Ashley startled awake to a chill ache in her fingers. She almost welcomed it to the heat of her nightmares. But with each moment she grew more aware, the ache spread through her body. The floor, cement and cold, offered her no comfort. Nor did the dark. She tried to sit up, but the sound of metal clinking against the floor pierced her ears. Her last conscious moment came back to her painfully fast. The guns. The children screaming. The cracked asphalt her face was pressed against. Zip ties about her wrist and… a needle. A sting in her arm.
Sedatives. Her disorientation started to make sense.
But the where remained shrouded.
Her left hand was free, but as Ashley pulled on the right, the clink of metal sounded again. She fumbled in the dark with her free hand. A mental ring lay around her wrist, a chain linking it to another ring. Handcuffed. She tugged on it and followed the link. It connected to a larger chain and that to a spike hammered into the floor. Fresh, it seemed, as chunks of the cement came away under her groping fingers. It gave her a bit of room to move, maybe two to three feet from the corner.
Blinking, she tried again to see. The dark lifted, if only a little, as she acclimatized. The room was square, small, and bare. Not even a bucket to piss in… The door stood seven, if not eight feet away, too far for her to reach with her chain. No windows, no signs of the room’s purpose before impromptu cell. The door didn’t even look like it was made for it, the bottom of it bent and scratched as of it kept catching on the floor.
Ashley sat back on the cool damp cement and leaned against the wall. A pang of pain shot through her shoulder and she remembered the bite. Tenderly, she pulled back her shirt to look at the wound. The site was inflamed, the flesh raw and discoloured. The thin black tendrils of infected veins and blood trailed from the wound site like spider webs. They hadn’t trailed further though then when she’d last looked. Just irritated. Taking a breath, she pressed the wound and pain seared down her arm. Black blood, thick and tainted, trickled out far darker than it should naturally be.
Ashley pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. Clammy heat met her chill skin. In the dank room, the fever wouldn’t let up.
“Hel…” she tried to speak, but her voice cracked. A cough followed that wracked her whole body and she spat out what congealed in her chest. The dark glob of infection sat on the floor between her and the door.
Fuck. She took in a deep breath and tried to suppress the urge to cough. “Hello!” Her voice echoed against the metal of the door but died on the cement walls.
Footsteps sounded beyond and the light from the crack was interrupted.
“I need water,” she croaked out.
The shape beyond the door said nothing back.
“Did you hear me? I said I need some fucking water you-”
The footsteps carried the shadow away and Ashley cursed under her breath.
She scanned the room again, as though it would afford another option. Escape seemed impossible. Not even worth considering if I can’t get this cuff off… She fumbled over the links connecting the cuffs, praying for one to be loose. A free stone maybe. Or pull free the peg in the cement? She groped the makeshift base, trying to get purchase on the chain link’s anchor.
The steps started beyond the door, dim voices speaking. Her pulse thundered as if she was still trapped inside those cold sterile walls of the facility. Ashley closed her eyes and took in a breath. No. You’re not a little girl anymore. This isn’t the same place. When her eyes opened they hardened on the door.
The door creaked open, the bottom metal scratching the floor with an ear-piercing screech. The light forced her to blink against the bright.
“Good afternoon, Ashley.” The voice wasn’t familiar, nor the shape. The woman was thin, a bit shorter than herself. Her features masked by the silhouette the hall light cast. But she disappeared in the shadow of the man that stepped in after.
Eric. Ashley recognized the shape of her capture. He wasn’t a small man, and the beard, even just the bit of it she caught in profile, spelled his identity.
“I’ve brought you some food and water.” In the woman’s arms she held a tray, plastic it looked like. She bent to the ground, a few paces away from Ashley and lay it down.
The steam off the small bowl of oatmeal made Ashley salivate. A bottle of water with it too - though the seal had been cracked probably long before it made its way into the cell. But more troubling were what lay beside the oatmeal. A scalpel, a needle, a pair of forceps, and gauze.
Ashley’s chest tightened and her fingers balled into fists. The sound of the soldering torch lighting burned in her ears. Like the memory was alive around her, the heat itched her skin, and the fever tricked her eyes. She tried to shake it away as the woman came nearer.
“I need light in here. Can’t we put her in a better room?” she said.
“Not yet but soon, I think. Should I send for a light?” Eric said.
The woman shook her head. “No, but I’ll need the door open. The hall light will have to do.”
Eric opened the door all the way and the drab grey walls looked startlingly clear. Fresh air wafted in, or at least fresher than what was inside. But the flash of light burned as it had in her memories and Ashley frowned at the heat sweating her brow.
“Are you hungry?” the woman asked as she pushed the bowl nearer. She was blonde and her features weren't warm. Sharp, maybe, but they seemed hazed the longer Ashley stared. And her eyes, though alert, held a measure of fatigue weighing them.
“My name is-”
“I don't care what your name is,” Ashley snapped. Her fingers clasped the plastic bowl, warmth seeping through it. Without a spoon or fork, she grabbed the near piping hot scoops and brought them to her lips. With every mouthful she kept her eyes locked on the woman, watching her every move.
“I'm a… medical professional,” she said with clear hesitation.
Ashley stiffened. Her eyes faltered to the bowl, and she spat out the mouthful she’d started to eat.
“There’s nothing wrong with the food,” the woman insisted.
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not trusting.” Ashley pushed the bowl aside.
The doctor frowned. “You need to eat and drink. If you don’t do it on your own-”
“-we’ll have to force-feed her if she continues to resist.” In a flash, the room was sterile and white, the walls towering above her. Ashley looked to herself and the t-shirt and jeans she wore had faded into the pale medical blue of a dressing gown.
“It’s not real,” Ashley whispered, blinking hard.
“It’s just water.”
When Ashley’s eyes opened she was in the dank cell, the blonde woman before her. It’s the fever, she decided, reaching for the water. It’s just the fever.
“I need to look at your wound.”
“Don't want the merchandise damaged?”
“Yes. I guess you're right about that.” The doctor leaned forward bravely and Ashley let her poke the wound. She expected the usual questions but the doctor stayed silent until she pressed the back of her hand to Ashley’s forehead.
“We’ll need to treat the fever and clean you up.” The doctor reached behind her and dragged the tray across the floor.
The oatmeal turned in Ashley’s stomach and nausea tried to creep up her throat.
“You’re not likely to get much better in here but I can see about making your comfortable.” The doctor looked around the room frowning. “Blankets and water are a first and some clean clothes. We don’t have a bathroom down here but maybe I can speed up getting you moved somewhere a little better. It’ll make getting you cleaned-”
“-up for our special guests.”
Ashley gazed around the room, the tall walls and bright lights back. Two nurses held her down as the straps came over her chest. Looking to her right arm, the bandages had soaked through red. But the pain wasn’t what it had been, wasn’t searing and peeling and ripping away at her. But the memory of it never faded nor did the nightmares that kept her awake and screaming.
She shook her head, tried to open her mouth, but one of the nurses pressed a strap over it.
“She’s done very well and with minimal treatment. We’re already noticing tissue regrowth at the original wound site.” They were back. Two nurses. Two doctors. Shadowed shapes in pristine white looming over her. “Blood tests report no abnormalities beyond the expected. We may be able to advance the procedures with infectious diseases far sooner than we’d hoped.”
“Very good. The Project Manager’s pleased with our progress. I hear he’ll be sitting in today.”
“Way to make me nervous. What’s the plan then?”
“Today will be the other arm. The procedure should run smoothly, just as it did yesterday. No deviations yet.”
Turning, Ashley looked to her left arm, the line in marker already drawn. She squirmed against the restraints.
Ashley pushed to her feet. “Stay… stay away from me!” But as she said the words the room was dark, the straps, the gurney, the table and marks on her arms were gone.
“Get the fuck away from me!” she yelled, backing into the cold cement wall.
“The hell is wrong with her?” Eric said, but his form seemed changing and fluid. Like he was both a part of the memory and the present, she couldn’t tell if he was real.
“It's the fever,” the doctor said. “She’s running too damn hot and this fucking room isn’t helping. I don’t know if she’s infectious and if I can’t get close enough to-”
“-sedate her at the very least! You can't do live testing like this. For christ’s sake, she's a child!” a man screamed over Ashley’s own muffled cries. But he was just one of the many shadows fluttering in and out of the lights. Between the burnings and the smell of her singed flesh.
“I appreciate your concern Doctor Specht, but if you want to be a part of this project-”
“She doesn’t need to be-”
“-conscious for much longer at this rate. Besides, Ashley’s not exactly wrong. If she dies we’re fucked.” The doctor motioned to Eric and he stepped into the room. “Just hold her down until I can get her sedated.”
“Where…” Ashley blinked and each time the room changed. The hospital. The cell. The operating theatre. The chains. The heat and the cold. “It’s… it’s not real?”
The blonde doctor shook her head. “Your fever is dangerously high, Ashley. Let me help you.”
The fire burned in her skin and arms as if the torch had never turned off. Her brow boiled, her mouth parched. I’m not that girl, she repeated in her mind. Ashley tugged against the cuff at her wrist, the pain slicing into her skin. But the blood, the sharp cut was real, and it grounded her in the present.
“I...” Ashley pressed against the wall as she started to waver. She slid to the floor and the cool soaked through her clothes. “I'll be okay...” she murmured before turning to the side and throwing up every morsel she'd eaten.
The doctor was quick to react and slipped the needle into her right arm. Just below the marks that were both there and not.
The blonde pressed her hand to Ashley’s head and a curse dripped from her lips. “We need to get this down. Eric, I need you to get my bag from my office.”
“I’m not leaving you in here alone with-”
“Do it!” she yelled.
Ashley winced and pressed her head back into the wall. “I'll be... okay,” she said softly. “You'll see.”
“You're infected and feverish. Hardly 'okay'. If I’m right you’ll turn in an hour, if not minutes. They should have never put you down here… risking everything just to be petty fucks…” The doctor breathed the words in the silence between them.
Ashley let her head loll forward. There, in the doctor’s eyes, fear swelled and brewed like poison.
“You don’t understand.” Tears trickled down Ashley’s cheek but a wry smile creased her lips. “I can't get infected.”
AN: Thank you for reading! Okay, so, the surprise is ready, but not for this week. I will be releasing it next Tuesday and I'm super excited to share it with fans of the serial. Are you hyped? I hope you're hyped (but also still patient with me).
As always, I love being able to share this story in its updated and improved form, and I love having readers. If you have any comments, feedback, hype, etc, I'd love to hear from you! And again, thank you for reading.
