The basement is humid, repulsively so. I could taste everyone’s sweat in the air, rich with cortisol. My mouth waters involuntarily. I swallow hard, as if to say ‘fuck you’ to my thirst towards the vulnerable company. Logically I knew I could not blame myself for the physiological response, it’s as silly as being angry with a growling stomach, but it serves to remind me how worthy of hatred I am. Whenever I’m outside of a populated room in the manor, there is chatter and sometimes even laughter and playfulness. Sometimes I will sit and listen at the wall and pretend I am there with them, passing time surrounded by friends, trying to forget about the brooding beast in the next room if even for a moment. But I can’t pretend when there’s so many silent eyes on me, not when anxiety has seeped into every corner of the room, with the stronger ones using their bodies to shield the weaker ones from my sight. I unloop my arm from Pevlok’s and hold onto my other arm instead, my head lowered so my bangs shield my eyes.
Rodrik is leaning against a bookcase, staring intently at me. After a moment and a sigh, he heaves into his shoulder and the bookcase moves aside revealing a hole in the wall. My hand drops to my side as disappointment drops like a brick on my head.
“Please don’t tell me your plan is to dig thousands of miles through the rocky desert ground in hopes you’ll reach The Cloak. That would take a goddamn century even with better tools than the garbage you’ve scraped together” I gesture at the bent up silver trays on the ground of the hole which they are clearly using as makeshift shovels. I hear a child’s whimper behind the dark skinned woman’s skirt, I gasp as I realize the child couldn’t be older than five. Trapped as a prisoner of war, practically an infant… Rodrik’s face flushes red.
“Where’s your plan, bloodsucker? Shall we just wait around until you train a lamb to come to the slaughter? Until you snap?!” He bellows at me as the child buries his face deeper into the green cloth of his mother’s skirt. Rodrik, clenching his fists, steps towards me. I train my eyes to his, speaking low, forcing calmness into my voice.
“I don’t think we should waste what little energy we have on ambitious delusions.” Frustration breaks through my tone. Has he goaded everyone into burning away what few calories they’ve been allotted? Who knows how long before the shipments stop coming in altogether? I can’t imagine news from the warden will make our captors want to send more food. What exactly is their intention, locking up rebel war criminals and their families with a predator like me in this cushy bourgeois oasis? They just as well could have brought them to the depths of The Hold beneath the capital, tortured and killed them there. Why bring in me, a street rat who got into brawls with local drunks to get buzzed off their blood, to this isolated manor? The room is tensely silent, I can hear Rodrik’s furious heart hammering, his blood pressure rising as he glared unblinkingly.
“Well? I’m still not hearing any of your escape plans, bloodsucker. And I for one am not going to sit here with my thumb up my ass hoping to be rescued. You know what I think?” He steps closer, his hot breath hitting me in the face, “I think maybe you’re a vulture who likes rotting blood. Waiting for us to die in here and suck down curdled blood. I’d rather go down fighting, maybe take out one last scumbag before I do.” I turn my head away and hold my breath. Is he trying to die? Or is he hoping to start a violent mob to kill me here? Goading me to violence? Pevlok puts a hand on Rodrik’s shoulder calmly, which is immediately shook off with a snarl. His fists balled tightly, knuckles white.
“DADDY NO! IT’LL EAT YOU!!!” the child yells out hysterically. It hurt more than anything the belligerent Rodrik could have done.
“Michaelo hush” his mother said in an urgent and panicked tone, as if the child was giving me ideas, he sobbed into her arms. I turned and practically ran from the room, trying not to cry in front of them all.
Once the door shuts behind me I sprint to my room. Pacing for a moment, wishing I could get drunk and forget who I am. Stupid pathetic disgusting repugnant unlovable inhuman. I put myself in a corner, sliding my back down the wall, trying to shrink away into nothingness, but failing. I’ve lied to myself by avoiding being within human society for so long, I observed them at arm's length and pretended I was not so different from them. I took shots worth of blood from the intoxicated to keep me going until I gave up and stopped, only to be picked up, intubated, forcefed blood and brought here. I’m unavoidably among real people, and I’m forced to confront reality. I am no better than Kinsleon, the monster who turned me into him. The thought horrified me, it made my soul reject my body and fight to escape, until suddenly I was looking down on the pathetic crumpled mess cowering in the corner in the third person. The feelings in there couldn’t reach me from above my head. I drifted further from my body and into the room I had ejected myself from. I didn’t really want to be there either, but something compelled my disjointed mind to go there.
The atmosphere was less tense, but still densely uncomfortable. Half the people were sitting and eating, one middle aged human man, John I think, was digging furiously with the silver tray as Rodrik paced and complained.
“-no right to say that, I don’t care!” Rodrik said through his teeth. He held up his finger, pointing to the ceiling in a shaky fury. “She wants us to sit prone and do nothing!”
“May I remind you she is just as trapped here as we are? I happen to… understand her perspective” said Pevlok carefully. Rodrik and a few others scoffed.
“You agree with her?” accused the spindly old lady with pointed ears, sitting delicately on an end table.
“In part… yes. We have so little energy to spare, perhaps scratching feverishly at the walls is an expensive attempt with a very slight chance at paying off.” he conceded.
“WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO WE HAVE?!” Rodrik barked, Pevlok opened his mouth to respond but was quickly cut off, “ENOUGH. IF YOU WANT OFF THE ROTATION, FINE. WHO ELSE IS GIVING UP? LEAVE THIS ROOM NOW AND DON’T COME BACK.”
“Rodrik you need to eat, you can’t go another day without food, it’s driving you mad.” says the mother of his child in a desperate tone.
“No, Kiyana, Michealo needs it more. I’m fine.” Rodrik used a soft tone I was surprised came from him.
“No! I won’t eat until you eat too!” says the boy looking horribly overwhelmed.
“Rodrik, you haven’t eaten after all the hours you’ve put into that cursed hole? You idiot. Take my portion for you and your boy. Eat.” says the old woman, getting up and pulling out a vacuum sealed bag of jerky from her pocket. He looks at the bag hollowly.
“I can’t ask you to do that, Genevieve.” his throat sounds dry as he responds.
“Did you ask? Because I was fairly certain I was telling you. I want my thank you.” Genevieve threw the bag at him, catching him off guard and smacking him square in the face. Mettii laughs loudly with a snort.
Rodrik turns bright red and grunts a thank you to Genevieve as he picks the bag off the floor sheepishly.
“We cannot let the enemy reduce us to chaos, it is most certainly what they want, as Caro said. We must stay strong and work as one.” says Pevlok. Rodrik into his food at the mention of my name.
“I have a theory as to why they are keeping us here. I believe this whole scenario is meant to push Caro to join The Altari.” He paused and looked around at the others. Everyone seemed frozen as they waited for him to elaborate.
“This ‘prison’ looks like it was designed from the era and place in which she was born, even the books are all from the late 1800s earthen time. Though she is here against her will, they seem to be attempting to give her all the comforts of her lost home. A variety of… food options. At first it was high society folks, myself, Genevieve, Samson and John. Then young and healthy enemies of theirs” he gestured to Kiyana, Rodrik and Michealo. “A mixture of others, and recently our new imp friend Mettii. It’s as though they are trying to pin down Caro’s preferences. We have been given foods that keep our blood rich, and only just enough to keep us alive.”
“So that’s it then. We need to kill her before they gain a monster to fight for them.” Rodrik states bluntly, standing up.
“No! Don’t you understand? She’s the only reason we aren’t all dead or locked up in the capitol’s torture chambers! If not for her resilience in denying her own hunger, which you yourself can’t hardly handle, Rodrik, we would all be dead or worse.”
“I don’t get it.” whimpers Michealo, “That’s the bad guy, why does it wait?”
His words, his confusion and fear lurches my soul back into my flesh prison. Why is a good question.
The Altari recruiting me. What a bunch of idiots. How long were they stalking me? How did they know where I was born? Pevlok was the only person I’d revealed my real age and home planet to, although it was possible I had spurted something out in a drunken stupor after a few fights at a pub. What I wouldn’t give to be drunk right now. If they had been stalking me, shouldn’t they know I was a belligerent, self loathing drunkard? Perhaps that’s the type they go for, desperate idiots. Damn it if that’s not me. But they didn’t anticipate me abstaining from blood. Admittedly I had thought a lot about Rodrik’s blood. But I only took blood when I felt as though I could stomach the guilt. Before knowing Rodrik was a father, I had considered getting him while he was away from everyone else, picking a fight, getting him to throw the first punch. Until I thought it through and realized that the horror of what I had done would spread to the others, that somebody would find his body, that my inhumanity would be laid bare before everyone. Now that I know Rodrik is a father, even that I considered killing him makes me sick. I think of all the other belligerent bastards who died by my hand who probably had families. The ones who I left crippled or disfigured, lying to myself, calling it just or merciful. I’d always comforted myself by the fact I never spread my disease to anyone else, holding onto that as the one difference between myself and Kinsleon. A distinction no one else would give to me. I was too exhausted to move or choke out more dry sobs. I wish they would just kill me, but now they won’t because I’m the only reason they’re not dead already. Exhausted, thirsty, desperate to escape this place, I closed my eyes and prayed for the ever elusive sleep to take me away.
