Tails of My Life

Tails of My Life Chapter 19

Chapter 19

When I woke up, I had absolutely no idea where I was.  I came to very slowly, not quite understanding how I had actually gotten wherever I was.  I was too groggy to move my head around much, but from what I could see I was in a small room with some dark grey cinderblock walls, one of which wasn’t actually a wall, but was instead made of bars like a jail cell.  There were no windows that I could see either.

I turned my head slightly and discovered that I was laying on a narrow, low to the ground cot.  I went to push myself into a sitting position, but soon found that even though my hands were lying on my chest comfortably, they were actually bound together.  They were only tied together with rope, so I might have been able to get them off eventually, but in my still apparently drugged state, I knew that there was no way I’d get them off easily.

I then forced myself into a sitting position, thankful that the cot I was resting on was in a corner and I could use the walls to balance myself.  Sitting up was a lot harder than I expected, because the movement quickly made me dizzy and I almost fell to the floor.

Once I was sitting and could see the room around me better, I started trying to figure out where I was so that maybe I could escape when I got the chance.  I still couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there or who had brought me there, so I didn’t even know how many I could be up against.  The only things that I knew were what I could figure out from the room around me.  Considering the overall bareness of the room, it would be hard to figure out much of anything.

There were no windows, so I could be hours away from where they’d gotten me and I’d never know.  I knew that whoever was holding me captive was not going to underestimate me.  Not only had they put me in a room behind bars, they’d also tied up my hands.  Yes, I had some magic, but a mermaid’s magic is more playful than powerful.  I couldn’t even get my ropes off of me with magic.

I decided that I could try to get up and walk over to the bars, so that hopefully I could see something beyond them to help me figure this all out, something that I couldn’t see now.  I turned to swing my legs to the floor, but quickly discovered that I had somehow turned back into a mermaid.  There, beneath the blanket that was covering me, was my tail in all its’ glory.  I had no idea how I’d managed to miss it when I sat up.

I sighed; it probably changed back when they drugged me to get me here.  I knew they’d had to drug me some, or else I’d remember more.  Changing back to human was an easy enough fix though.  I just closed my eyes and concentrated like I had the last time I’d done it, what seemed like such a long time ago now.  This time though, no matter how long and hard I concentrated, I couldn’t get my tail to separate back into legs.

I shook my head to try and clear it of some of the fog surrounding my brain and tried again.  Once again, nothing happened, and I still had a tail.

“What in the world?” I asked myself quietly.  I kept trying for a little while longer, getting more and more frustrated when it still didn’t work.  I wasn’t really sure what to do at that point.  I couldn’t try to stand up.  I knew that if I did, I would only fall on my face between having a tail and my hands tied together.  I sighed, looking down at my tail in anger and frustration.

“What’s the matter Princess?” a voice called out, and I looked up from my tail to see a blonde man standing on the other side of the bars from me.  “Are you having some problems?”

“Who are you?  Where am I?” I asked, ignoring both of his questions to ask my own.  The man chuckled at me.

“Apparently the drugs are working at keeping you just coherent if you don’t remember.  I’m the one who brought you here, my dear sweet Princess,” he said, and it started coming back to me slowly.  Brooke, Pierce, the drugs and… Tyson.  Poor Tyson, even in my drugged up state I knew that he would feel like this was his entire fault.

“But who are you?  Why did you bring me here?” I asked, speaking slowly so I didn’t jumble up my words.

“To get what we want,” the man said simply, and I shook my head, only succeeding in making myself dizzy.

“But what do you want?  And why do you need me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Um, yeah, I would,” I said slowly, not comprehending what he was saying.  He just laughed at me.

“I love talking to people when they’re on drugs,” he said, still laughing.  “It doesn’t matter whether you’d like to know or not.  What matters is that we’re getting what we want before you get out of here, no matter how long that takes.”

“You didn’t tell me who you are,” I told the blonde man, pointing out that I could still do basic thinking.

“I know.  You’ll figure it out one day though, so it doesn’t matter right now,” the man told me with a smile, starting to turn and walk away.

“Wait!” I called after him, and he turned around to look at me questioningly.

“Yes, my sweet Princess?” he asked with a grin.

“Can you please untie my hands?” I asked, holding them up in the air for him to see in case he’d forgotten.

“We did that for a reason Princess,” he said, starting to walk away again.

“But wait!”  I called again, and he turned back to look at me.  “I can’t do anything like escape whether my hands are tied or not.  I have a tail, so I can’t just get up and move around.  You even have me on drugs so I can’t concentrate fully on anything long enough to fix that either.  Not to mention the fact that I’m behind bars.  What harm would untying my hands do?”  I asked, my eyes pleading with him to listen.  That was very unlike me, but I knew that I needed to be very careful what I said or did while they had me.  I knew this even in my drugged state.

“That is a very good point,” the man acknowledged.

“Thank you,” I replied, holding my hands out again so he could come untie them.

“It just points out to me that if you are able to make these points you are much too coherent for our needs,” he said, turning and walking away briskly, leaving me calling after him and wondering what would happen next.

A few seconds later, I heard a heavy door shut, and then felt an odd whoosh of air.  Then a medicine-like smell filled the room, and I belatedly realized what was going on.  I was being drugged once again, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.