Sophie
July 20th, 2017
12:43 AM
The first thing Sophie felt was the feeling of some rough blanket all around, like webbing. Then the cloth lodged in her to keep her quiet. It made her gag, it tasted of gasoline and salt. Drenched in her sweat, a suffocating feeling that sucked into her mouth and left her gasping. Gasping that made her choke. Choking that made her struggle. She looked like a silkworm in its cocoon as she wriggled to and fro in the back seat of the police car. Rope bit into her legs and arms. She could not see behind her, only felt that they were going over rough terrain and jumping and dragging something below the tires. Metal, a sheet, cardboard.
“Fuck” She tried to say. Her mouth coughed more than spoke. The car came to a stop and she rolled onto the floor and hit her head. It was a sharp bumpy pain across her chest and her head like jumper cables had been latched onto her face. It made her mad, much more than fear, she wanted to bust someone's skull open.
The laughing outside only made it worse. She tried standing but couldn’t and when she nearly made it to her knees, she heard the door open. Never had she roared that loud before that her own lungs would break into pieces, like needles prodding her insides. She wagged her legs around. The rope was cutting deeper into her.
“Get off me.” She said between the fits. She didn’t know why she wasn’t afraid. It was a surprise to her but hearing the laughing people, feeling her body dragged, it all frustrated her. Dust was rising, she could tell and she being dragged across the floor. It left her cloth brown and blackened her vision. Upstairs, she hit her legs across the sharp angled steps. There was loose wiring and wandering light bulbs that exploded underneath the footsteps of her kidnappers. She wasn’t even grabbed by her body, they were lugging the sack around like a confused Santa Claus, a gift giver possessed. They threw her. She landed on, something. She couldn’t tell what it was. A desk, the floor, she could feel something rough though, like splinters. It must have been wood, old wood. It was heavier than the cheap furniture they sold at the furniture stores, this was older. It felt it.
Sophie bit into her sack as the people wandered about, going in and out of the room with pacing steps. She ripped a hole open, swallowed the cloth and spat it out onto the floor. Her nose was out first. She was glad about that. The air was better outside, even if it was dank and dirty like wet dirt rubbed across her nostrils. Everything smelled of mold, asbestos, it wasn’t just the desk that was old she figured. She lowered her head and peered her eyes. She wanted to take a good look at the monsters in the dusk. They looked human. Only looked. They spoke English, they breathed and were upright. Their mannerisms, their poses, human. She was almost deceived. But the laugh. The stuttering, dragging laugh was anything but of someone sane.
Hyenas, madmen.
She looked up to the grimly dressed figures, more so shadows in the light of the moonlight that seeped through broken windows. She tried to figure them out, they were wearing suits and above their noses, all across their foreheads and their eyes was a white cloth. Like guests at a ball, confused and blinded by handkerchiefs. She didn’t want to look any longer or to their purple iris flowers pinned on their chests. She took a deep breath, they caught her. All three veiled eyes in the room looked back. She spat at them through the small hole, it hit one on their leather shoes. The person smiled, then ignored her.
“Was there supposed to be another one? Who’s this extra girl?” One of them said. He had a birthmark on his neck.
“No. We already had what we needed but I can’t imagine she would hurt.” A woman spoke, her lips were yellow. A man nodded next to her, he had fat on his chin that shook with him, like a prideful turkey with its hanging neck.
“Do you think Mr. Alestor will be happy?” The woman was more desperate, giddier in her speech. She lept over five panels of the ceiling, nearly dancing across the broken floor and through the door. They weren't just dressed for the ball party, they acted the part too. Cordial, terrifying dancers, drunk on the feeling of their faith. It felt like a funeral for her. She spit again. It hit no one. She felt her face go red and she wriggled, she slapped the desk and rolled down to the floor. Her left side hurt, but she smiled when it finally brought one of them close to her.
“You’re just so obnoxious, aren’t you? A young girl should be a polite girl.” A man screamed. Sophie said nothing, only stared through the hole in the sack with the single eye. She laid on the dirty floor, she felt the broken tile, she felt the glass and stayed quiet. As the man dragged her feet, she stayed quiet. As the glass below her ripped her sack, she was quiet. Though bleeding, though angry. She was of mind enough to find a glass shard across the floor, and she was of mind to take it.
For she would need, wherever she was going. She worked on the rope on her arms and listened to the scurrying footsteps. The paths confused her through the loud halls, there were faint voices, like ghosts in the walls. The stairs hurt her body with bump, but she would be ready. Arms being freed slowly, she convinced herself that these people, if anyone, deserved to be hurt most.
She came to a stop. She heard four sets shoes clank, a unified tap dance. The blare of a voice burst through the corners of the walls, it was filled with static and was coarse against her ears.
“The hunters are here.” The deep baritone voice said. “Do your business and do it quick, we need to prepare the dogs for them.”
The whispered to themselves, they split. And with one twist of her glass blade, she felt her bonds break.
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