Chapter 6 - Continuum
Day 3, 1:14 a.m. – Joey groaned in her sleep, convulsing gently with the cold and the sound of rain as her tempo. Pain shot through her body and left her shuddering in the dark. A low growl caressed her left ear and she gasped, rolling over and sitting up so quickly it was if she had been burned.
In an instant she began to convulse, her stomach was overturned and contorted violently. She clenched her arms over her gut and writhed on the mattress, yelling in pain, tears streaming out of her eyes. The growl came again, followed immediately by an overwhelming roar. Slowly, a thousand different kinds of fear flooding her mind, Joey raised her head and opened her eyes.
She was about an inch away from the face of what looked to be an enormous, mutated, contorted figure resembling a tyrannosaurus – it's body was rough and wet with blood and water, dark skin and pale, dead eyes, slicing teeth and ripping tongue. Extra arms and mouths and eyes – bits of sharp glass and metal wiring stuck out from underneath its skin, as if it had bean constructed from scrap metal and then covered over with rotting skin.
The Monster opened its jaws wide and Joey yelled horribly, the room dissolved and contorted. She dove to the floor and huddled in the far corner, arms up, eyes closed. The thing slashed at her, its tail knocking over the television and banging against the walls. The girl screamed in the corner, trying not to meet the gaze of this thing, this beast – but the desire, the desire to make eye contact was all-consuming. Something whispered to her in the back of her mind and all was silent.
The beast just looked at her, and she looked at it, swinging heavy, panicked breaths that shook her entire frame. And then it opened its jaws again and dove for her. All lights went out as Joey screamed.
Day 4, 6:34 a.m. – When Joey awoke the next morning, no one was in the room.
Sitting up abruptly, she glanced nervously around the room – there was nothing. The television was upright. A sudden flashback struck her like a bolt of lightning – she saw the Monster's face and teeth...then....nothing. Time wore on as she sat there in silence and doubt, thinking that it couldn't have been any more than a dream. She ran a dry tongue over her teeth and swallowed saliva – it was bitter. Probing one finger into her mouth she felt something brittle. She withdrew her finger. White powder and saliva covered the skin.
Joey stood and paced over to the wall beneath the window. Sunlight streamed through the cracks in the wood boards, adding a little illumination to the room. She looked around, then back at the window. The boards were waterlogged and vulnerable. She reached up and found a narrow empty space in the stone wall, hoisting herself up. Pain coursed through her arm and down her spine and she went down to the ground, landing on her back with a jolt. Groaning, she just rolled over and laid there; ready to give up before even starting.
Her stomach rumbled – she almost laughed at this. Why, she didn't know. Maybe it was because that out of all the pain and blood and darkness, the thing bringing her down was hunger. How long had it been since she was brought here? Was Gibbs even still looking for her? Was he even ever looking at all?
- - - - - - - - - - -
Days withered on....time passed in a looping continuum. Every night Joey endured the beatings and every night Grey would take his silver knife and make a tiny cut on her upper arm. Eventually, Joey noticed, they began to form the shape of a skull, but he wasn't done with the art yet – there was still half of it left to finish.
"Just to remind you how long you've got left to live." He would say that when the skull was whole – that would be the day he killed her. It was almost methodically diabolical of him, Joey thought, to have his torture and death routine so readily planned like this, to this extent.
On the 8th day, she gave up hope of being "saved."
On the 9th day, she woke up pining, PINING for a little more white powder. He had given to her readily every night, and every night she had nightmares, but she LIKED it – it was an escape, a chance to forget being here in this dungeon hell, a way for her to be alone with her demons – the ones that plagued her day and night.
He made her beg for it, and she did. It came in many forms – everything from powders to needles to vapors...and she took it all. Hallucination set in quicker than before, for she expected it. The Monster returned and made her scream and writhe on the floor of the basement hole where she was nothing more than a lab experiment and a human torture-toy for her uncle. Every day and every night was the same – there was always Grey, there was always the beating, there was always the reward: the Monster.
Internally, Joey's vitals were slowly going offline – her organs were shutting down bit by bit and she grew weaker every day. She lost weight fast – already more than ten pounds and counting, still. But she didn't know or care anymore.
On the 12th day, Grey did not even show up at the steel door. Nor did he show on the 13th day. On the 14th day Joey awoke in a raging fury – knocking over the television and ripping away at the mattress – a fury that only ended after she collapsed in exhaustion, and sleep overtook her.
TBC
Author's Chapter Notes:
After Grey forces drugs into Joey's system, she begins to hallucinate.