Beasthood

~Chapter 8- Trap~

~Chapter 8 -Trap~

Monday May 9th, 2011, 11:19 a.m. -Locked cell

Jaz woke up shaking with fear and the advanced stages of a vigorous fever. The sweat droplets clung to her skin like blisters. Her lips were pallid and cracked. She licked them with her dry tongue and winced as the saliva stung the broken skin.

The room was strange and primal, carved out of a dusty yellow stone she didn’t recognize. It seemed peculiar in England. It belonged to some middle-eastern country, in the desert maybe. Not here.

Wherever here was. She scanned her surroundings.

A cell.

She didn’t get up to check the arched door was locked. No doubt, it would be a wasted effort. It had no window and was made of heavy, thick wood -possibly oak. It looked solid and impenetrable, like a medieval dungeon door.

She clutched her knees, rocking back and forth on the bed in a sitting foetal position. She bit her sore lip, urging herself not to cry but the tears betrayed her. She would not make a sound, she vowed. And she stayed true to it. The sobs were silent. She let herself cry before kicking her brain back into survival mode.

Was she underground?

She didn't think so. There was natural light coming from a narrow slat on the wall to her right.

A strange concoction of solid carved wood and an unknown animal hide, made the head rest of her bed. She glowered at it, tracing the wall it rested flush against all the way up to the top, where the wall met with the ceiling. The slat, which could barely be called a window, was covered with frosted glass. It appeared to be layered; so thick it was almost opaque. It was too thick and too narrow. Escaping that way was out of the question. Maybe it’s a basement. Halfway underground? she wondered.

She stared ahead at the wall opposite the left side of the bed.

There was no furniture. Everything was minimalistic and cold and hard. Stone and wood.

The strange curve of the walls and ceiling disorientated her. She hated it.

There was a narrow archway at the end of the room; she spotted a small, stainless steel sink as she leaned back against the wall. The coolness of the stone against her back was actually pleasant and she rested there for a while, allowing her head to dip back. The cooling sensation washed over her and her fever seemed to ease.

It was then that the memories smacked into her like a continuous, never-ending motorway pileup. Her inner voice began to relate to her the event she'd rather forget.

I felt the cold, clinical metal beneath my body. It was what had made me lucid.

I heard voices. I kept my eyes closed.

Then came the absolute agony in my feet.

I couldn't scream. My lips were heavy, my jaw wouldn’t open.

My god, are they cutting my toes off?

She snapped out of the memory to look at her feet. They were covered in her socks that she’d packed in her suitcase. They looked abnormally swollen. She didn’t feel any pain.Was it real?

She pulled her black socks off slowly to find her feet wrapped in thick bandages. Her toes were hidden beneath the layers of white. She tried to wriggle them but they felt almost numb. She could feel them there without using her hands to touch, but they felt sort of fluffy; not solid.Anaesthetic,she thought with wonder and dread.