The Man with the Vampire Smile

--Mary

Mary’s POV

Mary had never liked the cold. She thought it was rather disgusting. If given a choice, she would rather die in a desert than the North Pole. But perhaps it was easier to warm up than to cool down. Mary slowly got to her feet and shook out her arms. Her strength was returning, slowly, but it was coming back.

It had been zapped to nothing after they took blood about an hour ago. It had been fairly uneventful. One male guard simply took her arm and pulled her out of the room. He pulled her to the room that she’d woken in when she’d first arrived. At first, she’d refused to get on the dreadful piece of titled metal but her five foot six frame was nothing compared to the ruthless guard’s six foot five frame and arms the size of Canada. Needless to say, she ended up on the table.

This time, it wasn’t the Doctor who had taken blood. It was some woman in the cliché white lab coat. She’d inserted the IV thing in her arm and drawn the blood like she’d been born to do so. Mary yelled insults the entire time. The nurse had slapped in the face, fairly hard, but it’d been worth it. Or at least that’s what Mary kept telling herself.

 She cursed herself for not paying better attention in health class. Did moving around make blood reproduce faster? Or would she benefit more by resting? She didn't want to risk prolonging her recovery but she wanted to warm up. She thought about asking Dane what he thought was best but decided against it. She never knew if he was asleep or not and there was no was no way she was going to risk waking him.

She shivered again. It was another added cruelty that this man was doing to his captives, keeping it freezing.

Mary started by walking around the room. She now refused to call it a cell. That seemed too submissive. Especially if she referred to it as her cell. 

After about thirty seconds of walking, she became bored so she started to jog in place. The echoes were loud in the small room and Mary yearned for the other captives to hear her. She wanted them to get up and do something. Anything. They all seemed so broken. Seeing Dane bloody and battered on a stage and having threats thrown left and right didn't exactly do wonders for the mindset either.

It was three days after Dane had been beaten and so far they hadn't taken any more blood from him. She knew because she hadn’t heard him screaming. Mary feared that if they did, Dane wouldn't be able to handle it.

She was on a hunger strike now. She wasn't entirely sure if the guards knew about it but just to make sure, the next time they gave her food she was going to verbally decline. She hadn’t eaten the last two meals but the guards didn’t seem to notice. Maybe they thought she was too worried to eat. Or maybe this is what all the new prisoners did and they didn’t think anything of it.

She was furious and terrified. She was furious because of what they did to Dane, about what these people were doing to all of the prisoners, furious that the prisoners were broken. She was terrified because she knew they could kill her very easily.

She hadn't told Dane about her decision to not eat. She didn't want him to join her because he was too weak. Mary also didn't want Dane to tell her it wouldn't work. She wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish but you never heard of anyone overthrowing a government by crying about it.

Not that crying about their situation was bad or anything.

When the food did come, it was the same as always. Disgusting, cold, and for the pigs.

But sill Mary had to block out the noises of her stomach as the food was put into her cell. She was so busy staring at it that she forgot about her idea to verbally decline. She was having second thoughts about this whole hunger strike thing. She bit down on the inside of her cheeks to will down the instinct to eat. Mary told herself to be like Dane. Or like Dane was. Do things that got under their skin. Be like Dane.

But wasn’t that exactly how Dane ended up having a difficult time breathing?

Mary starred at the food. She knew not eating wouldn’t make these people throw their hands up in defeat and say, “Oh, look! This one’s not eating! Maybe we should just call the whole highly illegal business quits. We wouldn’t want these people unhappy, would we?”

No.

So why did she feel so obligated to do something rebellious? She knew what could happen to her. Why put herself at risk for something that wouldn’t make a difference?

She looked at the tray once again. She was being stupid. Just eat it.

Her hand hovered over the tray, hands grazing what was meant to be her meal. She put one finger in the soup and stirred it around, trying to get the grease to break up and half a cricket body came to the surface.

She decided to stick with her hunger strike idea.