Specials

Chapter 21- Slice

"W-who?!" Jania stammered, fear tugging at her. The thumping on the closet door grew louder and louder, sounding like the thing inside was going to shoot out at any second.

"Slice, your servant. I made her for you, and you did seem to enjoy her quite a bit..." Alec trailed off, then crossed the room and threw open the closet door. Jania almost screamed at what stumbled out. It was a person, a girl, but she didn't look like any healthy, normal girl. Her skin was a sickly paper white, tinged with a greenish sheen and and so thin you could see the veins beneath her skin. Her hair was also white, and it looked as dry as straw, sticking to her skull then spiking up in every which way. Her eyes had a demented glint to them, a wide smile tearing across her features. Her head hung at an angle, to the left, as if her neck had been broken and never quite healed correctly. The most striking thing about this figure, though, was that she was covered in blood. There was the thick substance all over her, providing a sharp contrast against her colorless skin and hair. The blood seemed to be all hers, oozing from cuts around her mouth to extend her smile, thin lines on her thighs, deep scratches all over her body. In her hand, she was holding a sharp knife, but she was holding it by the blade instead of the handle, and more of the ruby red blood dripped from her hand onto the floor. Jania felt horribly sorry for her, and had the urge to kill the poor creature to put her out of her misery.

"What do you desire, master?" Slice, that was what Alec had called her, spoke in a rasping, scraping voice. Jania shuddered.

"Go feed the prisoners, Slice," Alec ordered.

"Yes, master," Slice ducked her head and shuffled out of the room, still clutching her knife.

"Jania, are you okay? You're looking a bit shaky..." Alec looked her over, the picture of a concerned brother.

"No, I'm fine," Jania shivered, hoping that she was not this terrible person who kept these walking corpses for fun, who watched their suffering as if it was no big deal. "Wait, what prisoners?"

"Oh, you know, people who've displeased me, done something against me, that sort of thing," Alec replied, then seemed suspicious. "Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," Jania shrugged. She had this strong urge, a tug at the edge of her memory block, like a thread she could tug on to unravel the tapestry and then the mystery of her memory. It had something to do with the prisoners. She needed to see them, she felt that she would recognize them, for some reason.

*

A few weeks later, and Jania's thoughts would still not leave her alone. They ran amok in her head, pressing and pounding and needling at the memory block that still remained in her head, trying to get a little more of it to give way. Sometimes it worked, but the only things Jania gained from these few occasions were things like what her favorite food was, or the name of her childhood pet. On the instances when she tried to probe farther than this trivial information, a dull thrum of pain ached at her temples. For example, when she learned that her favorite food was a vegetable mix that her mom had made, Jania tried to remember her mom, pushing hard at the memory block. Alec had never, ever mentioned anything about parents. But, when she pushed, the headache returned.When she learned her childhood pet, a dog, was named Simba, she tried to remember more, even if the more was trivial details. Where had the dog slept in this cold stone fortress? How had he been taken for walks? This questions was where Jania met the most resistance, as Alec had forbidden her from going outside.

"It's dangerous out there. Wild animals that could rip you apart. Bugs the size of your head that will suck all your blood. Poisonous plants that could kill you with a touch of their leaves. What's more, that's where the apprentice quarters are, and you don't want to be hit by another stray spell, do you?" Alec had chided her. Alec also used this roundabout reasoning to keep her out of his office, and the underground dungeons where the prisoners were kept. However, Jania soon got her chance to peek inside the latter.

*

Jania went into the Living Hall, a weapon-strewn room where Alec spent most of the time that wasn't occupied by his experiments in, to find Alec strapping a belt of sharp knives to the inside of his long black robe that he always wore.

"What are you doing?" Jania asked.

"I'm going outside. There's been a slight error in one of the generators, and the apprentices are too foolish to figure it out themselves. I'll only be gone a few hours. Slice will look after you," Alec replied, then swept past her, presumably to go outside. Jania instantly knew that this was her chance. She could go see the prisoners, as the block in her memory was urging her to. After all, if Slice was her only "protector," this would be a piece of cake.

"Or... A slice of cake," Jania giggled to herself as she slunk down the stairs into the earthen passages that led to the prisoner's quarters.

*

Halfway to the prisoners, Jania heard a soft noise behind her. She glanced behind, her heart pounding. Slice was standing at the entrance to the tunnels, creepily backlit by the torchlight from the hallway. Jania paid her no attention, continuing determinedly down the hallways. Slice couldn't hurt anything but herself, right? She couldn't even hold the knife the right way!

As Jania continued down the hallways, she could hear Slice creeping behind her. She tried not to look back, but the few times she did, she noticed Slice closing the gap between them. Jania increased her pace, heart beating furiously. A few minutes later, Slice was almost upon her, but Jania had entered a new hallway lined with heavy steel doors. As Jania walked past them, she suddenly stopped dead in front of one no different than the others. There was a faint scratching noise coming from behind it. Something in Jania's mind, the memory block perhaps, urged her to open the door. Gingerly, Jania stretched a hand out, and carefully turned the door handle. Slice snarled behind her, lurching forwards with her knife held out. Jania wrenched the heavy door the rest of the way open. A blur of black, white, and two jewels of glinting red leapt out. Jania, pressed against the wall, was overlooked by the blur. But Slice was not. Slice was tackled to the ground by the blur, which now that it was stationary, Jania could see was actually a girl. A girl who was now digging her sharp fangs into the blood-streaked neck of Slice. Slice was making a high-pitched keening noise, and the girl was making slurping noises.

Oh my god, Jania's fear felt like something cold and metal in her mouth as she realized this, she's drinking her blood!