(Don't) Panic

XI - The Auction

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*trigger warning:

+ suffocation + helplessness + corpse +

*the full warning and list of triggers to be found in part 2

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"I really hope that someone slipped me something and just wants to rape me or something and that I am just hallucinating all of this. Have you seen what they did to some of them? I saw a girl made into minced meat from the inside out right next to me and I could see it in her eyes, she was awake the whole time!" Chris began to sob again and turned around to hide his face into the crook of Adams' neck. Adam was preoccupied with holding him and the conversation died down. Pete watched them with a bit of jealousy in the pit of his stomach. He could have done with someone to hug and be hugged, too. As if he had read his mind George nudged him, maybe he had just rightly interpreted his stare. "Come here laddie. No need to make each other more miserable, ey?" Pete gladly accepted the gruff man's invitation and felt himself relax slightly as Georges arms closed around him and stroked his back. He imagined himself being back home, in bed with his girlfriend Millie who had liked him sleeping with his head between her breasts and had hugged him just like George did now. She had been at the concert with him. She had been so excited to go, the tickets had been a birthday present. She had fussed over what to wear, would the new dress look better than her favourite green one? Should she wear shorts underneath just in case? In the end he had told her just to ware her favourite yellow t-shirt and a pair of shorts and be done with it, she wasn't going to a beauty contest and everybody's attention would be with the stage and the band. He had helped her out of the dress and hadn't been able to stop himself to kiss her and stroke her and they had made love until just before they had to leave and had nearly missed the train taking them to the concert. They had ran to catch the train and had jumped onto the wagon with mere seconds to spare.

If only they had missed the train.
If only they had made love just a little longer.
If only he hadn't given her those tickets for her birthday.

He wondered where she was now. He hadn't seen her back in the room where he had woken up but there had been so many people that it didn't surprise him in the slightest. He had no hope that she might have escaped and not been taken at all. From what he had seen the freaks - who had taken him, Chris, Adam, George and all the hundreds and hundreds of people at the concert - just took what they wanted when they wanted and did what they fancied with it. They had no respect for the things being sentient, able to feel not only physical pain but also psychological pain, pain of separation and loss of control, anxiety and stress.

It felt good to be held by George and when the bigger man started stroking not only his shoulders but also his bum and approached his face with his and started kissing him it was as if a dam broke inside Pete and tears streamed out of his eyes, forming little bubbles of salty water beneath them in the weightlessness. He kissed back with his eyes closed and relished the feeling of being safe, if only for the moment, in the big mans arms.

The illusion of safety was shattered not long after. Once again they were separated and chained, then a more thorough examination by the freaks was followed by all his senses being cut off except for his sense of touch and then a burning was covering him from head to toe. It lasted so long that he felt as if the freaks meant to kill him by suffocating and burning him at the same time. His heart was racing but he couldn't move so much as an inch as once again he was immobilised by the shackles and stretched as far as his limbs would go. Behind his closed eyelids he could see lights zipping across his dark field of vision and his consciousness threatened to slip from him when finally whatever had prevented him from breathing was removed. The sting on his shoulder blade when something pierced him was muffled by the excruciating pain of his lungs and the burning of his skin.

After that he found himself dumped back into the room where he had been with Chris, Adam, George, the maniac and the mute.

For a moment he was all alone but shortly after the mute was ejected from the hole as well. Just as before, the other man gave no sign of life, just drifting around aimlessly. He went to check on him and to make the man drink something if possible. But when he turned him around and looked at him he felt shock and horror cursing through him, mixed with disgust and fear. The other man was most definitely dead.

His skin was grey and cold, the eyes that had hither too been staring into nothingness were now a bloody mess.

Pete recoiled from the dead man. He had heard Chris talk about the girl that had been killed by the freaks but he had not wanted to believe him. He had not wanted to believe that anyone, not even those freaks, would kill just for the fun of it. Or just because they could. Or because they just didn't care. He knew of course that there were wars and that there were terrorist attacks nearly every day but they were far away, in far distant countries. He had never even seen a dead body before.

When George was ejected from the hole and into the room Pete was glad to see that he wasn't dead though he looked different. Pete didn't care about that, he was just glad that another living soul was with him once again and that it was someone he knew and trusted. He shivered and only managed to calm down little by little when George hugged him close.

"They killed him. They just killed him. Why did they kill him?" Was all he managed to say.

George had no answer and neither did Chris or Adam when they were returned. They didn't ask the fanatic whose name they had still not learned. All of their appearances had changed, they were now completely hairless. It wasn't just shaven either, as they understood as the days went by. No beard regrew, no chest hair, not the hair on their heads, not even the fuzzy translucent hair that had covered every last centimetre of their skin before. There weren't days really either. There was just the rhythm of eating and sleeping and ejecting waste. The light never changed, the food never changed, nothing ever changed in their surroundings. Slowly but surely they were going stir-crazy. The maniac hadn't talked again after the first time but he was glowering at each of them in turn. Pete felt threatened by him. The situation was already crazy enough but there also was the dead body of the mute floating around, decaying continuously. The smell of piss and shit was slowly overpowered by the smell of rotting flesh.

Pete longed for a change of the situation but at the same time he was mortally afraid of the freaks paying attention to them, possibly separating them, torturing them, killing them. The situation could have been bearable if it hadn't been for the constant fear of a possible attack from the maniac, the rotting corpse floating around and their complete helplessness regarding their situation and what was going to happen to them. He didn't mind spending all of his time with George, Chris and Adam. The latter had at some point started to just make love to Chris all day. It seemed to drive the maniac even more crazy but the punching he had received from George seemed enough to keep him at bay at least for now. Pete had difficulty sleeping if he wasn't in Georges arms and the larger man seemed to equally draw reassurance and a sense of calm from the skin-to-skin contact.