Junkyard of Heroes

Prologue

 The girl woke up slowly, her eyes fluttering open to reveal a small, dark room. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling, washing everything in a weak yellowy light. There was a damp smell in the room, and a bitter scent, she didn’t know what from, which confused and scared her.

      Heavy footsteps outside the room had woken her, but she heard the steps get softer as the person walked away from the door. The door. She didn’t recognise it. In fact she didn’t recognise anything. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture. She tried to sit up but suddenly noticed she couldn’t move. She thrashed her arms, trying to free them, but resulted only in sharp pains in her wrists and upper arms as the cold metal restraints cut into her skin.

      As she lay there on the table she had been tied to, the memories of the previous night came flooding back. The party, there had been a party. She had gotten dressed and ready in a friend’s house.  Her friend had let her borrow a pair of black heels to go with her strapless red dress.

      She moved her head up as best she could. Looking down on her body she saw that her dress and shoes had been removed, replaced by a white hospital gown. It didn’t look very clean, like it had been used before. She thought she spotted some blood on the hem before forcing herself to look away.

      She had met Tom and Blake at the party. They seemed nice enough, and a lot of people appeared to know them. Tom had told her she looked really nice, while Blake got her a drink. Stupidly she had taken the drink. She felt woozy soon afterwards but presumed it was just a strong drink, after all she wasn’t great at holding her drinks well.

      The thought of that dreadful drink from the night before made her feel vile. She frantically swallowed the bile rising in her throat. She didn’t want to end up choking on her own puke because she couldn’t move. If she was going to die, she’d rather she died with more dignity than that. Fear struck her as she realised - she might die. These few thoughts may be her last.

      The drink affected her and she had begun to stumble through the dancing crowds, tripping over nothing. Tom had had to hold her up properly while she giggled non-stop. Blake called her friend over and explained that she was a little tipsy, and they would bring her home before she embarrassed or hurt herself more. The memories were getting very vague now. She seemed to remember Blake having two heads.

      She was lead over to Blake’s car and strapped into the backseat while the two men got in the front. Everything was hazy, blurred. She recalled seeing her friend wave goodbye at her when she blacked out.

            She drifted out of consciousness sometime during their journey. She didn’t know where they were driving to but it definitely wasn’t her house. Ignoring the pounding pains in her head, she managed to catch snippets of Tom and Blake’s conversation.

      They said something about deserving more payment for “getting the goods”. Tom had said that without them the entire experiment would cease to exist, while Blake laughed at him, daring him to tell that to the boss. The girl had tried to listen more intently, intrigued by the experiment mentioned, until Blake caught sight of her sitting up awake in his rearview mirror.

      The car stopped and her blood ran cold. Tom got out with a bottle in his hand. He opened the door beside her and a shiver ran through her, not just from the cool winter breeze. He poured whatever liquid was in the bottle onto a cloth from his pocket and forced the cloth on her face, blocking her nose and mouth from breathing in anything else.

       She held her breath but couldn’t hold it for long. Eventually she breathed in the fumes from the cloth. It had smelt pungent and sweet, and the strong smell clouded her mind. Her vision seemed to blur again and she blinked, struggling to stay awake. Her attempts to remain conscious were unsuccessful. She blacked out.

      The next time she woke she was tied to the table. She was panicking a lot, not knowing where she was or what was going to happen to her. Her breathing had quickened, as had her pulse, as the thoughts of what might happen had overthrown any calming thoughts.

      The door opened and she flinched at the bright light now filling the room. She could see the silhouette of a man in the doorway. He walked up and she could see that it was Tom, from the night before. His green eyes met her brown ones, and he pulled a chair up to sit next to her. A few strands of blond hair had fallen into his eyes but he didn’t seem to care.

      She felt so full of questions, burning with the need to find out what was going on. Her blood boiled with anger as the realisation set in that he was the reason she was trapped. She was about to speak but one glare from him and every inch of her shuddered in fear.

      He was working on something on a small wooden table beside her head. She couldn’t see what he was doing but she heard him twist open a bottle cap, and the bitter smell in the room intensified greatly. After a few minutes of him working in silence he looked back at her and grinned. She wondered how she had ever thought he looked good, his smile was creepy, scary almost.

      “Mornin’ sweetheart,” he said to her. His voice was accented with a slight Texan air. “You’ve been out for a while now, and I bet you’re feeling pretty gross right now. Blake gave you some pretty strong stuff last night.”

      She stared at him in wide-eyed shock. He was talking about this so casually, like kidnapping was a normal everyday thing. Maybe for him it was.

      “But not to worry darling, we’ll get started on you right away,” he told her. “Now then, you’re probably wondering what’s going on and what’s going to happen et cetera, et cetera. I’ll be honest here, I hate explaining things like this to people. It’s boring and wastes time.”

      He tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear and leaned down close to her, so close she could smell the coffee off his breath.

      “But I’ll tell you a bit,” he whispered in her ear. “Cos I’ve got a thing for redheads.”

      His words made her feel disgusting and she felt like she would puke again. She involuntarily wondered if he had changed her into the hospital gown.

      “You, sweetheart, are currently in a large abandoned factory which is used for the experiment,” Tom continued, working at the little table again. “You are one of the lucky people chosen to take part in this experiment. Congrats on that, by the way.

      “Now my job is to take people here and tie them up, the way you are currently tied to this table. Unfortunately today the guy who usually deals with delivering the tonic is doing another job, so I get to work with you today, which I’m not entirely upset about.”

      With these words he held up a needle. A dark blue liquid filled it. The girl squirmed in her restraints. She hated needles. Tom grew angrier at her struggling and raised his voice slightly.

      “Stop moving! Keep moving and this entire process gets a hell of a lot more difficult, meaning we may have to do it again and again until we get it right.” As soon as the words left his mouth she stopped moving, earning her a grin from him.

      “Good girl,” said Tom. He held the needle up to his face and squeezed some of the liquid out, spurting it into the air.

      “I should warn you, this is gonna hurt. I mean, I assume it will. So far everyone it’s been tested on has died screaming. But this new recipe might just be the right mixture.” He untied the restraints on her left arm and roughly held it down with the inside of the elbow facing him. She tried to move her arm and hit him, or smash the needle, something, but he was too strong.

       With a look of determination and confidence on his face he plunged the needle into her arm. His eyes watched, fascinated as her veins turned the same dark blue as the liquid, the colour slowly spreading under her skin in an odd design.

      And as the hot searing pain spread like wildfire through her body her screams were loud enough for the birds outside to hear.