Fairly Bear

Tessa *TW: Drugs, Slavery, Assault and violence* Nervously glancing around to be sure no one saw her, she sat by the drain that was meant to remove their excrement and the soapy water they were hosed down with and poured the gruel out. She’d lost track of time about how long she’d been here, mostly because she was sure that they drugged their daily gruel to keep them docile; which was why she was dumping her little food down the drain to test her theory. She was one of five other girls kept in tiny cages in this corridor. She was sure there were a lot more, since she could hear their screams and painful moans on quiet nights when the scientists had gone home. She called it night, because that was the logical conclusion, but she hadn’t seen a single ray of natural light since she’d woken up there. No windows were in their corridor and they were subject to complete darkness when everyone left and turned out the lights. The ‘meal’ was always given about a half hour before someone would come in to collect blood samples and inject them with more unknown substances; substances that burned through their veins and tore at their bodies. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but she was sure they were some kind of guinea pigs for experiments; painful experiments that burned like acid in their blood streams. She couldn’t even hope that someone would move mountains to find her, because she’d moved away from her family years ago. She’d stopped contact with her father and older brother when she was twenty and realized that they made their living by selling drugs and slaves. She couldn’t stop them; she’d tried so many times and had been locked in her room because of her attempts. The last time they finally unlocked her room after two weeks of being a prisoner with only food being delivered, she had had enough. She had waited until they were asleep and then managed to save one girl and they fled from her father’s house. She had dropped her off where she had asked to be dropped; she didn’t blame her for trying to get away from her too, and then she’d gone until she ran out of fuel, traded in her expensive car for a much cheaper car with a full tank and started a new life far away from her father’s reign of terror. She’d never looked back, until now. The irony was that she was in much the same situation that she had tried to save others from. To be honest, she was still unsure how they had captured her. The last thing she remembered was leaving the cinema where she and her friends had met to watch a movie. She’d thought she’d heard something and then – nothing. Well, aside from waking up blearily with someone sticking a needle in her arm. After that, everything had been strangely hazy not long after they’d had their one meal. So she figured this was her one way to attempt an escape. She was not going to lie and wait for them to kill her. She heard raised voices as two men came strolling in, clearly in the middle of a disagreement. Tessa flung herself down on the floor in much the same way the other girls were that had eaten their meals with gusto. Yep, their food was drugged; there was no longer any doubt in her mind. She pretended to be unconscious while she watched them through her slightly cracked lids. They came to stop in front of her cage, obviously not seeming to notice a difference in her. “What do you mean you injected her with B156, she was supposed to get F156!” one guy demanded. “That’s what it said on the paperwork, look!” The other retorted with annoyance, nearly shoving the paper on the clipboard in his face. The first guy squinted at the paper and then cursed. “Who’s the fucker that spilled liquid on the paperwork? It was F156. Look there. The ink ran with some kind of liquid spilled on the page.” “Don’t look at me, I’m just following orders.” The first guy scowled and sighed. “She was our subject that took to it the best.” He rubbed his long fingers over his forehead in irritation. “Alright, draw blood and see if it altered our test subject. She has been ordered out already, so we better hope this one dose hasn’t screwed up our work. This one is the closest to success we’ve come thus far with this serum and the buyer will be pissed if we screw this up.” “Yeah, I’m on it.” The second guy answered and she watched the other guy walk away, leaving the one to scowl down at her. “I’d have loved to have a piece of this, but they want it ‘unscathed’.” He said to himself in a mocking tone. “f**k it, better get to it before it’s my ass on the line, I could always go with one of the rejects later…” He sighed to himself, running his eyes over her one last time. It took everything in her to not shiver in disgust at his blatantly lustful stare. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he turned around and stalked out of the hallway again. Tessa knew this would be her only chance to escape, but she wasn’t sure what to do. She knew once they injected her with the next serum she would probably be in immense pain again, much like all the previous times. Her time here had been divided between a drugged state, followed by burning pain after they injected them under supervision and then leaving them for the night. She had to move before he immobilized her with the injection that would cause her enough pain to render her useless, aside from writhing and screaming in pain. She didn’t have much time to make sure she would be able to react before he came stalking back, muttering about being the only one that seemed to be doing his job right. She noticed he had a tray with several empty vials waiting and then a few injections, already drawn up. She assumed the injections were for the other girls, since her blood would be tested first, before administering anything else, if she remembered correctly from her drug-addled days before. She did remember her screams ringing out the most in this corridor; the others either didn’t feel as much pain or weren’t injected as much as she was. Tessa watched through her cracked lids as he balanced the tray in one hand and shuffled through the keys with the other. When he finally found the right key, he unlocked the gate and stooped to enter the cage that allowed very little moving room; still balancing the tray haphazardly. She would have to disable him somehow to get out, so she waited another moment and when he was within reach, she suddenly kicked out, kicking the tray back against his chest and face, causing him to fall backwards against the bars. The sound of glass vials shattering on the ground along with a hiss of shock and pain from him. She used that moment of surprise to jump to her feet and shove him back against the bars before she tried to rush past him. Tessa groaned in pain as her foot landed squarely on the spot of shattered glass in the doorway. The slight hesitation gave the guy enough time to reach and he caught her ankle. She screamed in pain when he suddenly slammed two syringes into her calf together. She felt the burning start to run through her veins again, faster than before with her adrenaline pumping, but she was determined to get out, so gnashing her teeth she kicked him in the face, cutting his face up with the glass still in her foot. When he released her ankle she tried to ignore the pain while she rushed down the corridor like some wounded animal, gasping and wheezing while she fought against dropping to the ground. Her muscles pumped the serums faster through her veins and causing her whole body to start burning, but she refused to give up. She would not die here! She heard the guy cursing and coming after her, but she kept going, knowing that this was her only chance. She tried to go faster despite her muscles now cramping and her weakness from weeks of malnutrition. She was frail and she hurt all over now. She couldn’t fight this pain much longer. Tessa saw a large window in front of her and realized that it was dark outside, but she was not giving up. She kept running, she was within reach of the stairs. She saw near the window and she could almost feel his breath in the back of her neck. Tessa decided to dive for the stairs, hoping that it would give her enough time to escape if he misjudged his plan to capture her. Unfortunately, she dove just as he dove against her and she screamed in pain as they flew through the window, glass shattering and cutting up the rest of her body along with the burning pain of the two injections. The pain was too much and she realized they had been on the second floor a moment before she blacked out from all the pain. She hoped that she would die before they could drag her back into the hell hole.