by White, Megan
“What is the point?” I croaked out, dropping the bread to the tray.
“Trust is something that seems impossible for me to gain. But you will, sooner or later.”
“I should trust you.” I managed a weak chuckle, “As you have me bound and bloodied in a cell.”
“I needed you safe!” His jaw clenched tight and then released. “Everything else you endured here was by your own hands.”
He swiftly turned from me and left. But the door remained open.
I knew the only thing I wanted to do was get clean. It had been weeks since I had the luxury of a bath. I could feel the filth that coated my skin. The smell of death and decay that permeated my nose had kept me in a constant state of nausea.
My body too weak to stand, I crawled on hands and knees toward the cell door. Once I reached the opening, I was stunned to see that I had not been in a cell inside of the Farm, but in a home. The long narrow hallway that lay out in front of me was one that could have only been built for a king… or a Keeper. Dark hardwood floors ran beneath my bloodstained palms, meeting only with the large expanse of what could have only been someone’s stunning living room. I could hear the clinking of glass but what it could mean meant nothing to me, I wanted to get clean.
I continued down the hall, reaching for the first knob I found. I turned and was nearly thrown backwards at the site of the washroom. A simple space, meant only to get clean, was the size of a commoner’s assigned apartment. Sparkling tiled floors that warmed under your feet as you stepped led into a pure white bath that could have held ten easily. Skylights in the ceiling filtered natural light down over the room, making it feel warm against the stark white environment.
Avoiding the mirror, afraid of what I would see, I kept my eyes on the bath that promised cleanness. I removed my bloodstained, tattered, and useless uniform, allowing it to puddle around my feet. It was useless now-- Symbolic to how I felt.
The dials on the bath had me reeling, all touch pads and screens laid out strategically around the porcelain walls for each occupant to easily select their own perfect temperature. I didn’t think any degree of water could have gotten me clean. I felt broken, in a state of disrepair. The dirt that covered my skin felt like a permanent stain, going far deeper than just the surface. My mind would never be clear again, my soul could never wash clean. There wasn’t a cure for the visions of hundreds suffering, starving, dying that I could take. Those haunting visions were now a part of me, never to be forgotten.
Dialing the water temperature as high as my body could stand, I relaxed into the tub, scrubbing my sensitive skin until it turned red under the friction. By the time I finished, my skin burned, and the once clear water was blackened from my filth. Unplugging the drain, I watched the soiled water swirl and disappear down the pipe, only wishing I could do the same. I replaced the plug and programmed the shower to the same scalding temperature. I relaxed my back against the warm stone, soaking in the blistering water that hit my face, allowing the torrent of water to wash away whatever remained.
As I sat, the enormity of loss hit me. The pain my mind had blocked as I was held captive in the darkness overwhelmed me. No longer was I numb.
They took Faith. Pain gripped my chest as I thought of her
“No.” I bit down on my arm, the mental pain too much to bear. Not her, anyone but her.
The dam broke in that moment. Tears I had yet to shed for the best friend I watched die before my eyes. Tears for Faith, a completely innocent child taken away to become a by-product to be eaten. I had barely known her, but the hold she had over my heart was an unbreakable one.
The water was rising around me. The shower’s spray continued to pelt me in the face. I closed my eyes, blocking out the world around me. Unrelenting pain and guilt held me under. My body sunk peacefully to the bottom of the tub. I was drowning.
***
“Erin.” My name was hushed, the voice just out of reach as I hid in the safe recesses of my mind. A place that remained free from pain and misery, free from all memory. It was a dark, empty pit where I could remain numb.
“Erin.” My name flitted across the barren depths, “Wake up.”
I fought it, ran from the consciousness that held all the pain and ruins of my unbearable existence. Waking would only send a flood of emotions that would undoubtedly crush me in its wake.
“Erin.” Cold air brushed over my body, luring me to it like a Siren’s call, enticing me to an awakening I fought in vain to escape.
Glacial fingers tickled up my arm as the cold air grew stronger, “Erin,” My name hung in the air, “It’s time to wake up.” I was on the precipice of consciousness. No matter how hard I fought, the call pulled me into a light I never wanted to face again. Sleep was peace, absent of all emotion, absent of all pain. It was dark and remote; a place I never wanted to leave.
Ice burst through my veins and I heard my name yelled louder, “You will not die on my watch,” The intensity that rang in his voice was unmistakable. “So stop trying. You are safe with me.”
He was wrong. I would never be safe. Not while I was awake. My memories were my worst enemy.
Consciousness was the only thing more powerful and dangerous than the Keeper calling my name.
“No” I moaned when he called my name again.
I was still in that euphoric space in time where the memories that haunted your waking hours had yet to hit you. That moment of awakening where nothing mattered or made sense other than the fact that you were no longer at peace in a world your mind had created. But that lapse in time never lasted.
All too soon, the pain and torment hit me like an avalanche. Faith, John, the ten remaining Testers, the hundreds more held captive in their cells, their only way out being death.
Sobs racked my body as it all came into view before my eyes, “Shh.” He whispered close to me, “You are safe.”
“None of us are safe.” I cried, refusing to open my eyes.
“You are now.” Declan breathed close to my ear, his frigid fingers still caressing my arm, drawing me back to the present.
When my eyes were forced to open, the site of Declan’s shining smile greeted me. He was smiling, a genuine smile. Not one of malice or cruelty, but of Joy. Why?
Tearing my eyes away from the one to blame for all the hurt that wreaked havoc inside of my core, I looked around me. We were in a room I had never seen before. It was warm, sumptuous and shockingly inviting. I was resting on a large leather sofa, draped in a down comforter that at any other time would have made me feel as if I were floating on a cloud, but not then. All I felt was a numbing tick, a time bomb of emotions just waiting in the wings to explode, taking me with it.
Muted light from table lamps illuminated the lavish room just enough for any occupant to see, but maybe that was because one of them had been asleep just a few minutes previous.
Dark hardwoods ran across spacious floors that led to towering walls where enormous portraits hung next to intimidating paintings of glorious nature scenes, scenes that only the privileged were able to witness firsthand, the Supreme.
“Where am I?” I croaked, trying and failing to remember how I managed to leave the bath.
“You’re in my home,” Smiling, he wrapped my hand in his, “Safe and under my protection.”
“Your protection?” I scoffed, jerking my hand from his hold, “You are the one I need protection from. You are the one that poisoned me, shackled me…”
“You are absolutely right,” He swiftly cut me off. “I did. If it wasn’t for my venom pumping through your veins, threatening to kill you, you would still be at the Farm.”
“Your venom?” I repeated, stunned and cold.
“Our kind are poisonous.” He shrugged as if this news should have been obvious, “A neurotoxin when injected into a victim. We have no real need in using it anymore but originally that is how we fed, Erin.”
“Spiders.” I breathed, remembering what he had told me before and trying to absorb the enor
mity of the realization.
“Spider-like,” He corrected, standing from the sofa, “It was the only comparison I had to give you. We don’t have eight legs or spin webs.”
“You don’t need to spin a web when you rule the population that you feed on.” I whispered when he walked into the other room.
“No, you don’t.” He replied, the sound of glass as it clinked together echoed through the room, “But you would be surprised by the number of humans that were once willing to let us feed, of course,” He chuckled, strolling back through the room, holding a glass of water, “We usually fed on their enemies.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Centuries ago, I use we metaphorically. We as my species, not we as in me specifically.” He placed the glass in front of me, laying down a small tube beside it, “Drink both.” He said, pointing to the table, “What’s in the vial first. The water is just to help you swallow.”
“No.” I wanted nothing he offered me. His motives made little sense to me. To trust him would have been foolish.
“You will want them both. I need you healthy and you are far from that right now.”
Looking skeptically at the contents of the tube, I noted that there wasn’t anything special about it at all, maybe two milligrams of clear liquid at best. Picking it up, I examined it closer, turning it over in my hand, “What is it?” I asked his back, “Something else that will knock me out?”
“No.” He laughed, a sound that seemed foreign coming from his lips. In fact, the ‘man’ standing before me was nothing like the sinister cloaked Keeper that took me away from John…John. The pain that came from remembering rushed through me, but now it was not just John that haunted me, but Faith too. Innocent, tiny, Faith. All because of this Keeper.
“Nothing you have done has made sense.” I pressed. “Why keep me hidden in your house. Why bring me out now?”
“I told you.” His breath rushed from his lips, “I needed you safe and they needed to see you suffering to believe you needed out of the Farm.”
“Who?”
“Drink the vial.” He ordered curtly before he pulled to his feet, “If you must know, it is my anti-venom. You need to take it.” He then disappeared down a dimly lit hallway, leaving me with the most dangerous thing imaginable, my own thoughts.
Closing my eyes, I tried my best to crawl back into the hollow pit my mind had once created for me, but it was gone, my mind too full to continue blocking reality.
“Please take the anti-venom,” Declan’s voice, smooth and nonthreatening, sounded near my ear.
“Why?” I sobbed into a pillow, “What’s the point?”
“Because you are needed, that’s why.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled through snivels, “to feed you.”
“To kill us.”
I raised my head from the pillow, wiping at my wet cheeks, “What?”
“Not all of us,” He corrected as he sat cross-legged at my feet, “Just the ones that wish to harvest humans like cattle.”
“But what will you eat, if not for humans?”
“Like I said before, Erin, you would be surprised to know how many humans are willing to be fed on. Our kind…”He paused to look over my resting form, “they are easy to love.” A wry smile played on his lips, “Besides, we don’t need to kill to eat.”
To love a member of The Supremacy, I could not see how that would ever be possible, “‘This is the beginning to an end,’” I repeated his words.
“Exactly, but first things first.” He pointed to the vial resting on the table, “Drink that. I’d rather not give it to you intravenously anymore.”
The pricks I felt in his cell, he had been dosing me. Picking up the tube, weighing it in my hand, I reluctantly lifted it to my lips, tilting it just enough so the contents would slip easily down my throat.
“Blahh!” I screeched once it hit my tongue. Reaching for the glass of water, I chugged it.
“Doesn’t taste too good, does it?” He laughed.
“God, no!” I choked out after I finished the water in one gulp.
“I could have given it to you intravenously, but,” He paused on a shrug, “I figured you have had enough needles stuck in your arm for a while.”
He was right. “Tell me how you plan to kill off your own species and why?”
“Demanding little thing, aren’t you.” He took a deep breath. I waited for an answer. “We are not going to be killing off my species.” He clarified, downing a glass of brown liquid, “Just the ones that have become too powerful. We don’t need to kill to survive. What they are doing is pointless and cruel.”
“‘They’?”
“The heads of The Supremacy, Tarant and others like him.”
“Aren’t you Tarant’s Head Keeper?”
“Yes,” He answered curtly, “I am actually second in command over the entire regime. Another reason why you are completely safe here.”
“You are double crossing him.” I whispered in disbelief, not knowing whether or not to trust the Keeper sitting in front of me, but not seeing any other option. I had no one else.
“To overthrow power you must first dip your hand into the pot.” He smiled absentmindedly into space, “I have worked many years to get where I am.”
“And have killed many.” I said flatly.
“For the greater good, Erin. Without doing what I have done there would be no end to this, none. The killing would continue until the entire human race became extinct due to demand, overconsumption and greed.”
“Where do I fit into all this?”
“The very center of it all.” He beamed, “Tarant is the only one able to consume your essence in its purest form. Poison the food, he falls.”
“And with Tarant gone,” I breathed as realization hit me. “You become the head supreme.”
“Exactly,” He nodded, “But there are a few obstacles to overcome before that can all happen.”
“And those would be?”
“So many questions!” He laughed and pulled to his feet in front of me, “You need your rest, we will talk about everything in due time.”
In time. Everything happened in its own time. I could not argue with that. We had a plan, and that was more than I had a few hours previous. However, was it possible for my blood and tissue to kill the most ruthless creature that possibly ever walked the planet, a creature so heinous that he found a way to justify the genocide of an entire species just to fill his gut? I was not sure, but even if we failed, it would not be without trying. Maybe then, if we did succeed, Faith and John’s deaths would not be in vain.
I had to try, for no other reason but for them, where they, too, had a place in history for overthrowing The Supremacy.
Chapter Fourteen
Declan left me alone in his spacious home. To anyone else the act of leaving a prisoner to their own devices would have been foolish. If he were a lone human, weak and spineless, he would have secured his captive, but a Keeper did not have those concerns to worry about. Declan knew if I escaped I would not have made it far.
In that world, no one was free, even the Keepers that thought they held the power. Everywhere you went you were watched. Every step you took a camera followed, but those cameras were not your biggest obstacle or something that should have been feared, no, not even close. The robot drones that filled the skies were your number one enemy. Built for only one purpose, to locate and kill.
Declan had no fear of me leaving. I would not have survived an hour outside of his towering walls. I hated to admit it, but his home, for the time being, was the only safe place that existed for me.
In Declan’s home, I had no boundaries. He left with the only words spoken being, “Get comfortable. You’ll be here for a while.” So I did just that.
Rising from the couch, I was stunned to find that I was not weak, nor was I starved. I noted the black silken robe that covered my body, another luxury only a supreme had the privilege to know.
I began to explore his home. Hi
s house was open and airy. The expansive living room fed into the large dinning and kitchen. A kitchen that any cook would have killed to work in, but most of all, it was intimidating and served only to prove what The Supremacy had taken from us. No commoner lived as he lived. We were all forced into poverty and held there, all our worldly objects the sole property of the regime. We were only given what we needed for survival while the Keepers lived like kings.
Walking down the hall, I stopped at the first room I saw. It was a room fit for the royalty that was a Keeper. A towering four-poster bed dominated the space, blanketed in golden sheets and dozens of pillows while the dark wood accents continued the theme from the rest of the house.
The riches Declan lived in were sickening.
As I shut the bedroom door behind me and walked toward the towering floor to ceiling window, the sound of a door closing echoed from down the hall, followed by determined footfalls.
Declan was searching for me.
I waited in the middle of the room, knowing it would not take him long to find me. I stood silently as I heard his steps falter outside of the bedroom, and smiled toward the door that slowly pushed open to an unwavering Declan.
“Afraid I ran?” I asked, raising my brow to him.
“I figured you wouldn’t have been that thoughtless.” He breathed, taking the sight of me in, “Making yourself at home I see.”
I shrugged, “There wasn’t much else to do.” I waved at my robe as he stepped closer to me, “Is there anything else I can wear?”
A grin took over his expression, and his eyes traveled up my body. “I have exactly that.”
“The way you live.” I paused looking around the room, “It’s…”
“It’s a part of the job.” He shrugged before coming to stand mere inches before me, looking down on me as if to show the sincerity in his eyes, “Wouldn’t it be obvious if I refused to live like a Keeper?”
Sighing, I nodded. He was right. To be different would have been too much of an indicator, making others suspicious of his intentions.
“Your clothes are in the bag,” He pointed to a large brown paper gift-bag that sat on one of the end tables, “I’ll give you a minute to get dressed.”