Regenerate

Chapter 13

I hate bars. I really do.

I can’t believe people actually do this voluntarily, going out and getting drunk and dancing stupidly.

Half past midnight, and I’ve seen plenty of bald men, but none who seemed particularly suspicious.

After another hour, I get a text from Mantis telling me that I can head home for the night. If the killer was going to strike, he probably would have by now.

I sigh and pick up my purse. There's a guy on the barstool next to me who's trying to have a conversation, but I wasn't listening before. Maybe I should feel bad about walking out on him mid-sentence. I don't.

I walk out of the bar, disappointed not to have made any progress, but happy to be rid of the place.

Two blocks from the bar, I feel someone lightly touch my shoulder. Before I can turn and see who it is, my knees buckle under me. My head feels like it’s full of bricks.

What is happening to me?

Are all the injuries I’ve ever received catching up with me? Am I going to die? Because this has to be what dying feels like.

I can’t support myself any more, but whoever touched me soon has a hand around my waist, and he’s leading me away somewhere.

I manage to swing my head back enough to get a look at the guy. He’s bald. This has to be our guy.

But what is he doing to me, and why am I not getting any better? There must be something about him that's draining me, something that's preventing me from healing myself. Maybe he's as much of a freak as I am.

Is Mantis watching? Does he know that a serial killer is taking me to I don’t even know where?

I try calling out for help, but my mouth won’t move like it’s supposed to. I just end up moaning instead.

“Got a lot of energy, don’t you,” The bald man hisses in my ear.

If I could speak, I’d say something really clever back to him.

After dragging me a couple more blocks,  the man enters an alley and pulls me in a side door.

This is how horror movies begin.

The room we’re in has clearly been abandoned for a while. There’s a fine layer of dust and cobwebs covering all the surfaces. There are big glass tanks everywhere.  A sign on the wall says “Welcome to Northwood Aquarium.”

An abandoned aquarium. This is getting more horror movie by the minute. All we need now is a flesh-eating octopus.

The bald man lies me down on a bench because I'm still too weak to move myself. He pushes my hair away from my face. I try thrashing around a little, but can't even manage to do that properly.

My breathing is heavy, panicked. I don't know what to do. I've never been this helpless in my life. There's something superhuman about this man, I'm sure of it. And what if he's just super human enough to kill me for good. Maybe this time my luck runs out.

"Shh," he says. "No need to worry. When I'm done you'll be remembered forever. People will always know how beautiful you were."

The man pulls a knife out of his pocket, which does nothing to encourage me not to worry. He makes a cut on my hand and drains some blood into a beaker. I try to yank my hand away from him, but he just laughs. He drops my hand, and it dangles uselessly at my side, blood dripping from the cut onto the dusty, concrete floor.

"Never had one fight as much as you," The man says. He turns away from me and pulls a canvas out of his bag.

"Stop." It's the first coherent word I've managed to get out, but it's too weak to have any real effect on him. He leans in close to me and puts a hand on my forehead.

If I was dizzy before, now I feel like I have a swarm of bees buzzing around in my head. The man brings his hand down and closes my eys.

"Go to sleep," he whispers, and I'm so tired that I actually do.

My head is still fuzzy when I wake up. It takes me a minute to remember where I am, what happened to me. But when I do remember, my eyes flash open. I bolt upright, though doing so makes me dizzy again.

There's a clatter as the bald man spins around to face me. His eyes go wide. "You're..."

"Alive?" I finish for him. When he spun around, he knocked over a canvas. The one with a portrait he painted in my own blood. Part of me wants to see it, but I have to focus on taking care of the killer first.

I stand up, as the man advances toward me.

"You're one of the gifted ones," he says.

"Yes," I say. I'm still too tired for snarky comebacks. Besides, i need to get away from this guy.

I try running, but I’m too groggy. I trip over my own feat, landing hard on the ground.

The man reaches out a hand and grabs my wrist, and I'm back to being helpless.

"Very impressive," the man says. "I can't have you following me, though."

He looks around the room, considering. I look around the room too, trying to decide if anything here would make a decent weapon. That is, if have enough energy to use a weapon.

The bald man comes to a conclusion faster than I do. He goes to his bag and pulls out some duct tape. He tapes my wrists together, then my ankles. Then he tosses my once again limp body over his shoulder. He's stronger than he looks. I might be more concerned about that if I weren’t so worried about what he was going to do to me.

He takes me through a door that's marked "Employees only." Then he drags me up some steps and it takes me a minute to realize he's dangling me over an empty tank from the old aquarium. He opens the door to the tank and drops me in.

With my arms and ankles bound, I sink to the bottom fast. I trash around, trying not to breathe, but the water fills my nose anyway.

There's nothing I can do to get out of this. I'm going to drown. But it won't kill me. Instead I'll be stuck in here, trying to breathe, but inhaling water.

My brain will go through the normal human reaction of panicking, even though I can't actually die. This is going to be even worse than the time I had the bullet stuck in my brain.

My lungs are burning.

I try to calm myself, convince my brain that I’m not dying. It’s no good. My brain is still panicking, still convinced I’m going to die.

I might die. I don’t know if my healing abilities will allow me to go on indefinitely without air. I’ve never been in a scenario where I couldn’t breathe.

How long has it been since he dumped me here? How long before somebody finds my body?

Does Mantis know I’m here?

I can’t do this. I can’t be trapped here.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

No! no. no. no.

Somebody help me. Somebody help me. Somebody help. help. help. help. help.

Help.