Drowning in Him

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Jolting awake, I gasped in as much air as I could before looking around frantically. Loud, worried voices filled the air around me along with darkness as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the sudden change. With very limited sight in this darkness, I could make out the bodies of several different beings all around me, chained to their seats while some fought to get out of it. Slightly moving my wrists apart, I could feel the cuffs yank against one another before I felt the ones around my ankles as well. Where exactly were they transporting us? That question was soon answered by the memories of the workers talking about some type of planet where we wouldn't survive. We weren't really going there right? As soon as that question appeared, the floors beneath our very feet opened up just as the chains loosened. Bright light penetrated the darkness as we all began to fall forward, screams echoing all around me as I shut my eyes tightly.

"Umph!" I grunted as my body came into contact with hot sand before I was being pulled up. Quickly opening my eyes, I fought against the brightness of the sun to see what in the world was happening. Matter of fact, whoever had me was now pulling me away from our initial landing site. "Where are you taking me?!" I shouted as I finally got a glimpse of the person dragging me by my bounded wrists. Beneath the ugly orange shirt of our prison wear, I could see a large dragon tattoo that ran up her arm, beneath her shirt, and down the other arm. She had a blonde buzz cut and a muzzle, which took me by complete surprise. Why would the penitentiary have put her in that? I wondered if it was like the handcuffs that we had on.

My thoughts were monetarily thrown off the rails when we dropped down into a cavern. Not a moment later, two other women dropped in as well. One wore a scarf in this weather and introduced herself as Nuri while the other one was missing part of her arm and was introduced as Lilium. I had heard the workers talking about these two often as I turned my attention to the woman next to me. Staring at her a little closer, I realized that she was the one the others called Wren. She was the one who scared them the most and they had seemingly grouped us two in the same danger category. I turned towards the other two women before introducing myself and Wren.

After staring at the hole, awaiting the creature outside to stop its torment, we conversed amongst each other. We were all supernatural beings apparently and I had revealed some tidbits about the penitentiary from what I learned. After a while, we all moved from that cavern to another when it was discovered that we were being pursued. Once we made it to our new cave, we spent our next few days getting accustomed to this planet's weird suns and foggy nights all while conversing and getting to know each other more. It felt better to have these three to talk to when the nightmares got worse. That eventually simmered down a little as time wore on until one day, I startled awake from one.

"Fuck." I grumbled while glancing around the cave. It took me a minute to remember where I was as I looked over at Wren and Nuri, no Lily in sight. It had been a few days since we had to leave her back at the second cavern. She started showing signs of heat exhaustion early on but it grew progressively worse as the days passed. I had always recommended that she and Nuri stayed behind to keep our cavern warm and protected, but truly, I didn't want either one of them to get hurt. Lily's heat exhaustion dwelled into some foreign sickness that I had never seen before and now, Nuri had started showing clear signs as well. What were we going to do then? I asked myself while standing from my makeshift nest of monster skins. Quietly walking over towards the water, I squatted down while dipping my hands into the cool water while closing my eyes. If I could concentrate properly, I might just be able to sense Lily.

After a while, I felt her presence as the water dripped into something where she had to be collecting it from. Sighing a breath of relief, I withdrew my hand while taking another glance at the remaining two before Wren's voice spooked me.