𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨 ✸ she who was a queen

how deserted lies the city, 
once so full of people!
how like a widow is she,
who once was great among the nations!
she who was a queen among the provinces
has now become a slave.
- ʟᴀᴍᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ 1:1

Iphigenia woke up to heavy, unadulterated silence. She glanced around, examining her body, running a hand over smooth brown flesh and soft curves. She was wearing heavy sienna-orange pants, made of thick cloth, and a cream camisole. Around her shoulders was an asymmetrical shawl wrap, in soft dark brown wool.

All of it was crusted in dried blood.

Iphigenia hardly flinched, just touched her body, scanning for wounds. When she was certain that the blood was not her own, she rose, scanning her surroundings with an imperial chin lifted high.

A room full of computers, black screens, and smoking technology. Jagged, sparking cuts scarred most of the hardware, but a few screens flickered weakly, struggling to stay alight. Bullet holes sprayed the sides and floor. In the shadows, dead bodies slumped together, dark pools of blood drying beneath them. Iphigenia turned away, swallowing her bile as the stench of putrid bodies filled her nostrils.

Iphigenia touched one of the screens, pressing a hand to where a flashing box had been punctured all the way through. Her hand bore scrapes along the knuckles and fingers, as if she had punched her way through a wall. Or had taken a fist to the screens.

Why? Why, why, why? Where had her memories gone? Why was there nothing when she looked inside? Who had eaten her?

She stared at herself in the reflection of the television. Regal nose, liquid eyes, thin lips. So familiar, but so strange. She could hardly recognise herself under the sifting void of memories gone.

An eerie, hair-raising howl sounded, sending Ipheginia scattering to a crouch. She turned, bracing her back against the wall, her fists flying up, ready to fight. She had learned combat on her own, pure desperation and hunger driving her drills alone in her room, but they were brought to accuracy by Toré.

A single, lone creature scuttled forward from the shadows. At first, Ipheginia thought it was a child, crawling on all fours.

But the limbs were equal in size, goat limbs, the joints at each shoulder and hip strung between ragged sinew with metal that gleamed in the darkness. The neck was long, shaggy, with matted bloody fur.

The face. Iphigenia screamed, kicking out. The face was human. A little girl's.

She panicked, every battle and fight leaving her limbs with a watery tremble as she ran, sprinting away from the little thing that scurried after her on human hands. Iphigenia felt her pulse behind her eyes, stumbling as she yanked open the door to the tech room, sliding outside.

The walls around her were a horror of blood, red streaks dripping down the walls, bodies laying on the ground like kids at a sleepover. Iphigenia didn't have time to process, she just ran, sprinting at full speed away from the thing that was following her with a soft chuckle.

Holy fucking shit, her terror was palpable, her skin crawling with unease. Her breath was caught perpetually in her throat, the wind tearing past her sucking the air from her lungs. Tears were building at the corner of her eyes as she screamed, panic getting the better of her.

The sound of the monster laughing followed her, a high-pitched giggle, children skipping rope. Underneath the glee was a grating, bone-grating sound, the sound of records screeching to a halt, again and again and again. Iphigenia ran faster.