Hell's Romance

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

As I slowly regained conciousness, I noticed a few things. First, I was in motion, and from the blinding lights, beeping and strong antiseptic smell, I would guess I was at a hospital. On a gurdy. Second, the rapid beep of a machine near my head, keeping time with my rapid heartbeat. And Third, my mothers voice was farely close to my head. Whispering reassuring things to me. Suddenly I'm stopped and the voices go. I'm only left with the machine beeps and my own ragged breathing. I open my eyes and immediately regret it. Bright white lights temporarily blind me. The spots fade from behind my closed eyelids. I turn my head to the left and squint into the black shirt of a man. 

"What-" I try. 

"Shut up!" The man growls at me. I look at him and feel a scowl come to my face. The man is at least 6ft 4in and almost bald. He has piercing brown eyes and thin cracked lips and a crooked nose that showed he broke his nose badly and didn't fix it before it healed. He also has a big bushy unibrow and a long pale scar that runs down his face from his hairline to his lower lip. He was obviously blind in his left eye due to the old wound. Because his left eye looked a misty white color. 

I take a deep breath and try to sit up. I cant though. Im strapped in. I have straps wrapped around my waist, lower chest, wrists, ankles, and thighs. The man laughs at my struggles. I stop struggling and focus on evening and lowering my heartbeat. I am scared out of my mind. 'Calm down Amanda,' I thought to myself. 'Your okay for now, and you can still escape. Just think!' 

I look around at the room and take in the features. I'm in a small white room with no doors and no windows. Just a big mirror covering the wall behind me. I instantly know it's a one way window. I notice the big light above me and the man standing beside my left foot. He walks slowly, warily toward my side and looks over my body. 

"So," he starts cautiously, then clears his throat and continues in a gruff voice. "you're a Nephilem?" 

"Apperantly. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be strapped to this bed, with a light in my face and a stranger by my side." I spat. I was sick of this guy already. 

"I don't think you're worth all the trouble Dr. Geuress is putting into you. I mean you're only like, what, fourteen?" 

"Fifteen! Almost sixteen!" I squeal. I hate it when people try to assume my age. They always get it wrong. I struggle some more and go limp. I look helplessly into the mans eye and place a hateful scowl on my face. 

I struggle against the bonds again and I hear a rip. I look down a my right wrist and see that I've ripped the bond almost the whole way. I struggle some more an rip it off completely. The stranger isn't laughing now. He picks up his walkie talkie and says something into it as I take off all my binds. I jump from the table and fall to my knees. The world is spinning, probably from getting up so fast though. A panel in the wall slides open and men in military uniforms come in with guns loaded and pointed at my chest. I look at the panel and plan an escape route. I ran toward the door at full speed and smacked two of the men in the face as I ran by. I heard a pop, and a sharp pain made it's way up my leg, starting from behind my calf. I gasp and fall. My head is pounding and I can't feel my left foot. I hear running coming toward me, so I get up and run again. It hurts so bad every time I land on my left leg I stumble. I burst out into the night and sprint towards the nearby forest.  

"Amanda! Amanda Marie Geuress!" It was my mothers voice. I screech to a stop at the edge of the forest and look back. My mother was standing in the doorway of the hospital. I look at the company name and gasp. 'Gerdwayne Labs'. My mother works in a research facility. I look at her and her loving, caring face. She holds out a hand to me, as if I was a little girl and I've fallen. 

"Honey," she says in a soothing voice. It sounds weird and different to me somehow. "Come here. Come inside. I'll patch you up and explain everything. Trust me." 

When she said 'trust me', she had a slight edge to her voice. As if she wasn't going to follow through with what she had just promised me. 

I look at her dead in the eye and stand up straighter. I give her my best 'I hate you' glare and stand on my injured leg. 

"No." I say. I'm surprised by how loud and how confident I sound, considering I'm practically dying from fear. 

"No?" She asks, clearly trying to contain her annoyance and frustration. 

"You heard me clearly. I can't and won't ever trust you again. EVER. So fuck off bitch." I say evenly. Then I turn and sprint into the woods. 

. . .

Carmine groaned loudly as she watched her only daughter run in the opposite direction of where she was supposed to go. 

"It's okay Carmine, we'll find her." said Carl, Carmines accosiate. 

"Shut up Carl. You have no idea what she's capable of. She- she," and with that, Carmine started crying. She sank to her knees and fell. Carl quickly swooped down and picked her up. He sat her down on the cold concrete and let her lean on him while she cried. 

"She can't control herself for long. She's not going to survive," she cried into Carls shoulder. 

"Shhh. Shhh Carmine. Everything is going to be alright. We'll find her. I promise." Carl whispered in soothing tones. 

"How do you know? How can you possibly promise me something like that?" Carmine asked. Her voice muffled by Carls lab coat. 

"Just trust me." whispered Carl.

. . .

"Stupid mother fu- ack!" I squealed as I stumbled over yet another tree root. Stupid tree roots. They're everywhere in this forest. Then I thought for a minute. Well, duh! 

I continued to stumble through the forest in the dark, trying to get as much distance as I can between me and the lab my witch of a mother works at. I've been walking for hours and my leg hurts more than ever. It feels as though I was stabbed, the wound got infected, and a kid with dirty hands was squeezing lemon juice in it. My wound hurt. As I stumbled again, I decided I would stop for now. I took out my mini flashlight and turned it on quickly. I pointed it toward the biggest tree and quickly turned it off. I didn't need anyone seeing the light and coming to find it's source. Plus I didn't have any replacement batteries. Better to stumble blindly in the dark and have batteries than to stumble in the light and die in the dark. I walked slowly up to the tree and began climbing. I could only climb with one leg because my right leg couldn't hold any of my weight. I got to a reasonable height and sat on a thick branch. The branch split into two parts in the middle and made the perfect place for me to lay. I got settled and took out my flashlight again. I turned it on and observed my leg. What I saw made me wish I never looked. 

On my slippers there was a lot of blood that ran down my unnervingly numb leg. About two inches above my slipper, was the wound. It was a hole. Simple as that. But it was a big hole. It was a bullet hole. The wound was bleeding bad and oozing a pale yellow liquid that I figured was puss. Around the wound, out about two inches, it was a deep purple bruise. Closer, about an inch away from the wound, it was a brownish yellow. And right next to the wound, it was black. All around the wound I could see my capillary veins, like a web across my calf, and my whole leg was swollen. 

It was disgusting and it smelled horrible. I suddenly felt sick, so I leaned to the left and barfed into the tree trunk. I looked at what I grabbed in my rush to escape the lab. I had a syringe. A pair of scissors, a pen, some extra clothes (mostly lab coats), a water bottle, a mini flashlight, and a makeshift bag. 

'Crap,' I thought. 'How am I supposed to survive if I can't heal myself. I need help!' 

I sighed and covered my leg. I put on two lab coats so I wouldn't be as cold and used the other two to cover my legs. Then I leaned against the tree, and fell asleep gazing at the stars and wishing for a miracle.