(Don't) Panic

XXII - The Breeding II

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*trigger warning:

+ violence + self-abandonment + death +

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

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It's just a nightmare, just a nightmare... or maybe I'm ill and got a fever. And that's why my brain is cooking up this shit.

Nathalie kept repeating this to herself, it was all that kept her from going insane. She had been through too much. First the big white bubble. Then the gigantic crowd of people amassing around her and seeing her friend being crushed to a pulp. Then being manhandled by something she couldn't see or touch but could definitely feel touching her. Then seeing a child being shredded before her very eyes while she herself was subjected to a humiliating and degrading examination by monsters. Then being confided to a small white bubble with several other women of her age. Then being carted around only to be put on show and unable to cover herself. Then the overcrowded chamber that she had been in until she thought that she and the other women were meant to be baked. Then another assessment, by other monsters this time but they had by no means been any less gruesome. The spraying down with cold water had revived her senses somewhat after the near suffocation and heat stroke but not enough to enable her to struggle against the monsters when they had placed her where she was now. She wished she had done more to resist but knew at the same time that she couldn't have. Not considering what she had just gone through. The physical strain was immense in itself but nothing compared to the mental strain.

She had been kidnapped, taken from her environment, her world, everything she knew without a warning or an explanation. She had been examined and touched without being able to prevent it. It was as if her self, whatever inhabited her body and made it move, had been violated over and over again.

And now she was lying here. She had turned onto her back with some difficulty but it was better than lying down on her breasts. She craved to curl up on her side but there wasn't enough room for that. She pulled her knees up and held them fast with her hands. The feelings of despair that the exhaustion had held back now rushed over her with a tremendous force. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she shook with every new wave of despair that washed over her. Letting go of these feelings helped her to give herself back a bit of calmness, enabling her to hiccup herself into a state of relative self-restraint. It also enabled her to take in her surroundings. She was inside a small box that was limited at the top end with a raised container and she herself was fixated inside it by a metal chain around her neck that connected to the floor and a bar above her head. It stopped her from moving up or down the box further than a few centimetres. To the sides the box was limited with metal bars and looking through them she could see many, many more women, all lying down in more or less similar postures as herself. On the bottom end the box was opened, no bars or gate limiting it. If it hadn't been for the chain around her neck she could have stood up and left the box...

But maybe there was another possibility to leave the box. Turning around again she stood up on her hands and knees as best she could in the confined space. To her right there was a shallow basin of water, in front of her was something like a large table piled with something that might be considered edible. She wouldn't even have considered the possibility that it might be food outside this feverish dream... more like nightmare...

Looking over the table she could see another row of boxes and monsters dragging by more women and restraining them in the boxes. Some were stirring feebly, some were stiff in horror, most were in shock it seemed as no bodily tension in reaction to what was being done to them was detectable. A few where fighting tooth and nail for their freedom and Nathalie admired them for their fire but as one after the other was subdued and chained to a box her hope dwindled and died like a candle flame under a glass.

Disillusioned she lay back down on her back and angled her knees to lessen the strain on her lower back. The last third of the box was lower than the part where she was lying on with her back. She could move up enough so that her entire bottom was on the platform and only her feet remained lower. She could also crawl down enough so that her bottom was hanging down the step but she could not rest her bottom on the lower step as the strain on her neck from the chain was too much. The material which she was lying on seemed similar to concrete but it didn't chafe her skin too much. Beneath her feet however the floor seemed to be comprised of slim bars strong enough to put most of her weight on and spaced close enough so that her feet were not in much danger of slipping through.

The grumbling of her stomach made her turn around and climb to her knees again. She tried to reach for the pellets that were piled on the table in front of her but the bars next to her neck prevented that. She couldn't reach out with one hand far enough to reach the table around the encumbering bars and simultaneously push herself upwards with the other hand. The same held true for the shallow basin of water. There was no spout that she could drink from so she relented and submerged her entire face to get a mouthful of water. Lying back down she tried to think up another way to get both water and food. The hunger grew more and more pronounced and she couldn't find a way around it. The last – and obviously intended – method was also the last she wanted to apply but did she have a choice? The choice of starving to death maybe. Not a real choice then. Crying silent tears of defeat she kneeled up and, stretching her neck, started to eat a pellet at a time with her face right down on the table. It didn't taste of much and it wasn't filling but it gave her something to do. Shortly. Before she had another drink she cleaned her face of any residue of the pellets as best she could. She didn't want to have pellet mush in the water basin.