The Monsters Inside (Formerly Extract)

Protection

When again I awoke, I was back at that place. The place that had a foul smell coating every inch, that loomed in darkness, that emanated Death's very presence. The last time I was there, I had almost killed a man with a long, slender strip of leather as he pounded across my companion's back.

Remembering my dear friend, I turned, frantic, looking for the boy. All around me were crisscrossed wires tinted red from the past inhabitants of this dismal place. Dimly, a word echoed in a strange voice, pronouncing 'cell' and with it a chill in the air. An abomination's rightful place, the voice sneered. Yet still, my surroundings held no true meaning for me except that one thought: the boy was gone. No matter how hard my search, no matter how loud my shrieks, no figure emerged from the darkness to quell the uneasy settling somewhere in my chest.

        Then I heard it. The faintest, weakest sound, pitiful and poor, but it brought relief with it. A groan sounded by my killing hand*, and I turned that way, eyes straining against the black to see the crumpled remains of the once mighty warrior. He had risked his life defending me, and with each second's passing I felt his essence trickle slowly away, fading into near emptiness. I screamed, pounded, fought, bit, and clawed, but the wires separating our beings would not relent; they simply stared back, proudly displaying the blood trails of former captives who had practiced many failed escapes.

        Still I fought on, refusing to be weakened by mere wires. A figure emerged from the darkness and hissed at me, demanding I be silent. But I didn't hear; the only sound that echoed in my ear drums was the muffled groan of my companion as he slipped further into unconsciousness. A sharp rap on the side of my 'cell' paused my thrashing for but a moment, until that too faded in significance to my fallen friend. Again it sounded, and once more, until the instigator of that sound grew frustrated with my apparent indifference to his presence.

        "Fight, fight, fight..." A voice whispered in the back of my mind, foreign and cold and strong. "Get him out alive." Nothing else mattered, not the hissing of the stranger, the zzzzap! of the sparking tool he had just produced, or the blood leaving my fingertips and painting it on the cage, forever to stand with the red life of the previous inhabitants of this entrapment. All that matter was getting to my companion...nothing else mattered-

        A sudden sharp sting erupted on my side, and then I was convulsing. Shrieking, choking, slipping from reality as my body shook on the cold floor. My eyes rolled back into my head until I could see nothing, a sharp ring replaced all other sound, no feeling except that of a sharp shock all over my body. When all pain subsided, I sensed a dark figure towering over me. It was the stranger, weapon in hand, smirk firmly on his face. I lunged, shouting, but the cruel metal bars held me back. The man continued to find joy in my fruitless endeavor. 

        Perhaps I shall introduce myself to your friend...? The sound echoed in my ears, still ringing from the previous pain. It came from the man, and he was walking up to the boy, smiling a sick, sadistic smile, his weapon hand itching toward the crumpled body on the floor. A shrill siren rang as I flung my body towards the pair, using all my strength to get that creature away from my boy. Thrashing, spitting, crying, screaming, I fought my way to them, fingers scraped raw by my efforts. He cannot die. I won't allow it! I will protect you! I promise you, boy I will not let anything happen to you. I will protect you...

Always.