My mouth was dry and my heart beat so fast I thought it would burst from my chest any minute. My breathing came out in shallow pants and sweat trickled down my face and into my eyes. I longed to wipe it away, but I couldn't afford to make the slightest move.
He would find me if I did.
Where was he now? I strained to hear any sound, any scratch or scrape that would alert me to his position, though I knew this was pointless. If Eli didn't want me to know where he was then I had no chance of finding out. I should never have run away. I should have been a sensible, dutiful girl and obeyed him.
Suddenly, I heard a floorboard creak in the next room over. I froze and flattened myself against the freezing cold wall behind me, crouching further down behind the old, moth-eaten sofa. The abandoned house had seemed like such a perfect place to hide-all those broken windows meant that gaining entry had been easy. Too bad I hadn't considered the fact that if I was followed in there, I would be trapped like a rat in a cage.
I cursed the Gods, cursed my lot in life, cursed my parents for abandoning me like I had done so many times before. Surely raising a Special One was better than abandoning them to The Compound.
The Compound.
A solid, grey brick and iron affair, surrounded by high, impenetrable walls covered in barbed wire that was electrified enough to kill in an instant. Combine this with Trackers, a hybrid breed that could follow any smell to the ends of the earth and Terrors, vicious monsters that were trained to kill without hesitation and you got an impenetrable fortress from which there was no escape, that had never allowed an escape.
Until now.
I was the first. I was the only one. It had been disturbingly easy; a quick, effective distraction, the flick of a power switch and an extremely high pain threshold and I had done it. I had made it out alive. Bruised, bloody and frightened out of my wits. But Alive.
They had bound our Power in there, but I could feel the familiar tingle in the tips of my fingers now, the subtle zing and thrum of the blood in my veins as it returned. In the Compound we we had been taught that our abilities were wrong, that we were Mistakes that we didn't deserve to live, that the Gods had never intended it. And we believed them. I believed them.
Until That Day. The day that I had seen the impossibe, the unthinkable. I had seen Eli use The Power.
I had been bringing him his supper on a tray as usual when from outside I saw a flash of violet light shine through the crack in the door. I had pushed it open...to see Eli draining the life out of one of the servant girls. I saw him do the very thing my kind are hated for.
Eli.
He was Master. He was Fear. He was God on earth. We all obeyed him, all adored him. Because if we didn't? We didn't live to see tomorrow.
I ran that day, ran until my feet bled and my legs shook. But they caught me, beat me, threw me in Confinement. I knew they were going to kill me, because I knew everything they had told us was nothing but a lie.
But I escaped.
I found a loose stone on the floor of my cell. I discovered a passegeway on moving it. From there my plan was formulated and in no time I had escaped. I was free.
For a while.
They were coming for me now, I could feel it. I knew they were in the house, that any minute they would find me and I would die. I knew resistance would be futile, there was no chance of me fighting them and winning. The thought sickened me and I stifled a retch with difficulty.
I had lived a short, miserable life, it was true. But it was a life nonetheless and I didn't want it to end.
Another creak, this time from the very room I was hiding in. Then the voice, the dreadful, silky, snakelike whisper through the darkness.
"Come out come out, my little Waste Of Space. I know you're in here. I can feel you. Won't you come out and play with us?"
Eli.
I was doomed.
I shut my eyes tight. When the hand closed around my upper arm seconds later, I didn't pull away. Afterall, we had been taught a very important lesson by the Masters in the Compound. One I still remembered clearly, that echoed through my head as I looked into the monster's glittering eyes, one that reverberated in me as the violet light came surging towards my body, ready to rid the world of yet another unneeded soul:
"You are wrong. You are filth. And we will end you."
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Hooray, another short story of dystopic genius!
Not.
Oh well, enjoy anyway. The song is Perfect Weapon by Black Veil Brides. I don't know why, but I felt it suited it somehow.
