The Monsters Inside (Formerly Extract)

Savages

When they came to see us, it was much different than before.

The last time we had seen them, they were confident, cocky, and ready to take down their petty captives. Not this time. This time they lined up against the back wall, watching us, wary of us. John and I stayed crouched in our positions, assessing our threats. We didn’t attack, not yet, as they posed no immediate threat to us. They hadn’t taken our food, nor asserted their dominance over our dominion. They were calm, passing bystanders, tourists looking at new creatures in a zoo.

The red-head was the first to step forward and immediately John and I bared our teeth and growled. He stepped back, a curious expression came over his face, and then he did something that made my blood run cold even in my primal state. He smiled, a sickening satisfied smile, as if this was what he had hoped for. As if he had wanted us to change into these beasts. A ghostly whisper echoed through my muddled brain: how long does it take to turn couple of normal teenagers into savage beasts?

“Excellent.” His voice was cold, like a hard slap to the face. I flinched away from it, and then bared my teeth in defiance. A growl broke out of John’s chest. Our instincts told us not to trust this man, this foreign being standing in our midst. He just continued to smile, as if this was the reaction he had expected. We didn’t like this. We bared our teeth further, getting into an attacking position. “Excellent.”

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If I had been saner, I would have gotten free. If I’d had any shred of intelligence left, I would have run. But I wasn’t sane; my mind had gone in away, floating in the stars. And I did not run, although I should have.

The moment John and I awoke, there were bags over our faces and our hands were bound. We struggled, our instincts telling us that nothing could come from this imprisonment. There were muffled curses just outside my ears and I knew the captors were close by, watching, waiting. A sharp, stinging pain engulfed my elbow, followed by a brief fire that coursed through my body and rendered me motionless. My inner beast struggled and I could feel John’s doing the same: trying to protect itself from unseen danger. But it was all for nothing; our bodies were picked up and dragged away, out of the room, out of the darkness, only to be forced into a hell far worse than the one we had imagined.

We were moving, and yet we stayed sitting. Still, there was a distinct feeling of moving swiftly that sat in our guts and made us more vigilant. There was no noise other than the sound of gravel being crushed: no talking, barely even breathing. This only served to put me more on edge. John and I were back to back, protecting each other against any threat that may come without our knowing.

Finally we stopped. A slamming sound erupted close to us and John and I tensed. Footsteps, though muffled, were surrounding our positions, and John and I struggled frantically against our bonds. Another slamming sound, then we were lifted and broken apart. I snarled, thrashing against the hold that stopped me from reaching the only other being I trusted. Dimly I could hear John thrashing as well, along with a muffled string of curses. The sound was getting further away, and again I had the feeling I was being moved.

When the mask was finally removed a blinding light pierced my vision. I hissed, clawing at my eyes, and backed away to find some shelter. Next to me I heard similar movements and –squinting- saw John blocking the light with his arm. We crouched together, growling, John raising his arm to shield our eyes from the light. My growling ceased when I felt the ground: sticky, slick, wet. Red with blood.

A sharp slam took my attention from the floor to the wall I could now see. There stood a man, one I had never seen before, with a tall stature and ice blue eyes. In his hand he held a spiked whip, dripping with the same substance that littered the floor.

John and I circled the man, eyeing him warily, growling softly. He looked too calm, too confident, and it irked us. He was so relaxed, I almost missed the moment he tensed and cracked the whip at me. Almost.

I dodged at the last moment and while his attention was still on me, John pounced. Together they fell forward, rolling a bit before ending with John on top, trying to claw the man’s face off. The man kicked him off and John rolled, landing in a heap by the wall. The man turned to me, his confidence gone, replaced with anger. He picked the whip back up and snapped it, wrapping it around my foot. One tug and I fell, cracking my head on the floor. Spots appeared in my vision, but I pushed through them to see him standing over me, smirking. That triggered something in me, and I jumped, catching his hand between my teeth, and then letting gravity do its job. Skin tore, blood fell into my eyes, and a scream ripped through the room.

The scream was cut short when a figure hit him from behind, causing him to fall on the floor. John flipped the man around and pounded his fist into his face. Blood spurted from his nose, his eyes rolling back in his head. I joined him, rushing at the man and clawing at the skin on his legs until the skin was hanging in shreds. Suddenly I was tackled into the ground and a sharp, cold sting burned the back of my neck. My moves became sluggish, and the last thing I saw was the man shoving his bloodied boot into my face.