Every Two Years (Completed)

2

She can hear cicadas sing, but everything in front of her is still dark. Every breath she takes pulls the cloth over her head against her nose and mouth, making it extremely hard to catch her breath. Her head is pounding and the crook of her arm and the side of her neck burn. The rest of her body she can hardly feel as she's pushed forward. Though she can feel her soiled clothes sticking to her skin and the ropes digging into her wrist.

The man grips her shoulder and directs her where to go. She stumbles around.

She can smell lots of trees, and it was too quiet to be in the city. She can't hear much of anything outside of the insects and their footsteps.

"Three steps up," he says.

Her shoe collides with something hard and he roughly, slowly, lifts her up for her to step up. The drugs haven't worn off yet and she can barely walk on her own. Forget trying to run or fight.

She hears Keys jingle as he stops her, and then a door creaks open. All around her is the smell of lemons and bleach as he leads her through some place. Then another door is opened.

"Seven steps down."

She's led down the steps and another door is opened. He pushes her lightly, but her wobbly feet trip over each other and she falls on the hard floor onto her shoulder.

"Fuck!"

She struggles to sit up, then someone holds both of her arms and helps her up. The black cloth is pulled from over her head and the lights blind her. As soon as they adjust, she sees the man standing in front of her.

The man smiles at her and then steps out, slamming the door, closing her in the room.

"Ya! At least get me some clean clothes!"

She hears a chuckle and footsteps walking away from the door, and she knows that he's gone. She gets up and looks around the room.

She feels warm fingers working on the ropes around her wrist. She looks back to see a thin girl staring intently at the knots as she tries to untie them.

She looks to the left of her and sees five framed steel beds, each one with a person on it, staring at her wide-eyed. She looks to her right and there are five more beds. Two have people sitting on them, one has a neatly folded comforter and a pile of clothes and rags, with a bar of soap on top, and the last two are bare.

"That's your bed," the girl says after she finishes with the rope.

Nat pulls her sore arms in front of her and massages her wrist before rotating her shoulders.

"I'm going to pull you up now."

Nat nods, and the girl does as she says. Nat looks at her. She is thin but more fitly. Her eyes are golden brown with short blonde hair and black roots.

She guides Nat to the bed and starts picking through the clothes. She places a shirt, underwear and shorts in Nat's arms. She points to a bra.

"Do you want to wear one? It's not like we go anywhere. It'll be more comfortable not wearing one."

"Not wearing," Nat answers.

The girl nods and hands her the soap and a rag before guiding her to the bathroom. She sits her down on the toilet.

It's a small closet bathroom with no door and just a toilet, sink and dull mirror. There's two cups on a small shelf. One cup has several toothbrushes in it, and the other one is empty. There were three toothbrushes in packages, and toothpaste next to it.

Nat studies the bathroom from top to bottom.

"There's nothing in there that we could use. He made sure of that," says the girl.