Inner Predator: Unleashed

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

White.

Everything is white.

White clothes. White walls. White lights.

White. White. White.

And I hate it. Though, I have to admit, it is a step up from my previous cell, the one Housen kept me in for a few days. At least this one has a bed… and a toilet.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. They leave the lights on always. It’s hard to sleep. I know I do sleep though, occasionally. I think they drug the food or the blood with sleeping aids. I might try to keep track of the days if there were a way. But there’s not… everything is so stark white and there’s nothing to write with.

I’m a rat.

We all are. At least I assume there is a “we all,” but I can’t confirm that since I cannot see or hear anyone else. I don’t know what exactly we are being studied for, but I know we are. There’s a camera in the ceiling. It’s disguised and fairly well hidden, probably so we won’t notice and disable it, but the small red light gives it away.

Yep, these people…Geniuses.

“Let me out!”

It’s pointless, all this yelling. But I still try a few times a day, screaming and pounding against the walls. I am freaking losing it. I haven’t seen a real person in I don’t know how long. The most interaction I get is with the loud speaker in the room.

It doesn’t speak. It buzzes.

Once means food is coming. Twice means blood. A single long buzz means they are about to release whatever gas into the air to put me to sleep. That one scares me the most. I never know what is going to happen. But if they’re knocking me out, it must be for a reason.

Sometimes I wake up with cuts and marks and stitches. I don’t know if they added something my body or took something away. Maybe they poke around in there. I’m certain we’re all mostly the same on the inside. Shifter a maybe different, since they, you know, shift. But physically we’re mostly the same I think. The  biggest differences are probably in our brains, but as far as I can tell they haven’t poked around in there… yet.

I sit on the floor in the center of the room. The cold of the hard painted cement hits all the way to my bone. The bed honestly isn’t much more comfortable than the floor. A trail of ants travels along the base of the wall, where it meets the floor.

“The ants go marching one by one hoorah, hoorah. The ants go marching one by one hoorah, hoorah. The ants go marching one by one the little one stops to suck his thumb and they’ll all go marching down…” I continue my little tune until the ants run out of sight.

“Whatcha doing there, Love?”

I don’t look up from the small crevice in which my little insect friends disappeared.

“You’re not real,” I say aloud.

I wish he would go away. I know he’s just a figment of imagination. A way to cope, I guess. It hurts to see him, more than it helps. I thought he was real at first. Here to save me.

“I’m as real as anything else,” he says.

I clap my hands together loudly and listen to the sound bounce off the walls. Then, to prove a point, I reach out and swipe at Chase who is kneeling in front of me. My hand goes through him.

“Not real. Not real. Not real.”

I put my hand over my ears to block out the sound of his voice and squeeze my eyes tightly shut as I chant the words over and over again.

“I miss you, you know,” I eventually say when he won’t just leave.

“I’m right here with you.”

“God, I hope not.”

That thought worries me most of my waking hours. Chase would have come looking for me and might have been caught too. He might be in a whited out cell just like mine. Maybe he’s having the same hallucinations of me that I have of him.

I wonder how they’re getting away with this. It seems unlikely that Supernaturals wouldn’t notice their friends and family missing. At the same time it’s completely likely people wouldn’t bat an eye at disappearances. So many Supernaturals were vehemently against registering that they might have chosen willingly to drop off the map and go into hiding. And who would bring it up and risk outing their friend from hiding.

But people know I’m here. Chase knows I wouldn’t fall off the map and he knows where I was the day I went missing, so there is no doubt in my mind he’s looking for me.

“Are you just going to sit here and play with bugs, or are you going to find a way out?”

The voice changes into my fathers, as does the appearance of the delusion standing before me. Chase always comforts me and dad always urges me to find a way out. Both are driving me to insanity. Or maybe they’re evidence that I’m already there.

“There is no way,” I tell him.

I’ve been trapped in this room long enough to know there’s no way out. They have no spell preventing my powers, but the room seems reinforced and there’s no visible door. I tried going invisible in hopes that they would rush in thinking I had escaped and I could in turn escape…but they sent the gasses in first and knocked me out.

White. White. White.

White walls. White floor. White ceiling.

No door.

One vent.

One speaker.

One camera.

There is no way out.

“Find a way,” my dad says. “You have to get out or you’ll die here.”

The sooner the better. I cover my eyes and ears with my hands and try to block everything out. My fingers dig into my head as I try to claw away whatever is plaguing me.

“I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone,” I tell myself. I just want to be alone. I want him to go away.

When I open my eyes, there’s nothing but empty white space around me.

“I’m alone,” I choke out on a sob.

I’m alone and this is what I wanted but it’s not what I want.

“Come back,” I beg.

Buzzing has me pulling my hands back up to my ears. The sound is so loud I can’t even hear my own thoughts.

Buzz. Once. Buzz. Twice. Buzz. Three times. It never sounds three times. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. The noise continues nonstop and my heart starts to race. Is this it? Does this mean they’re done with me? This is it. They’re going to kill me.