The Supremacy

by White, Megan

  “Then why kill any of us at all?”

  “Time, money, resources.” He shrugged, “We need sustenance. We can’t wait on a lab to create it for everyone. Plus, not all of us can afford you.”

  My head started to swim as his words hit me. It was all still too much to process. A species that looked like us, spoke as we spoke, lived as we lived, yet fed on us.

  “The rest will die.” I sobbed once the image of Faith flashed through my thoughts. They will kill her the same as they had the Tester on the screen, the same as they had done the rest that had been taken away. They will impale her tiny body with hooks and drain her for their meals.

  “We are still working on the right formula, Erin. So far, all our tests have proved to be failures. It’s hard to create a new line of food from scratch.”

  “The vaccines,” I muttered, remembering the four Testers’ swollen bodies.

  He nodded calmly before he spoke, “Yes, our ultimate goal is to add human cells to the already existent food supply. By doing this, the human population will remain in the dark and still thrive as a species. We cannot wipe the entire race out. If we did that, our own species would go extinct.”

  “So you are creating your own Franken-foods.” I shuttered at the thought of humans unknowingly consuming other humans, “Impossible,” I breathed, “They will find out eventually. Get suspicious when none of us make it home.”

  “You were sent to another Zone to serve The Supremacy.” He winked, “No movement pass, no visits.”

  “How can you do this to us?”

  “We have seen how your kind treat your livestock. Is what we do any different than what you have done?” Inhaling a deep breath, he buried his nose into the crook of my neck, “We have to eat, Erin.”

  “You’re a monster.”

  “Oh, no, Erin,” He chuckled close to my cheek, “We are what your nightmares are made of.” Cold fingers traced the line of my spine, “What sends goose bumps racing up your back. We are what goes bump in the night.” I watched, frozen, as he slowly leaned away. He pulled another syringe from his cloak, “But first things first.” A wicked smile took over his once placid expression and he grabbed my arm in his unrelenting hold.

  “No!” I pleaded, trying in vain to free my arm, “Not again!”

  “This is the beginning to an end, Erin. You want this.”

  Without further warning, the metal syringe plummeted into my flesh, the needle scraping against bone. Crying out from the excruciating pain, I collapsed onto the table.

  He laughed, and then rocked back on his heels. “It won’t be long now.”

  Fire licked at my arm, burning, sizzling as the serum from within the syringe slid into my body. Gritting my teeth, I looked to him for answers, “What did you do?”

  “What I always do, Erin, I’m saving you.”

  The inexorable pain only grew stronger. Agonized screams left my dry lips as the skin on my arm felt as though it were melting off my body.

  Soon, the burning surmounted until my entire body was engulfed in the flames.

  “Now,” He said with a chuckled before he leaned down to wrap his arms around my trashing body, “It is time for you to go back to your cell,”

  “AHHH!” I screamed when he moved me, “You cannot be serious.”

  But he did not answer. He carried my convulsing form down the darkened hallway, only pausing when a fellow Keeper addressed him, “Forget to sedate this one before you stabbed her?” He laughed, watching me suffer.

  “Something like that.” Declan winked, quickly sidestepping around him to reach the door to my confines.

  Gasps from the shocked Testers filled the dim cell once Declan entered. The first face my eyes landed on was Faith’s, my heart clenched in my chest when I saw the tears fall from her red-rimmed eyes. Those big green eyes widened in terror once she saw me in the arms of the lead Keeper.

  Declan carried me to her, slowly laying me by her feet. For Faith’s sake, I tried to quiet the moans that were escaping my lips, to slow the jerks of my body as the fire continued to consume me.

  No sooner than Declan dropped me did he leave, the sound of the door slamming and latching being the only indicator of his disappearance.

  “Shhh,” My hand caressed Faith’s wet cheek, “I-I-I’m h-h-here.”

  “What did they do to you?” She sobbed, and held my hand tightly in hers. I presented her my arm, red, swollen and still jerking uncontrollably.

  “Yet you’re not dead.” Stephanie spat, looking over my convulsing frame, “The only one that has been taken and returned. Why is that, Erin?”

  “Shut up, Stephanie!” I heard Brian yell as he pushed her aside and came to sit by my head, “What did they do?”

  “T-t-took me to a room,” I stuttered through convulsions, “Injected me w-w-with something.”

  “But you don’t know what it is?”

  “N-n-no.” I shook as the pain sizzled through me, tightening my muscles until they tried to jerk free, and convulsing when they couldn’t.

  As the burning reached my neck, tensing it, pulling at my throat, I thought it was only a matter of time before I suffocated.

  “You can’t die,” Faith sobbed into my neck, “How many times do I have to say goodbye to you?”

  “None,” I gritted my teeth, “N-n-never say goodbye.”

  “Two more were taken after you left,” Brian whispered into my ear, “We are dropping like flies here.”

  I knew they needed answers and they looked to me for those answers. They would not have believed the truth. If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. The cruelty, the malice and complete disregard for life was unfathomable. To kill innocent lives to sustain a species as callous as The Supremacy seemed incomprehensible.

  “‘We have to eat.’” Declan’s words came rushing back to me, “‘You are our meat.’’, “Do humans not do the same?”

  We did. We slaughtered to sustain our life. We killed weaker species for their meat. Were we any worse?

  The all-consuming pain radiating throughout my body demanded all of my attention. I could no longer deny the agony of it. I could no longer hide the torment. Screaming out a blood curling, heart-stopping wail, I grabbed Faith’s hand, nearly crushing it in my grip, “Whatever they do,” I panted as my breath was stolen from me, “never let them take your spirit.”

  “NO!” She sobbed on my shoulder, watching wide eyed as my body was taken over by spasms, “You can’t go! You can’t leave me again.” Tears streamed down her cheeks while she held me, and she sobbed into the crook of my neck.

  “There’s nothing we can do for her,” Brian whispered to Faith, trying to pry her arms from around me.

  She cried out, pushing his hands away, “No! I will not let her die alone.”

  “She will not die.” A sinister voice filled the cell, taking dominance over every other hushed whisper in the room, “Not today.” It was the most chilling voice that I had ever heard, a voice that could stop your heart from beating if it wanted to, a voice that sent both Faith and Brian tumbling backwards until their bodies collided with the unforgiving surface of the cement wall. It was a voice I prayed to never hear again, it was Tarant.

  As I lay convulsing at his feet, consumed by the fire that devoured me from the inside out, I watched as his cloak hovered over me, “How could you allow this to happen!” He demanded in a clipped tone, anger radiating off his body.

  “She was brought in like this,” A nervous Keeper stuttered from behind him.

  “Lies!” Tarant screamed as he turned to face the cowering monster, “You blatantly disobeyed orders!”

  His hand appeared from beside his cloak, his rigid fingers clasped around a metal baton. The same as the one that had been used on the Tester that refused her feeding tube.

  Swiftly, Tarant hurled it across the trembling Keeper’s head. Shattering upon impact, the multitude of crystal shards sliced his face before raining down a sea of glass splinters arou
nd his body. The Keeper cried out, scratching at his face, only to dig the slivers of glass deeper into his flesh. “Take him away!” Tarant ordered to an empty doorway, “Get her out of this filth,” Tarant demanded, his anger consuming him.

  “Yes, Tarant.” Declan was there. He was talking to Declan. I wanted to cry out, to refuse him, tell that he was the one that did that to me, poisoned me, but my jaw was locked, fused shut by my teeth that ground together as the fire consumed me.

  Tiny cries sounded from the darkened corner of my mind. I could not see her, but even in the darkness, I knew Faith. Silently, I begged her to remain quiet. I pleaded with her in my mind to stay away.

  She did not listen.

  “Take the tiny one too.” Tarant ordered with disgust lacing his voice, “Runts are of no use to us.”

  NO! I screamed, but the cry remained trapped in the dark recesses of my mind, unable to reach the surface. Faith, I sobbed as I was pulled deeper into unconsciousness… but not before her cries of horror reached my ears. Don’t take her.

  No longer able to bear the pain, I allowed my eyes close, escaping the onslaught of agony with the only defense I had being my own mind. I let go, let the darkness of unconsciousness save me from the agony that I could no longer bear. And I prayed for death the save me.

  ***

  “Rin,” John’s laughter filled my ears, “Rin, wake up!” He chuckled and my body began to shake, “You’re going to get a sun burn if you lay there all day.”

  My eyes fluttered open to see John’s beautiful smiling face hovering over me, “Are you going to nap all day, or swim?”

  “Let her rest.” A tiny voice teased him.

  Faith. My heart tightened inside of my chest as I turned to see her standing next to him, smiling a crinkly dimpled grin.

  I was in the forest that lined my Zone, resting near the crystal-clear spring that fed into it. I watched silently as the two ran from me, jumping into the water with long lithely strides.

  “Come on!” John begged, laughter consuming him, “Nothing’s going to get you.”

  The sun beat down on the spring. The blaring light shimmered and danced off the water’s rippling surface, reflecting the swimming duos dazzling faces back to me.

  It was no secret to me that this was a dream. A wonderful dream that would soon turn into a nightmare like all the rest, but for the moment, all I wanted was to enjoy it. To bask in the scene before it was ripped away from me. To remember the carefree moments John and I had together before the regime took over power. When we could laugh, run, be free. Faith did not belong in that memory, but I welcomed the sound of her laughter, the sight of her healthy body as she swam with my best friend. She was free; a child like any other child.

  “Come on!” He yelled again, spitting water up at me.

  “We don’t have all day!” Faith added with a giggle.

  I ran to them, wanting nothing more than to be near the two. I jumped into the shimmering crystal water only to be met with inexorable pain. It ripped through me the moment my skin touched the surface of the spring, Slicing, cutting, shredding pain. I struggled to make it to the surface as the glass shards dug deeper in to my flesh with every stroke. Sizzling, burning it tore through me.

  Treading water, I looked around in a panic to find John, to find Faith, but the only thing to be seen was the crimson sea that consumed me.

  John, I sobbed, allowing the agony to overpower me, dragging me under the red-stained water, Faith.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke in a dark room. I was alone. I heard the chains rattling before I felt them constrict around my limbs like a serpent’s hold. My head pounded as I tried to hold my grip on consciousness. I could hear the blood pulsing through my ears, deafening me to everything save for the realization that I was still alive when I should have been dead.

  I felt strong cold hands clutching my arm, followed by the pinch of a needle. The pain was muted by that of the iron-tight shackles that held me still.

  Shutting out the physical pain, I retreated into my mind. I knew Faith was surely dead. Her small body strapped to a cold and unforgiving metal table, impaled and drained the same way the boy had been. She would be paralyzed, but far from numb.

  I could see her, terrified and alone, watching helplessly as the ruthless Keepers worked over her body, harvesting her, processing her as they would a worthless piece of meat, because that is what we were-- humans were nothing more than food to fill a Supreme’s belly.

  My chains left me with little room to play before they dug deeper into my flesh. The frigid cement floor of my cell held no comfort for me either, but why should it. I was nothing more than an animal awaiting her slaughter.

  Entirely alone, I curled my bloodstained body into the corner of the cell, pulled my legs close to my chest and sobbed. Almost everyone that I loved was dead.

  Cold and alone, I allowed myself to grieve. But more than that, I allowed myself to dream. If nothing more than to keep my mind alive. To dream of a day and time where I would be free to live, to fly. Such a dream was pure fantasy but one that was needed.

  I dreamed of Trent growing up in a time where he would be free to learn and explore. Free to laugh and love. I saw him clear as day running around a pristine meadow. Saw him growing into a man that was not afraid of the government that ruled over him.

  But he too would be where I was, bound and bloodied, waiting for a Keeper to take him.

  I curled deeper into the cinderblock wall, knowing that a swift death by a Keeper’s hand would have been a grand release.

  ***

  The numbness followed. All dreams ceased as a hollow pit consumed my waking hours. It was a welcomed site. One that held its own freedoms.

  I had no timeline for my torture. To me, it was never ending. Time did not exist in the darkness.

  My body was at war with itself and I was left unsure of what was real and what was fiction. At any other time, I would have thought it all to be fake, too unfathomable to possibly be real. I was most afraid of what I knew was inevitable, before my body would go, my mind would. I would lose that battle long before my body would give in. I could feel it beginning. I could feel my mind rejecting reality. It was pulling away, trying desperately to find an escape from the tormenting realization that was life; pain, loss, there was nothing to save me from it. Human minds are wired to bury what they cannot handle. To find an escape, a reprieve, at all costs. Humans are wired to survive until there is nothing left to hold on to. But for me, everything was already lost.

  I looked down at my commoner’s uniform, garbs used as a constant reminder of what we were to The Supremacy, worthless, a blank canvas for them to use as they saw fit. Our only contribution to the society they created being to serve. We owned nothing, not our clothes, our homes, our lives, and most certainly not our own bodies. It was a uniform used to remind us how worthless we were. It now lay heavy and limp on my tired limbs- once white, now blackened and bloodied.

  Sleep was my only savior, my mind too exhausted from basic survival to conjure up a new nightmare for me to endure.

  I slept and woke alone, never knowing how long I was unconscious, never knowing how long I was awake. I had passed the point of hunger. Starvation meant nothing to me. Thirst meant little. The end would soon find me, save me. At least that was what I hoped for. If they intended to use me as sustenance, I would be useless dead. My meat tainted by decay.

  Sleep then wake. I could feel the never-ending pull that was death. Just out of reach, taunting me.

  I cared not when the faint footfalls sounded from somewhere not so far off. I did not flinch nor did I make a sound or open my eyes when the creak of a metal door echoed through my small enclosure.

  I could smell the food that was placed beside my head but it did not make my mouth salivate. I no longer craved the nutrients that it promised. My stomach began to heave, rejecting the intrusion as the aroma gripped my senses.

  “If you refuse to eat you will die.” Declan’s vo
ice came in a slow cadence, urging me to obey.

  Upon opening my eyes, I saw what I could not see before. Eight trays glinted in the dim light that filtered from the door’s opening. All eight still held food.

  “Why?” My voice cracked, raw from lack of moisture. The voice was foreign to me. Left unutilized for so long I did not even recognize it as my own. I had not heard it in days, maybe weeks-- I did not know.

  “You were intent on dying.” The contempt in his voice was evident, “Still seem to be.” His arms waved over the untouched trays of food and water. “I need you alive.”

  “Why?” Too tired to say more, I laid my head back down on my blackened knees.

  Declan knelt beside my face and spoke softly, “This is necessary.” His eyes pleaded with me, “Trust me.”

  “Never.”

  Without another word, the door shut, taking away the little light it gifted. The first sign of light I had seen in-- I didn’t know. Artificial or from the sun I was not sure, either way I craved it.

  Declan did not return, or if he did I was unaware. My tray left untouched, I fell back to sleep, to the dark unconsciousness I had begun to know well, to treasure like no other.

  When I woke, it was to a blinding light that was near painful. Streaming in from the ceiling was the brilliant light of the sun beating down on me. I could feel my starved body as it soaked up the rays that it had been denied for so long.

  Moving my hand to shield my eyes, I realized that my chains were gone too, replaced by thick bandages. What remained unmistakable was the blood that still found its way to the surface, lightly staining the beige cloth my arms and ankles were swathed in.

  I could stand.

  On wobbly, weak limbs, I tried and failed. My body unable to hold any weight--depleted of all its nutrients-- starved by my own hands as I wished for death, but death was not coming, not yet.

  I drank from the water only to have my stomach reject it time and time again.

  The door to my cell swung open once I brought a piece of bread to my lips.

  “After you eat.” Declan smiled down at me, “You will be free to roam about.”