Drowning (Kaz Brekker)

ii - Taunting Ghosts

Inside was like the kennels too. The walls were unpainted and stained. The floor was rough stone. There were no windows, no clock, no lights. Once the door shut, it'd be pitch black. It was empty, besides the girl.

The doctor pushed her ponytail aside and pressed a syringe into her neck. The girl stiffened as he injected something into her, then they were gone. The door was shut, the room was dark, the girl was alone.

The panic came first. Then the confusion. They'd bled into fear. Everything was too much. Her mind, her clothes, the stones beneath her bare feet. She wanted to claw her skin off. She wanted to go home. Where was that? She didn't have one, did she? That room? That woman? Mother? She didn't remember anything. Her bile was acid in her throat. Her own body was trying to kill her. She scrambled away from herself, the shattered reflection of her sins that sat before her. Was she hallucinating? Was she mad? Was she even human? What did it matter? The girl who didn't have a self to know pushed herself into a corner and let the snarls and snaps she'd learnt from her dogs to free themselves of her throat. Was this fear?

She didn't know how long she spent in the room. She'd been naked when they opened the door, pressed into the corner on all fours, clothes and shoes torn to shreds. She was coated in grime, two clean streaks running along her cheeks from tears. Her fingers were bleeding, her fingernails wore to nothing, her face and arms and body and neck and everything coated in claw marks.

They'd refused her a trip to the infirmary. She hadn't asked for one anyway.

Naked, bleeding, filthy, she'd went to see her mother. She stood in her office, eyes downcast, body slack, and waited silently for answers.

"We call it the clearance." She'd said, sparing a look from her papers. "It's use is, well, in the name. Tell me about your job again."

"My...? I- I had to... I was... I went to..."

"You don't remember, do you?"

She shook her head.

"That's what the clearance is for. It's so you can't remember anything from jobs. It's for safety, privacy, anonymity. You understand, don't you darling?"

"Of course, Mother. It's very effective, impressive." She nodded.

Her mother smiled, nodded approvingly. "The more you take, the easier it will be. The effects will slowly become permanent, so you don't have to take it as often."

She nodded. "I see. Will I take a dose after my next job?"

"Most likely." She said distractedly.

The daughter nodded again. "I'll leave you to it, Mother."

She'd walked, dazed and ignored by everyone around her, through the House. She didn't know where she was going till she was there. She'd gotten a shirt and trousers. She'd braided her hair how she liked it as a child. She'd found herself a bottle of kvas from her mother's room. She sat down in the kennels, nestled into the corner, surrounded by the panting beasts she loved so, and drank.

She was about seven when she first tried alcohol. She'd been deemed old enough to accompany her mother to a meeting. She sat at her side, eyes scanning everyone at the table, a glass of wine absentmindedly pushed into her hand.

She'd drank dutifully. She'd liked it. Halfway through her head had started to tingle and her mother had taken it off her. The next day, she snuck into her mother's liquor cabinet and found another bottle of red wine. She'd taken the bottle, a glass, and drank again.

Her head was light and fuzzy. She couldn't think. It was so incredibly easy. Everything was. Existing had never felt so easy. She'd drank herself to sleep under her mother's desk and awoken to a smashed glass against the side of her forehead.