Lonely Monsters

twelve

"What happens when I die?" I said, my tongue feeling thick in my mouth. "Will I see Veeve?" 

And I fell. Straight into darkness. Straight through the roof. Straight into hell. There was fire and brimstone and little creatures with fingers like knives digging into my skin. Tearing at me.

I gagged on the smells and tried to fight them off. Tiny, rat sized things, that kept trying to eat me! They swarmed and I watched in horror as they consumed parts of me en masse.

 I heard tapping. 

"Come this way." voices whispered. "This way Mimi!"

I kicked and clawed and ran to a wall. I dug at it, and chunks of sulfur and muck fell. Heat scalded my hands, hard rock dug under my nails. I heard other people talking,

 "Hold on!"

"Stop!" someone was shouting, "Hold on! Stop it!"

I gagged and cried, digging and trying to get out. There was a click, and I came tumbling head over heels. I hit the ground hard, my forehead hitting cold, hard concrete. I panted, trying to see straight, and breathing raggedly. 

I was brought back to reality, and panted, choking and whimpering on the ground.

"What the fuck is this you sick fuck," someone shouted. "Human trafficking?"

"If that's what you want to call it," someone else said back, his voice sounded very sarcastic.I huffed, trying to block their fucking voices out. I hung out the trunk of a car, my hips and legs still inside. I reached up with one arm to try and push myself out. Or pull myself down. I fell, cracking my knees hard on the ground. I felt congested, and thirsty at the same time. 

"Hey! Don't fucking touch her!"

There was a sound of flesh hitting flesh-- someone getting punched. I heard bones crack and groans of pain. Her? That must have been me. I'm a girl? I didn't feel like a person... I felt... like the way the phrase nasal infection sounded. 

I tried to talk, who was getting hurt? Stop that! My jaw popped and a forced out a breath. I tried to suck air in, and it was like breathing through a straw. Someone reached for me but I pulled away. The world was dark, shadows reaching out to grab at me. 

I tasted plastic and wetness flooded my nose and mouth. I pushed it away, gagging and hacking up the equivalent of spider webs. I took my fingers and scraped at whatever blockage was in my throat. It felt dry and clung to my fingers. 

"What the fuck!" the closet person shouted, "W-We gotta drop her off at the hospital or something!" 

"Fuck that! She looks like a junky whore!"

I felt around for the bottle. I heard it drop nearby. I put it to my lips and drank. It burned on the way down, then settled in my gut. I finished the bottle and tossed it away, tilting my heard back and breathing. My lungs felt like they were constricted, dry. I wheezed for a bit, then fought to see. The world was ever slowly coming into view, and in the darkness I saw faces.

People. Men. They were looking at me. One man was tied to a chair, his face bruised and bloodied. Then around him were other men, and they did not look like friends of his. One had bloodied knuckles, another held a crow bar that had bits of gore and hair on it.

In the haze and weird colors that were spinning like floaters in my eyes, I saw reds and blues, that moved to the beat of distant drums. Only they weren't drums. 

They were heart beats. 

I weakly wiped the back of my hand over my mouth. I looked at one man, then another. There was a wrongness about them, that I couldn't put my finger on it.