Non Compos Mentis.
prologue.
Her breath puffed out in front of her face, swirling clouds of condensation rising in the cold night air.
She was nervous. Scared nervous, the kind that seeped into your bones and pricked at your thoughts. Her eyes flickered around uneasily, trying to take everything in, trying to look in every direction at once, because she could feel them there, watching her every move, her every step as she walked quickly through the industrial area and hugged herself ever more tighter. Her fear made her pace quicken, almost to a run, and the panic she felt running like a livewire just under the surface of her skin was a physical thing, threatening to swallow her whole.
A sound to her left. She jumped a foot in the air, her heart skipping a beat then shooting into a racehorse-galloping. Little black dots clouded her vision, nearly paralysing her with fear. But it was only a cat, rummaging through an overflowing trashcan, its ribs sticking out and its fur a scraggly mess. She sighed gustily, chastised herself. She was just being paranoid, working herself into hysteria. There was no one watching her, why should there be? She was a no one. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on her neck, boring into her skin and digging little holes and filling them with disease. A cold sweat broke out on the small of her back, and she stared straight ahead, knowing - knowing - that there was someone watching her, someone dangerous, but wishing she didn’t at the same time.
She sucked in a deep, wracking breath. She was panicking for nothing, she assured herself falsely. It’s just the dark, it plays tricks on you. They should really get some new street lights down here.
Her lip curled cynically. No, they would not get new lights down here, were the users and abusers lingered, where the screams from the nearest whorehouse could be heard blocks away no matter how hard you tried to shut it out. She thought of her mom at home, passed out on the floor with the contents of a bottle of Wild Turkey coursing through her system, dulled and useless to the world. She thought of her father, jacked up on Adam and passed out in a gutter somewhere, liable to get a bullet through his head for the empty wallet in his pocket. Yes, wouldn’t that be divine justice? Being killed hand in hand with the very thing he lived for. She hoped he was dead. She hoped rats were feeding off his rotted corpse.
A screaming broke her out of her head, like the wailing of a starving child. Dust puffed up in cloud from around the corner, and a van sliced into view. Black, with no windows and no license plate. Her legs had abandoned her, left along with her flight instinct. She stood, rooted to the spot as the men piled out of the van and surrounded her.
She fought. Kicking and screaming until a grease-soaked rag was shoved down her throat, and then she struck out with her fists. Trying blinding to do some damage, even though she was just one girl, just one against four over-sized men who blended in with the black night and held her arms behind her like she was no stronger than a rag doll.
The last thing she wondered before the pinch of a needle was whether her mother would even notice her absence.
She awoke in fits and starts.
Jagged, fractured sensations spilled through her head, the picture book of her last free moments on earth. Her face, pressed into the back seat of the van, smelling like tobacco and piss, nearly suffocating her mercilessly. And she was out again, dragged into the deep waters of unconsciousness. Then there were hushed voices, too low to understand, and then gravity being pulling out from underneath her. She felt the rough hands of her captures as they carried her limp figure from the van and into hell itself. She felt the ripping of her clothes as she was stripped down, then strapped down.
She felt the cold metal under her back as they began to cut into her skull.
She was nervous. Scared nervous, the kind that seeped into your bones and pricked at your thoughts. Her eyes flickered around uneasily, trying to take everything in, trying to look in every direction at once, because she could feel them there, watching her every move, her every step as she walked quickly through the industrial area and hugged herself ever more tighter. Her fear made her pace quicken, almost to a run, and the panic she felt running like a livewire just under the surface of her skin was a physical thing, threatening to swallow her whole.
A sound to her left. She jumped a foot in the air, her heart skipping a beat then shooting into a racehorse-galloping. Little black dots clouded her vision, nearly paralysing her with fear. But it was only a cat, rummaging through an overflowing trashcan, its ribs sticking out and its fur a scraggly mess. She sighed gustily, chastised herself. She was just being paranoid, working herself into hysteria. There was no one watching her, why should there be? She was a no one. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on her neck, boring into her skin and digging little holes and filling them with disease. A cold sweat broke out on the small of her back, and she stared straight ahead, knowing - knowing - that there was someone watching her, someone dangerous, but wishing she didn’t at the same time.
She sucked in a deep, wracking breath. She was panicking for nothing, she assured herself falsely. It’s just the dark, it plays tricks on you. They should really get some new street lights down here.
Her lip curled cynically. No, they would not get new lights down here, were the users and abusers lingered, where the screams from the nearest whorehouse could be heard blocks away no matter how hard you tried to shut it out. She thought of her mom at home, passed out on the floor with the contents of a bottle of Wild Turkey coursing through her system, dulled and useless to the world. She thought of her father, jacked up on Adam and passed out in a gutter somewhere, liable to get a bullet through his head for the empty wallet in his pocket. Yes, wouldn’t that be divine justice? Being killed hand in hand with the very thing he lived for. She hoped he was dead. She hoped rats were feeding off his rotted corpse.
A screaming broke her out of her head, like the wailing of a starving child. Dust puffed up in cloud from around the corner, and a van sliced into view. Black, with no windows and no license plate. Her legs had abandoned her, left along with her flight instinct. She stood, rooted to the spot as the men piled out of the van and surrounded her.
She fought. Kicking and screaming until a grease-soaked rag was shoved down her throat, and then she struck out with her fists. Trying blinding to do some damage, even though she was just one girl, just one against four over-sized men who blended in with the black night and held her arms behind her like she was no stronger than a rag doll.
The last thing she wondered before the pinch of a needle was whether her mother would even notice her absence.
She awoke in fits and starts.
Jagged, fractured sensations spilled through her head, the picture book of her last free moments on earth. Her face, pressed into the back seat of the van, smelling like tobacco and piss, nearly suffocating her mercilessly. And she was out again, dragged into the deep waters of unconsciousness. Then there were hushed voices, too low to understand, and then gravity being pulling out from underneath her. She felt the rough hands of her captures as they carried her limp figure from the van and into hell itself. She felt the ripping of her clothes as she was stripped down, then strapped down.
She felt the cold metal under her back as they began to cut into her skull.