| In Captivity |
[14 Feb 2008|04:37pm] |
It was supposed to be Valentine's Day.
She was supposed to be out with David at dinner, the first real romantic dinner they'd had for just the two of them. The first attempt at dating, at something like an actual romance. Another step in all those little gestures and things he'd been doing and she was so looking forward to it. Had been looking forward to it, the way she couldn't remember having looked forward to anything ever. Had wanted, on some level, just to see him smile.
Now the only thing she wanted to see was a way out, and she couldn't.
Her face hurt. She was pretty sure she had a scratch or two on her face, but at least one man had a broken nose and she thought of that with savage satisfaction. The door had opened and she had been frozen in shock for long enough for them to get close to her, and then she had smashed the nearest thing to hand into the nearest man's face. The vase had shattered, and bought her a couple of seconds that turned out not to be enough. And now she had been stripped naked, inspected to the point of humiliation she wasn't sure she could stand, and stuffed in what seemed to be a boxcar with at least a dozen other women.
And those were, as they said, the facts of the matter. Just the facts, Jack. Going over the facts kept her from going insane right now, from thinking about how they had looked at her and the way they had literally tied her up and cut the clothing off of her, from thinking about what had happened. They had inspected her eyes and teeth like she was a stock animal, they had...
Stuffed her in a boxcar, or something like it, with a dozen other women. All of them afraid, most of them shivering, and the smell was awful. She was afraid to move too far to the left or the right for, having found a dry patch or so, she didn't want to move into something she could unmistakeably smell and almost taste. There was whimpering. There was someone rocking back and forth; she refused to make a sound. Refused to give them the satisfaction even if they were nowhere to be found and she didn't even know who they were to begin with. And while the woman suffered, the Goddess seemed to be sleeping. Or was just in shock.
The women around her could have been beautiful, with a bath and some heat and care and maybe a good meal. Beautiful enough that she could imagine what waited for them all, and be damned if she would sit back and accept it. But she couldn't think of anything she could do to escape or stop it, and as the container moved on she began to lose hold of the facts and simply was afraid.
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