Anarchy, Burning(ONC2022 Entry)

Part 12- Harrison

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains mention of sexual assault.

"Wake up," a voice whispers, cutting through his sleep like a saw through a 2x4.

Harrison's eyes fly open, his heart racing. He scurries to the wall, the cold brick creating goose flesh and the jagged pieces of mortar clawing at his skin. He squints through the darkness and swollen eyes to study the woman watching him. Even in the dim light of their prison, she is dark. African American or a Black Hispanic... none of it should matter anymore, but Harrison has always been hardheaded. His dad had always said it was his best quality.

A fit of violent coughs, leave his eyes watering and his throat feeling like he'd swallowed barbed wire.

"Sounds like strep throat or the virus," she says. "Were you vaccinated?"

"What the fuck does it matter?" he grumbles. "We're all going to fucking die now."

"It matters... but you're right. There's worse things than death."

Harrison bites back his sharp response. Zinging a liberal would feel real good at the moment, but his mind goes over the last few hours. The worst time of his life. A living Hell. The things he'd seen would haunt him for the rest of his days, no matter how short that time might be. The things those monsters did to him. Thinking about it makes his ass hurt and the memory of their odor fill his thoughts. Bile rises up in his throat. The minotaurs used him like a play thing and tossed him back into this hole to be used again. He pukes and even that tastes like his assault.

Harrison looks around, sure the other prisoners will judge him, laugh at him. It's what he would have done. He realizes it's just him and the black girl.

"Where is everyone?"

"I found a way out and we're making a break for it." She inches towards him. "Come on. We don't have a lot of time before the minotaurs come back. They'll be hungry soon..."

"Hungry?" His stomach grumbles and again his mouth fills with the taste of bile and other bodily fluids.

"Yeah, that's what they're keeping us for, food supply. They can generate a burst of hellfire from... intercourse."

His heart fills with rage. "That wasn't intercourse! I'm a man! Men don't-"

"Quiet!" she hisses. "They still have guards posted." he starts to respond and she puts up a hand. "They need us, it's why we're alive. Now are you coming with us or are you staying here?"

"Get me the fuck out of here," Harrison says through grit teeth.

"Then let's go."

She turns and rushes out of the room. Harrison looks at the four walls of their prison one last time and moves to follow. He stops at the door, ripped off the hinges by a minotaur when a group tried to force it closed and keep the monsters out. Those people were dragged off kicking and screaming to never be heard from again. Looking down the hall, Harrison's knees grow weak. The demons are quick and merciless with their reprisals. If they catch them, there will be hell to pay.

His eyes settle on the door across the hall, the room where the minotaurs took...

"Hurry." the woman interrupts his thoughts.

Harrison hurries towards her voice and stops at the doorway to a long dark hall. He remembers those monstrous cages spitting them out in a large gymnasium before the minotaurs separated them. Some of the prisoners were taken right there in the gym. Afterwards, he and his group were dragged down the hall and tossed into that bare room. He hears the sounds in the back of his mind and his heart races. A waking nightmare.