Captive: Hopeless

Chapter 6 - Failure

Daniella stared at the third blue bag since her trip to the bathroom, acutely aware that there were three bags of blood and no saline. This time, whatever it contained was in its purest form, glowing brightly and deeply blue.

In the meantime, she'd figured out a few things. Firstly, she was O-positive, and three bags of AB-negative were on that stand; thus, their purpose was not to keep her from bleeding out. At least not in the way it would work for a human, and she was pretty sure she was no longer one of those.

If she were, she would have starved by having had no meals, nor did they give her any water since she left the "waiting room." The thought made her grimace, and she wanted to wash the taste of medicine and some other tangy metallic tang from her mouth.

When she tried to drink water during her shower, the nurse, Tarryn, curtly told her, "No, don't drink that," without further explanation.

It had been weeks, and she should be dead. Hell, she had died but still lived.

Time brought her to terms with the fact that no one would be looking for her any longer, and her family would assume her dead. Perhaps that was better for them.

***

Tarryn and whoever yanked her strings were not friendly people, lacking empathy and conscience, and would kill if thwarted.

When they thought her unconscious, Tarryn and the man, Reuben, often spoke, never noticing the small spikes in her charts that indicated her awareness, or maybe they didn't care.

"What happened to subject 241's father?" Reuben asked, fixing her drip.

"Had to kill him. He followed the van here and tried to get into the compound. I lured him to one of the warehouses and took him out."

They spoke about these facilities as warehouses as if she and the others were goods or meat.

Anger at their callousness fisted her hands.

"How did you dispose of him?"

"Strangled him. Despite everything, his puny efforts were for naught. He should have cut his losses and moved on. Now his other kid and her mother have no caretaker," her words lacked inflection, except when she said strangled, there was satisfaction in the phrase as if choking the man gave her pleasure.

"That was unfortunate. Have you forgotten our master does not like unsanctioned killing? It gets messy and leaves trails for humans to follow." Reuben's tone broadcasted his dislike of Tarryn, his displeasure as evident as his disdain.

Tarryn hated him, and although she tried to hide it, it was obvious to Daniella.

"Then there will be more dead humans. We will sanitize the facility, and that would be that," she said emotionlessly.

Sanitize involved killing. She was sure of that much.

"There would be no need for such expensive exercises in futility if you were less sloppy in your disregard for the human masses. They outnumber us ten million to one. Remember that the next time you open your mouth," Reuben barely controlled his displeasure, a distinct growl to his voice.

"Yes, Reuben," Tarryn stressed his name, her attempt at sounding meek a failure as she fiddled with the sheets.

Daniella had never seen his face, not daring to open her eyes in his presence. To him, she didn't matter as an individual; he only cared about her "progress."

"Only this one and 476 have not completed the change. Do you think the problem lies with their seeding?" Tarryn asked.

"Her DNA is more resistant to the change. The stronger ones tend to take a little longer," he said, leaving the room without offering any explanation.

Tarryn opened the drip valve, and she braced herself, but the woman turned it wide open instead of setting it to drip. The stream hit Daniella's veins like a tsunami.

"Let's see if you are as special as he thinks," Tarryn muttered with distinct spite as she walked away and closed the door behind her.

***

Daniella felt as if she had rolled down a mountain and hit every rock on the way down while on fire after being splashed with acid, then slammed by a semi that dragged her along before depositing her under the wheels of a train.

The heart rate and blood pressure monitors screamed like a whistle, and when it was all done, she could barely catch her breath. Of course, that was when Tarryn arrived.

"Time to clean you up; you are a mess."

Daniella could not walk, and Tarryn dragged her along, smearing the floor with blood and whatever.

Her skin and body felt raw, as if her skin had been stripped off her about an inch deep, but Tarryn did not care.

When she could not grip the soap or the sponge, Tarryn washed her roughly. If Daniella could still scream, she would have; instead, it sounded as if she were choking.

When Tarryn finished her task, she left Daniella in the middle of the floor in a wet bundle, shaking and shivering with reaction, and returned with clean scrubs.

"Congratulations, you are not dead. There is a mop and a bucket in the closet. Clean your mess in the hallway, or I will make you lick it up," Tarryn warned, turning on her heel and disappearing into the corridor.

***

It took a very long time for Daniella to uncurl herself and even longer to drag her body upright to dress awkwardly.

Standing took a monumental effort, and she walked slowly and carefully to fetch the mop and bucket, which she did not know how to operate and glimpsing herself in the mirror, she stilled.

The woman reflected toward her, scared her.

Those intense eyes stared into her soul with barely contained pain, suppressed out of some instinct for survival, and the stranger was not her.

Like a moron, she had to read the instructions first and thanked her lucky stars that they were still in the liner bag on the outside of the water bin.

She never did such chores at home, and her mother had one of those spinny things she had never been allowed to touch.

Yes, she was spoiled. They had a lovely maid, who, like a magic fairy, was always gone when they returned from school.

On weekends, they made their beds, picked up their clothes, and put the dishes in the machine. Even though she was a twenty-year-old student, life had remained unchanged, except for the fact that she now resided in the apartment behind her parents' house with her sister.

Had lived.

Tammy was eighteen and also a student, and although they were not rich as in fancy cars and plane rides, her father made a good living as a surgeon, and her mother was a pediatric nurse.

Despite the fact that her mother was an artist in her spare time and her paintings were worth a lot of money, she didn't want to leave medicine. She enjoyed painting poignant pictures of children and saw deeper than the surface.

***

It took a long time to clean up the mess, and despite quickly getting the hang of the pushcart mop, she was exhausted, barely having the energy to lift her arms.

Pushing the cart back to the bathroom, cleaning it out, and returning to her room took forever.

She crawled the last few meters on her hands and knees but could not get up on the bed, falling asleep on the icy ground while shaking from exhaustion as if she had a fever.

Damn, fear gives one strength you would not otherwise have, but even that has its limits. Newest Version ©2014-2023 All rights reserved. If you find this on any other platform but Wattpad under @CSDreamer, please report it. No part of this book may be copied or reposted without the author's permission.