The Monsters Inside (Formerly Extract)

Primeval

If you’ve ever woken up from a good dream, only to realize it wasn’t real, you know the feeling that tore through my heart at that moment. I wanted to go back to that dream; wanted to feel the warm sun and soft breeze. Yet it all slipped from my grasp.

My eyes bobbed open, and I had a sickening moment of ‘can’t breathe’. It was like falling from a tree, or closing your eyes in bed and feeling like you’re falling from a high summit. Your limbs jerk and your breath gets stuck in your lungs. No matter how hard you try, for a few dark minuets you can’t inhale. A weird gasping sound came from my mouth as I tried desperately to suck some air in. A shadowy figure knelt beside me, silently urging me to keep trying, keep breathing. But it hurt so much...

I watched her lips open to take a deep breath of air. Violet. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, as if she hadn’t come back all the way yet. I shuddered at the wet gasping sound coming from her mouth as she tried to breathe past the pool of blood in her mouth. A horrible gurgling sound came out, and her eyes bulged as the metallic liquid shot down her throat. I turned her onto her side –recovery position- and watch the blood flow from her mouth onto the blindingly white floor. After I few minuets I heard one of the most beautiful sounds ever –her breathing.

Violet’s eyes were wide and frightened, searching the room frantically for some unknown object. I wondered briefly what Heaven had looked like, but couldn’t find the will to voice the question. Instead I watched as she calmed down, her eyes still idly wandering around the room, as if she was reacquainting herself with it. Then her eyes landed on me.

The onslaught of emotions in her eyes would have brought me to my knees, had I been standing. Relief, fear, happiness, worry, confusion, sadness, and finally anger. Her long pale finger pointed towards my chest. What happened? I lifted my hand to her torso, and then to mine, showing her our identical wounds. Mine, long slashes against my abdomen; her’s was a scabbed over, messily sowed up hole. Her deft fingers grazed over the stitching job I had attempted, no emotion in her features. We stayed that way –her rubbing her scar, and me watching her- until the inevitable click of the door could be heard around the world.

The men showed no surprise at me being alive, although I had no doubt this wasn’t the first time they had seen the news. They lined up against the wall, and I stared at the redhead who had caused the hole in my body. Something close to regret flashed in his eyes, but in a moment it was gone and I wondered if I had imagined that emotion on his face. Blondie strutted forward and looked at my blood covered stomach. He smirked.

I couldn’t control my actions. All I could see were these men beating up the boy beside me, and my sanity –what was left of it- snapped. I tore my nails into his flesh and ripped, the satisfying scream echoing through the room. My teeth gnawed on his flesh, whatever exposed piece of monster they could find. Blood filled my mouth and I swallowed, taking his life down my throat. A horrid growling tore from my chest as someone ripped me away from my prey. Struggling, I bite and slashed at my captor, the only thing I could think of was my prey getting away. He could not live!

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It had been days since the predators came to us. Our sanity, our humanity, was slowly slipping away. We were following our instincts, and I only realized how much of an animal I had become when –in a brief moment of clarity- the taste of packaged blood seemed sweeter. Before, the thought of drinking red life from the plastic bags disgusted me, but now I drank willingly, almost greedily. Inside, I was ashamed of the monster I had become. Outside, I had no human feelings left.

My thoughts were simple, primeval. The things that had previously occupied my thoughts –my parents, my friends, life outside this prison- were gone, replaced. Now I only thought of one thing: survival.

A loud metal clang reverberated inside our frozen hell. Food. We pounced, waiting to sink our teeth into the crisp, dry slice of bread our tormentors had stuffed through the doggie door that now stood as our food supplier. They were nervous of us, wary. Of that we were sure. They didn’t even want to enter the room to feed us, didn’t trust us enough to open the door to throw in food.

John and I tore into our food, ravenous for any kind of sustenance. We were so hungry, so into our food, we bit and tore our skin trying to get to the fluffy white wheat. Our faces were smeared with blood and crumbs, pieces of food getting caught in our cuts, but we didn’t care. Any decency, any care we had was locked away. Our humanity, our sanity, was staring at us through the window. They were lost souls, out in the world, fighting to be freer, fighting to see the sun, the sky, the light. And our bodies, just our bodies, were trapped inside, cold, hardened, harsh, unfeeling slabs of flesh with obsidian eyes and snarling teeth that had no notion of the freedom that lay just outside of their fingertips.