Withering Rose

Chapter 1 - "Farmhouse"

Something was going on.

The distinct smell of gasoline and paint made it clear. Sounds of glass or crystal colliding next to each other that was covering muffled murmurs and organic sounds. There was also the sound of a pencil scratching against a piece of paper in a rush, a rip of the paper being followed by a curse. Fabric moving and footsteps pacing around the room.

April took silent note of her ambiguous surroundings. Her neck and arm felt sore, wanting to try and pop her back out but with the u familiar surroundings she could hear and sense, she didn't dare try it yet. Instead, trying to figure out where she was by sound and smell alone. But the smell of gasoline and paint was really throwing her off - a warehouse, maybe? But trying to hone in on it only made another smell come through, newly cut grass and rain. That made her heart sink. She was potentially outside or in an area out in the suburbs. April tried to think back to that morning, when had the forecast said it was going to rain? 6PM to 8PM right? She wasn't sure, it could be possible the rain hadn't started yet or had just stopped. The fact she heard no rain dropping helped slightly.

Now was the people around her. Footsteps came and went to a halt. Heavy to light with various accessories or designs to the person's footwear. One was heavy and made the ground shake, likely a man's around 200-300 LBS. The voice following the steps was also one of a guy's so that helped. Another one was feminine, metal clamping with her footsteps as if she was wearing boots with spurs on them. Estimating that she was around the same range of the man by how light the steps were thought. There were definitely other voices in the room but April couldn't pinpoint any footsteps to them and they also varied. At best, she guessed there were at least five people in the room.

Though that guess also made her even more confused and worried - a pit of worry swirling in her stomach like a tornado that was going 30 or 40 miles per hour. It hurt. What didn't help was the feeling of leather pressing against her skin, most prominently against her forearms and hand where no fabric was covering them. It felt like someone just taped multiple baseball mitts to her skin and she loathed it. Leather felt like she had hives, wanting to itch at the skin and pull away but with how many people are around in this unfamiliar location, that wasn't quite an option.

And with the fact she had her head tilted off to the left which was uncomfortable, having to try and keep her breathing as steady and slowly as possible to keep up the act which seemed to have been going well until a voice spoke.

"Shouldn't the anesthesia have worn off by now?" The voice sounded young, maybe someone in their twenties.

An older voice replied after a beat, " we did use a higher dose than we usually did on her on accident so that could interfere a little. But we are on a tighter schedule today..." The voice trailed off and was followed by something metallic hitting the floor. " Horn?"

Not much was heard after but April felt something on her left arm, having to force herself not to flinch when she felt something be pulled out of her arm. How had she not felt that before? It felt like a needle but she couldn't be completely sure the rolling of wheels followed. However, this 'Horn' person did something.

She took a sharp inhale of air as she felt a rough hand shake her shoulder, murmuring words, "Hey, wake up." In a soft voice that she couldn't recognize, so no one she knew.

It was on the fourth shake that April flipped her head to the side, acting as if she had just woken up. A whimper escaped through her shut lips as the feeling of the person's hand made her shiver but did her best to push down those feelings of discomfort and cautiously opened her eyes, wincing at the bright light that hung overhead.

Another intake of gasoline went through her nose, shaking her head at it before glancing around the room. Some of her suspicion was right, five people in the room, two of them being a man and woman, the woman having boots that had spurs on them that rang every time she walked. On a black desk ten paces away, she saw various containers of thick colored liquids, but despite the smell of paint, she wasn't sure if it was paint or perhaps ink. Though next to it was a tattoo gun so likely ink. On the desk was a hand-crafted skull cup that held pencils and a piece of paper that had something drawn on to it, but due to not having her glasses - April wasn't even going to try and identify it.