Enemies

Chapter seven - Gwynn

[TRIGGER WARNING

Captivity, Non-Graphic Description of Torture (more detailed trigger warnings in a comment; might be considered spoilers)]

-----

I didn't know where I was. It seemed like under the ground. There were a lot of cages down there and there were shapeshifters locked in those cages.

I had no idea how long had I been there, but I suspected a couple months had already passed. I was lucky. Most of the others who had been locked here didn't survive this long.

The hunters came every day. They brought us food and they picked someone to torture. At the beginning they used to pick me quite often, but they soon gave up on me. Jason, who had been here for almost a year, told me they tried to put us into a haze. Once someone shifted into their animal form, the hunters killed them and took their bodies away. We suspected they needed our animal bodies for something, maybe for experimentation. A couple of days ago Jason got into a haze and he was gone.

I was holding up quite well. I had a little haze once during the tortures, but I was able to hold it in and I didn't shift.

We were all being medicated. The drugs were in everything they brought us to eat. We all knew that but we still needed to eat. After I found out about it I starved myself for three days, but the effects of the drugs didn't wear off. Jason told me to give up, he said I would starve myself to death before I accomplished anything. He said someone already had done that before.

We were trying to survive. Not all of us, some people just gave up and took their lives to escape the tortures. But we wanted to keep hoping that one day someone will come save us. Most of us still had someone out there, families, mates, friends. We hoped they would find out about what happened to us and they would find a way to set us free. We didn't see a way to escape here on our own.

We couldn't reach out to them because of the drugs. Somehow they made it impossible for us to mindlink anyone. Other effects were fatigue, numbness and hallucinations. I kept seeing Rod. He was sitting in front of me and staring right at me. When I was tortured sometimes I saw him lying on the ground next to me, bleeding out. At first these hallucinations were driving me crazy, but with time I got used to it and it even became some sort of comfort. As if he was there to watch over me. I imagined talking to him whenever I felt lonely.

Sometimes I talked to the other people who were locked with me. We could only talk at night, when the hunters went to sleep. I used to talk to Jason a lot. He told me he got caught when he tried to stop the hunters from going after his son and grandchildren. He didn't know what happened to his family, but since they weren't brought here, he hoped they were safe. He also told me about other people who were here before me. He told me about Jessy. She was a ladybird and she shifted purposely in the middle of the night, but even though she was able to leave the cage, she couldn't find a way out of the room. She wanted to try to escape in the short while when the hunters enter the room and open the door. But they noticed her and smashed her. He told me about that because I was planning on doing the same thing.

Jason was the most resilient person I had ever met. He was able to survive here for so long and he tried to help other people keep their sanity. After a certain amount of time spent here, people seemed to become more and more distant. They were either lying on the floor motionlessly, staring vapidly into the distance, or they turned berserk and kept throwing themselves at the cages' bars. Soon after that happened they went into a haze and they were killed.

Other than Jason, there was only one other person who stayed here for more than a few days, that I could talk to. Her name was Alma and she was nine years old. She was brought here with her mother just a couple of weeks ago, but on their first day Alma was tortured while her mother was forced to watch it, and she went into a haze. The hunters didn't torture Alma anymore after that. They must have known that children can't shift. They still kept her here and brought her food. When I understood they were going to keep her locked here until she grew up and shifted, I was mortified. I wondered how long had the whole thing been going on.

Alma's cage abutted mine. The night after she was tortured I called her to move closer to me and through the bars I helped her take care of her wounds. We became very close. She needed someone to trust and for me taking care of her became an anchor keeping me grounded in the reality.

After some time she discovered that her food wasn't drugged. Apparently the hunters knew as well, that children couldn't mindlink anyone. She told me and Jason about it and Jason devised a plan. He suggested she should switch her meals with someone. We talked about it and we agreed that the person most likely to be able to rescue us is Alyss. I assumed she would be the Alpha by now and she could ask the entire group to come save us. So the next day I switched my meal with Alma. After she ate my drugged food she had really bad hallucinations and she threw up everything. I was horrified. Jason said her tiny body couldn't take the drugs. We gave up on the plan for a couple of days. Luckily the hunters didn't notice that something was wrong. They must have thought it was normal for a kid to get sick in here. When Alma was back to normal, Jason suggested trying something else. He said we should share her meals in between the two of us.

We had been doing it since then. We were both hungry, but it was enough to stay alive. At first I wanted to take just small portions and leave most of the food to Alma so she wouldn't have to suffer, but Jason said if I were too famished I wouldn't be able to regenerate and it would all be in vain.

I spent most of the time trying to mindlink Alyss, checking if I could do it already. Sometimes I tried to reach someone else, Lillie, Kay or Susanne. I counted the days. On the day 21 Jason was killed. I wanted to give up but I had to stay strong for Alma. She had already endured too much. Finally on the day 28 after repeating Alyss's name over and over in my mind, I felt something. I felt like I was being let in.

*Alyss, can you hear me? It's me, Gwynn!* I screamed through the mindlink.

*Are you okay? Where are you? We thought you were killed,* she replied and I almost yelled out of happiness to finally hear her voice.

*The hunters... They locked us here. There are so many other shapeshifters...* I had planned what I wanted to tell her a thousand times, but once I already succeeded, I was too overwhelmed to form a substantive message.

*How about Rod? Is he okay?* Alyss asked and I felt all the air leave my lungs as if from a blow. I pressed my forehead to the cold bars and I tried to breathe evenly.

*Gwynn? Is Rod okay?* she asked again and even through the mindlink I could sense her panic. She probably just regained her hope of meeting him again, just to lose him one more time.

*He's dead.* The tears started forming in my eyes. I waited a few moments for her answer.

*Are you sure?*

I was sure. I had seen how they shoot him. And I felt him die. It was an indescribable feeling - like a piercing but voiceless scream inside of my mind. I passed out and woke up here, in the cage. And I felt this painful emptiness since then. I knew he was no longer there.

Thinking of it made me relive it again. I struggled not to go into a haze. I tried to reply to Alyss but I couldn't feel her presence anymore. I was so tired. I slumped over and drifted off to sleep.