens and buttons on a panel before him. A moment later, several electronic arms close to Siray’s chair whirred to life, and she watched in horrid and fascination as a thin metal arm descended from her left, a glistening needle emerging slowly from its end.
Her heart began throbbing against her rib cage, and she went rigid as the metal appendage lowered the needle to a position directly above her left arm. She began straining against her straps again, fighting with everything she had to move her arm and break the restraint holding her. Nothing gave, and her breathing became rapid and shallow now.
‘No,’ she whispered.
The needle plunged downwards, and she gasped in pain as the needle pierced her flesh and continued to drive farther in. She looked away, feeling faint, as the syringe begin to fill with her blood.
With her head tilted away at that angle, she was able to see Silver as he rocked back and forth on his heels in a please way, talking to the guard operating the terminal.
‘We’ll need samples of all her tissues.’
The terminal operator nodded, and Siray felt the pull on her flesh as the needle withdrew from her arm. Unable to stop herself from looking down, she saw a trail of blood coming from the deep wound, and her head began to feel light once more.
The sound of more whirring resonated around her, and she looked up with dread to see the first metal appendage be replaced by five more, lining themselves up over various parts of her body.
Siray began praying hard for the Mother to save her as a cold sweat covered her forehead.
Mother that leads us on our path, whose greatness ensures our prosperity, please save me.
Silver disappeared from Siray’s line of sight as the new needles began to descend, and she started when she felt fingers touch her head.
Carefully, slowly, the fingertips stroked from high on her scalp and down through her loose, thick red tresses.
Siray shivered at that foreign and caressing touch.
‘Of course, I can’t provide you with any numbing agent for the pain. That would interfere with our samples.’
Silver’s smooth voice was a horrible accompaniment to the display occurring before her as thin silver arms were moving with silent purpose to align themselves over other parts of her body. Her limbs twitched and went tight as those terrible instruments hovered over her feet, thighs, stomach, right arm, and shoulders.
A pause, then the needles plunged into her body.
Siray screamed. A long, drawn-out scream. Her muscles and jaw clenched, and her mind flashed white with a pain that blocked out all her other senses. Her eyes were open, but all she saw was white. And then her body … rippled.
She felt it, even through the pain. A cold burning, coming from somewhere within. And she welcomed it, held on to it. Anything to block out what those metal arms were doing to her right now.
‘She’s shifting!’
The cry of alarm came from someone to her left, but it didn’t mean anything to her. Words meant nothing to her. She was in an ecstasy of pain, was burning from the inside out.
From behind Silver’s voice snapped out an order. ‘Give her a shock!’
The burning feeling spread through Siray, making her arch her back and bare her teeth, even as the straps held her body down. Her very skin seemed alive, seemed like it wanted more, like it wanted her to burn.
Then a new attack was made suddenly upon her body as a hot spark shot through her, numbing her mind and frying her nerve endings. Her vision cleared, the white dissipating, and the room and the metal appendages still stuck into her skin began to move in and out of focus. Siray opened her mouth in a silent scream as the shock coursed through her. Her body had stopped rippling and was now so taut that it seized once, twice, before she fell limp against the confining straps. The horrid chair now her only support, Siray sank against it, gasping as her body reeled from both the shock and the odd attack.
A sigh met her ears. ‘That’s better.’
Silver’s voice was a purr as he walked from beside her chair to stand in front of her again. The blue eyes took her in from behind the cruel mask, which seemed to suit its wearer so well. With a quick gesture, Silver flicked his fingers at the terminal operator.
‘Resume the tests.’
Multiple appendages pulled at Siray’s muscles and skin in various places as the needles withdrew.
Then a new set of arms approached, the new needles bigger, with hooked edges.
Siray’s chin trembled, and she clenched her jaw, not wanting them to see how close she was to breaking.
Yet as the next set of metal arms plunged down into her already torn flesh, another scream was ripped from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
SPANS LATER, torn and bloody, Siray was dragged back to her dark and narrow cell. The guards simply dragged her in and let her body drop to the dusty floor, and Siray didn’t bother to move, even after she heard the door rumble closed behind her. Her body hurt all o
ver, and even her bones ached in a way that made her want to rub them. Her muscles continued to tremble with spasms that made her take in a quick breath every so often. So she didn’t try to move but used her remaining strength to curl up into a ball where she lay, hugging her knees to her chest and trembling at the pain that still coursed through her.
She shut her eyes against the dark, not wanting to see even the outline of her arms and legs, which she knew had lines of blood traced over them from numerous small, but deep, puncture holes. A tear trickled from the corner of her eye, and she didn’t bother to wipe it away as it traced a clean path through the dried sweat, blood, and dirt that marred her face, wavering on the edge of her cheekbone for an instant before it left her.
The rumbling of the door made her whole body tense painfully as she cringed in fear before she scrambled quickly away from the door across the dusty floor, wincing as she moved. Her heart beat rapidly as she pressed herself hard against the back wall of her cell. No more tests. No more. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. Wasn’t sure she would survive.
The door had barely opened a hand’s width before she heard a clattering sound, and the light that had slipped in began to fade again. When the rumbling had stopped and inky blackness had consumed the cell once more, Siray still waited, holding her breath. She heard footsteps fade away, and still she waited for a long moment. When she was sure she wasn’t going to be surprised by anyone outside the door, she pressed herself painfully to her knees, turning to see her latest torment.
It took her a moment to spy the thin, lumpy object that blocked part of the hair’s width of light that bled through beneath the cell door. Shakily, Siray reached out a hand in front of her and dragged her trembling body carefully forwards. She repeated this slow crawl until she was able to stretch out one hand to tentatively feel what the object was with her fingertips. It was round, and bits seemed to flake off it as her fingers brushed it lightly. A little more confident, Siray cautiously closed her fingers around it, whatever it was, and, when she began to drag it towards her, she heard it rasp over the cell floor, its shape caving a little under the weight of her hand. That was when she realised what it was. Bread. She put out her other hand and felt other shapes that she vaguely recognised as small pieces of food. The cold thing beneath the food was a tray that had been slid into her cell.
Siray’s breath hissed out of her in understanding. She wasn’t going to be killed, then. They wanted to use her. Wanted to run their terrible tests. And for that, they needed her alive.
It wasn’t a good thought, and her breathing grew shallow as her mind recalled the last few spans. Even in the darkness she became dizzy, and, slowly, she forced her mind to focus on the tray, and only the tray, in front of her instead.
Still holding on to the bread with one hand, she moved her other hand until she could feel the edge of the tray and began pulling it slowly close to her, her muscles protesting against even that small action. She dragged the tray right to her knees and, putting down the bread, used both hands to feel out the nature of its other contents. When she felt a cool, round object, she lifted it from the tray, and heard the slosh of liquid. Eagerly, she dipped a finger into what she assumed was a cup of some sort and, hesitating just for a moment, proceeded to lick a droplet off the end of her finger.
Water.
Gasping, Siray lifted the cup to her mouth and drained it, sputtering at first as her dry throat tried to swallow. Then, water dripping off her chin, she felt her stomach growl as her hunger was sharpened. She reached out her hand again for the round piece of bread she had felt before. Raising it to her mouth, she ripped into it with her teeth, taking a big chunk and chewing it rapidly before taking the next bite. As she chewed, a part of her realised that this was what they wanted. For her to eat and stay strong. Part of her wanted to defy them, to push the tray away. Part of her felt sickened at what they had done, and at the thought of what they still might do.
But the instinct to hope, to eat and survive, was too strong, and she finished the dry, flaky bread in a few quick bites. Then she again sought the tray with her hands, feeling for the other edibles. There was a section of fruit and a small, hard block of something else. These she also devoured. Then there was nothing else, just the hard surface of the tray. Frustrated and still hungry, Siray pushed it away and once more crawled painfully to the back of her cell. Exhausted and sore, she rested her head against the wall, closing her eyes as she traced with her fingers the patterns of dried blood she could feel on her arms.
She was asleep even before her body began to tilt sideways, sliding against the wall, and even the fall onto the hard floor didn’t wake her.
***
She awakened during the night to hear scratching. Well, she thought it might be night, as not even a speck of light shone through beneath her cell door. In fact, she was only guessing at the direction of her cell door from where she lay, so complete was the blackness. Tentatively, she put out her hand, grimacing at the pain deep in her muscles, and felt the cold, rough wall that was the back of her cell. Yes, the cell door was on the far side. As she shifted again, she was conscious of the patches of dried blood on her body cracking and felt the dirty material of her clothes pull at her torn flesh where the blood had dried it to her skin.
The scratching came again then, an insistent noise that seemed so loud to her in the still silence of the night and which seemed to come from all around her. Then she wondered if she was going mad. Was this a result of the tests that had been done on her?
She sat up and listened to the scratching, holding her breath as she waited to determine if it was real or a thing of her imagination. She tilted her head a little as she listened harder, which made her realise that it was coming from above her.
Even knowing she wouldn’t really be able to see anything, she squinted upwards and tried to pierce the darkness anyway. In the absolute blackness, she stood up, walking her hands up the wall to feel for her direction. Her balance off due to the total lack of visual cues, she edged forwards carefully, barely breathing as she listened to the scratching.
Tilting her head the other way to get a better sense of the location of the sound, she stopped once she thought she was positioned beneath it.
She was staring upwards so intensely that, when the glow came, she reeled backwards instinctively and hit the wall behind her hard, her head bouncing painfully off the rough surface. Raising one arm while she used the other to steady herself against the wall, Siray shielded her eyes, her head throbbing.
Once she realised that the glow was only slight, the darkness making it seem brighter than it was, she lowered her arm.
Surprise, wonder, and then amusement at her own actions cascaded through her.
What she saw now was a type of glow bug, sticking its head into her cell, and she watched in awe as its self-made glow lit the ceiling space around it, the glow increasing as the bug fully emerged from the crack in the ceiling.
One hand still pressed against the wall, Siray let her other arm drop completely while she watched the insect make its way slowly across to the opposite wall and perch there in the corner, scratching around as it searched for whatever it was after.
She stared at the bug and its friendly glow, stretching her hand out as if she could capture its light.
‘Hey there,’ she croaked at it. Her throat burned with the effort, but the sound of even her own scream-ravaged voice was a comfort, so she kept talking. ‘Where’d you come from?’
She kept her eyes on the glow bug, almost afraid it would disappear if she took her eyes from it. It was her one link to the world she had been pulled from, a world that seemed very far away right now.
Her muscles tired and aching, she pressed her back harder into the wall as she allowed her body to slide down to the floor, leaning her head back so she could still see that corner. The glow bug could have been a star floating in space, so tiny was its light in the dark of her cell. It was a vision that took her mind away from the pain she had ex
perienced and the thought of potential terrors to come, leaving only wonder in its wake.
Exhausted as she was, her tired eyes savoured the friendly radiance for a long time before she fell asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
AWAKENED BY SOUNDS outside her cell the next morning, Siray stirred slowly, confused at first by the blackness all around her. She sat up and, turning, saw the dim shape of her cell, lit by the hairline crack of artificial light that bled through beneath her cell door.
That was all it took for the memories of the previous day to flood back, and as they washed over her in waves, she curled up in a ball, trying to block them out, her mind repeating over and over, No, no, no, no! She reeled at what her captors might have in store for her today, but then she remembered—
The glow bug!
She sat up straight and looked up to scrutinise the ceiling of her cell. Not seeing any sign of the bug, she stood up so she could bring her eyes closer to the cracks where it had emerged the night before. She peered into the slivers of darkness above her, only able to tell where the fissures were due to their deeper shadows. No glow bug.
Siray felt her shoulders sag. Such a trivial thing, but it had lessened the turmoil in her mind just to know that one other living creature had shared the night with her in her cell. That something else knew she was alive.
The cell door rumbled, and Siray’s head snapped in its direction. She stiffened as the guards entered, neither moving towards them nor backing away.
‘Welcome to the next round of tests.’
Silver’s purring voice made Siray narrow her eyes.
The guards moved into the cell and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her forwards and out into the passage where Silver stood, waiting.
‘Today’s tests will be different,’ he said, ‘but should be quite successful given your demonstration yesterday.’