Chapter Text
I remember reading a comic in a newspaper once. It was about a guy waking up, unable to remember the details of his life, then slowly getting them back over the next minute and wondering why it seems to happen so often. The punchline wasn't very funny, but it did stick with me: I guess it's so we don't all wake up screaming.
I don't know where I am.
There's enough light in here to see, but I'm facing the wall, and something in me can't quite bear the responsibility of taking a good look around yet. I feel like if I knew where I was, I might have an obligation to do something about it, and that thought sends a chill rolling down my spine. So, I close my eyes again, and try to explore the room with my other senses. Touch. Touch is a good start: I'm lying on something somewhere halfway between hard and soft. Squishy, with a tacky surface - reminds me of those plastic mats they used to put out in gym class. It's thin, laid over something hard and unyielding beneath. I slide a hand over to examine the surface a bit more closely, and I groan involuntarily as raw, bleeding skin slides against clothing. Two fascinating new discoveries: I'm still clothed, and I'm fucked up.
I don't roll over, but I do dare to open my eyes just long enough top inspect one of my hands. I'm still in the hoodie I was in last night, although I can only tell that from the ocean-blue colour on the few scraps of fabric that aren't covered in dirt or blood. This thing got ripped to shreds, and from the look of my arms, so did I; I close my eyes again when I see the long, thin scratches, still oozing fresh blood. I look like I tumbled ass-over-teakettle through Satan's own briar patch. Fuck, I feel like it, too. New, unwelcome awareness washes through me like a backed-up toilet: I'm ripped up everywhere. Legs, ankles, stomach, ears, face, groin; there's nowhere I didn't lose a bit of skin and a whole lot of blood.
I reach down, bleeding fingers tracing over the contours of my body. Shirt underneath the hoodie, just about as ripped up. Cargo trousers still there. Pants underneath, although they're only held up by the trousers. No belt. Socks, but no shoes. I'm damp. I'm really, really damp. Like I was out in the rain for hours. There's an cold, sticky, slimy texture on some parts of me - mud, I figure. Mud makes sense. Please let it just be mud. If I fell into a briar patch, mud would make sense. Don't get briar patches growing out of the sidewalk.
Touch has given me just about as much information as I can bear, so I move onto smell. That's not a great time either. I'm drenched in my own sweat, and I've lived long enough and been through enough shit to know what my own fear smells like. There's a wet, acrid, earthy scent that I think is just the mud - and again, I really hope it's just the mud. Fuck, I need a shower. I give up trying to learn anything anything about how this room smells; it's all going to be drowned out by me. I smell like a wet dog. That thought trips something in my mind, like a violin string being plucked too hard. My brain hitches, like it's pulled onto the margin and stopped the car. "I think you're onto something," it says, before refusing to tell me anything more useful.
Alright, touch and smell aren't going to bring me anything helpful, and I still don't want to look around. That leaves taste, or hearing, and the thought of trying to taste anything while I smell like this makes me gag a little, so the choice is made. What can I hear? Well, apart from my tinnitus (cool, so you're still here, glad you made it through this buddy), not much. There's one other sound: it sounds like the low hum of a fluorescent lamp; heard that a million times on slow days in school. But there's something... off about it, slightly. When I say it's a low hum, it actually does sound like a hum - like someone's humming an imitation of the sound. A good one, mind you, but it's still just a little too throaty. Nothing else but that and the ringing in my ears.
Alright, I guess. Nothing else for it: my other senses having failed me, so I have no choice but to stop procrastinating and take a proper look around the room. I gingerly roll myself over, trying to avoid putting too much weight on my cuts, take a deep breath, open my eyes, and immediately regret it.
I'm in a jail cell. Four concrete walls, painted halfway up with matte green paint. No windows. Toilet in one corner of the room, metal table and chair in another. Thick metal door in one wall, no handle. Fluorescent lamp mounted in the ceiling. I close my eyes again, trying to swallow down the bile that's rising in my throat. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I fucked up so bad. I squeeze my eyes closed even tighter, trying to remember a trick I taught myself to wake up from nightmares if I realised I was in one. Can't just open your eyes and wake up - you have to close your eyes in the dream, open them in the real world. I know it's not going to work; I know I'm not dreaming. Never had anything smell this strong in a dream before, and never had anything hurt as much as these scratches. I'm not dreaming. I know I'm not dreaming.
Did I get in the wrong fight? Did I sass the wrong cop? Did I get too drunk, stumble into someone's back garden? I tamp down a whimper and try to remember. It's not helping the panic. There's all the usual terrors: shit, what are they going to charge me with? Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to lose my apartment? Are they even going to let me call a lawyer?
But there's that bigger, personal terror, too: did they put me down as male on intake? My eyes snap open again, and I can't control my breathing. I can feel my fingers twitching, as if somehow they could claw their way out of this. I am so fucked.
And that's when I realise I'm right, and I'm so, so, so fucked, but not for the reason I thought. Something is off about this place. I don't think a county jail would have a porcelain toilet with a pull-chain flush. County jail wouldn't have filigree on the desk and chair. County jail would at least have a tiny little window in the wall. County jail certainly wouldn't let me stay in my fucked up hoodie and cargos after intake - I'd be wearing those orange scrubs, like in all the shows on TV. I don't think I'm in the county jail at all. So where the fuck am I? I keep rolling that question over and over in my head, as if asking it again will make the answer magically appear. It does, in a way: my mind races to piece everything together, brick on the accelerator. Nobody goes to this much effort as a prank. How's this for armchair psychoanalysis: a room that's both this thematically faithful and unfaithful to the ideal of a county jail could only be the result of a deeply obsessive mind. This is the kind of thing a rich serial killer would build in his basement. I haven't been arrested. I've been abducted.
Again, that violin string in my head gets plucked at the thought of abduction, like a scare chord. That feels... well nothing about this feels right, but correct - accurate. I've been abducted. I try not to think too much about why someone might abduct a trans woman. I try not to think about the sensations in my body, or what might already have been done. I find myself praying, once again, that I'm only covered in mud. For some reason, I feel as if that's the moment that the door will open, I'll see my kidnapper, and I'll get all my answers. I've worked out the first riddle. That violin-plucking sensation in my head, that sense of awful clarity, and then...
Nothing.
The door doesn't open. My kidnapper remains unseen. Answers don't arrive. There is still the ringing in my ears, the humming of the fluorescent lamp, and nothing more. I feel my lips curling into a frown, or maybe a pout - as if I was entitled to something, and didn't get it. I'm still here by myself, with only all the aches and pains of last night for company.
Well, if he's going to leave me here to stew, I'm not going to give him the satisfaction. I haul myself up into a sitting position, put my back against the wall, tuck my thighs into my chest and hug my knees. I can wait. I know waiting. He won't get me screaming and begging. I'll wait for him to come to me, make him make the first move. Maybe that'll put him off-balance.
(I've decided my kidnapper is a 'he,' obviously. I just can't see anyone else simultaneously going to the trouble of building a torture dungeon based on the American penal system, but being too lazy to fit the correct kind of toilet. You just don't find that mixture of psychosexual obsession and sloth anywhere but a cis guy).
Time passes.
At least...
I think it does.
See, I've realised that there's a little problem with my plan: I have no way to keep track of time. There's no clock in here. No window. No way of knowing if it's day or night. Did I wake up ten minutes ago, or an hour? I set ten notifications on my phone to tell myself when to go to sleep. It feels like I've waited a while, but even when I'm on my meds, I have trouble keeping track. I certainly haven't taken them today - tonight? Fuck, that's a good question: how long was I out? How long did I sleep? Am I hungry? I'd probably be hungry if I woke up after a proper night's sleep, but if it's only been a couple, maybe I wouldn't be. It's difficult to tell, because all I can feel in my stomach right now is the pain of the scratches. I lick my lips. Blood, but thankfully, no mud. Is my mouth dry? How thirsty am I? Speaking of drinking, what was I doing last night before I got kidnapped? Was I out drinking?
It feels like asking all of these questions (and getting no useful answers) ate up a lot more time, but I genuinely have no way of knowing. I could've spent half an hour checking how dry my throat does or doesn't feel, or twenty seconds. I was never great at multitasking, but even if it's the only thing I focus on, keeping track of the seconds feels impossible. I get distracted, lose count, fuck up the numbers in my head. Humans aren't clocks. We weren't made to be clocks. I close my eyes and take a deep breath after I lose count around 170 for the third time. I wasn't counting the seconds evenly anyway, I don't think - but maybe I was. How would I know? How would I know?
I feel like I'm a ping-pong ball, rocketing back-and-forth across a table, and every time I hit a paddle I'm going a little bit faster, until the world is a blur. My right pinkie is pressed against my ring finger so hard I'm shaking. I feel like my nail is drawing blood.
He won't break me. He won't.
Won't he, though? I've been in here twenty minutes, or six hours, or however long it's been, and I'm already freaking out. I'm already freaking the fuck out. I take a deep breath, as if that'll somehow calm me down, and it comes back up shaky, tasting just a little bit of vomit. I won't let him get under my skin - nevermind the fact that he's already opened enough doorways to leave a thousand slivers. I can't let him get into my head, I tell myself, as if I'm not already obsessing over a guy I literally haven't even seen yet.
I need a plan. I need a plan to deal with him when he shows up. I take inventory: I'm 5'9". I've been on HRT for 4 years and I shed a bunch of muscle in that time, but I can still swing in a pinch. Maybe he'll open the door expecting me to be so terrified and traumatised by what happened that I won't fight back. I'll bum rush him. Go straight for the solar plexus, groin, eyes. No matter what he does, don't stop swinging. Will he be expecting that, though? Maybe I should see if I can find an ambush spot. The door looks like it opens outwards, not inwards, but the room is rectangular - there'll be an angle he couldn't see from the door as he came in. I check the hinges, work out where he's most likely going to be standing when it opens, and find the blind spot.
Weapons. This'd go better with a weapon. Nothing hard or sharp in this room that I can use... except. The toilet. It's not just the bowl of the toilet that's porcelain - it's the tank as well, and it has a ceramic lid. I stand up, and immediately the pain of a thousand tiny cuts shoots through my body, but having a mission helps push it all down. I reach my hands up and test the lid, and... yes! It's loose! This is good. This is really good. Carefully, slowly, trying not to make too much noise, I lift it down off the tank. I test it a little - heavy, unwieldy, not great to swing, but that means if I get just a little momentum, it could dislocate a jaw or a shoulder, maybe even concuss. Yeah. This'll work.
I get down into a hunch, and take up my position in what I feel sure will be the blind spot.
And I wait some more. In fact, it feels like I wait a lot more. It's still not easy, but it's easier now that I have some kind of plan. I run through scenarios in my mind's eye - psyching myself up. Hopefully I can take him out on the first swing. If I don't, feels like trying to take another swing with the lid is a bad idea - just let it drop and go after him with my fists. This all hinges on taking him by surprise. If I don't do that, I'm probably fucked. Fuck, I'm probably fucked anyway, but at the very least I want him to be in pain the whole time he's sawing me in half and eating my organs, or whatever it is he plans to do.
Huh, I think to myself. Pretty resigned to the idea that I'm going to die. Don't seem so terrified of it, though. Maybe it's the idea of going down swinging. Always said I'd do that, didn't I? Whether it was the police or the Nazis or the terfs who showed up at my door, I'd take a few of them with me, right? Well, guess I get a chance to see if I really would. That's something, right?
There's a noise from outside. Faint, muffled through an inch or so of steel, but just loud enough to snap me to attention. Footsteps? Big, heavy, echoing ones. And there, underneath: another noise. Another set of footsteps. Lighter, precise clicks, almost like a dancer. Ice rose in my chest. Two different people. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Well, I'm definitely, definitely fucked. No way I'm fighting off two people. But one of them's going to have to take the other to the hospital. I promise myself that much, and get ready. I lock my knees, ready my elbows. I coil myself like a spring and get ready to go.
There's a clunk, a gentle whine of metal, and the door swings open. I take a breath, a deep breath, maybe the last breath I'll ever get to take. I see the steel toe of a boot enter the room, and then the silhouette of a body. I wait only until I can see roughly where his head is, and then I launch myself forward. I don't mean to, but I can't help but let that breath come screaming out of me again, a wordless howl of exertion as I swing the ceramic plank in my hands as hard as my body will let me, straight at this bastard's face. There's a thunderous crash, and an impact that ripples through my upper body, popping every joint from my knuckles to my shoulders. There's an oddly muffled grunt, and chunks of white porcelain go flying every which-way. I'm holding what's left of the tank lid, now just a jagged stump. I don't even have time to take stock before a pale, calloused hand reaches out and seizes it by its edge in a white-knuckled deathgrip, tearing it from my grasp. There's another crash as it hits the opposite wall a split-second later.
There's a shock of brown hair in three different shades. There's a splatter of white dust from where the toilet lid came apart. There's a gleaming, vented metal mask festooned with blue-green tubes covering nose and mouth, which hisses and clicks like a mockery of a living thing. It's at least a foot taller than me, broad-shouldered, arms like tree trunks, legs like Roman pillars. I have no fucking chance against it, but it's not any of that which lets me know this. It's the eyes. There's a pair of yellow eyes, their pupils shrunk to a burning, infinitesimal dot of void-black. I'm looking up into them. They burn. They tremble with a feral savagery I don't think I've seen in any actual animal.
I think, for a moment, that it might be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Then it reaches out and its fingers close around my throat.
It's stupid, but at the end, I think about how many times I've joked about being choked to death by a beautiful woman. It doesn't actually hurt as much as I figured it would, but it's still agony. It's not pinching. It's not crushing. It's barely even squeezing. It's s just holding me tightly enough that I can't breathe. Maybe I'm just projecting my own tangled emotions in the split second before I black out, but it almost feels tender.
It is the last thing I see. Exploding patterns of impossible grey-colour swallow my vision. I feel a lightness in my body. I wonder what death will feel like.
"Enough. Hound, drop it."
The order is so quiet I barely hear it, and yet somehow it feels as if its echo is still swallowing the room for ages after. In a moment, I'm on the floor, clutching my neck, gasping for breath, sobbing. I cough, heave, wretch, phlegm and puke spattering the cold concrete beneath me.
"Hound. Down. Now."
There is a thud as something heavy hits the floor next to me. I feel the line of my jaw caressed by two thin, delicate fingers, their touch as soft as gossamer, as cold as pack ice, as unyielding as mountain rock.
The voice speaks again, quieter, softer. "Let me see you, pretty thing."
Those hands tilt my chin upwards, and I see. I see Her.
I thought the creature with its hand around my throat was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It was, but She is also the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, in every opposite - serenity where there was savagery, delicacy where there was strength, impossible complexity where there was brutal simplicity. The angles of her face are too precise to be real, the colour of her lips too vivid to be true. Her hair is the brilliant white of silver, of polished steel, of brushed nickel. I feel like I'm looking into the reflection of the sun on still water. Her eyes are the red of roses grown for an empress, of strawberries sweet from the meadow, of blood on the snow of a final battlefield. I look into them and when they are looking back at me, I want to fade into nothing.
"Beautiful," She says. "Even like this, you are beautiful. Especially like this, you are beautiful."
My mouth opens in what feels like a scream, but all that comes out is the meekest, tongue-tied pleading I've ever heard in my life. "Please, Miss. Please let me go. I won't, I w-w-won't tell anyone. I swear, I won't-"
The fingers incline slightly, brushing the side of my face as tenderly as a rose's thorn. "Go, pretty thing? Oh, no." She chuckles, and it's like a glacier grinding on stone. "You can't go yet! We've so much to discuss, you and I - and look! Your long trip has left you dirty and tired. Aren't you hungry?"
Three fingers of Her other perfect hand reach into the perfectly-sewn pockets of Her pristine white jacket, plucking out something halfway between a garlic bulb and a bell pepper, more the shape of the latter and more the color of the former. All I know is there was absolutely no way that thing is going in my mouth.
"Not a fucking chance I'm eating anything you've laced," I spit.
I immediately regret it when I see the look in Her eyes. It's not anger, it's not even disappointment - it's eager glee. That hand that had been so soft turns to bear-trap steel wrapped around the curve of my chin, with none of the tenderness the beast showed me. The smile that was unfathomable turns to a smirk that communicates a horrifyingly straightforward malice.
"Hound would tell you, should I allow it to speak, how much I adore the fighting spark in your kind," she croons, in a voice as sharp as a fresh razor. "Hound. Open its mouth for me."
The shape at Her side, utterly motionless this past minute, suddenly moves again. It's quick, terrifyingly quick. Suddenly its chest is against my back, the hisses and clicks of its mask ring in my ears, and its broad arms encircle me, underneath my shoulders, pinning my own arms. One hand seizes my jaw, the other goes for my throat again. I thrash. I thrash, even knowing there's no way I can escape. I thrash even though it just makes the beast around me wrap its arms tighter, squeeze my jaw harder, choke me more fiercely. I thrash because I'm afraid: my animal brain is afraid that it might die, and that's the worst thing it can conceive of. My human brain, though, can imagine much, much worse things - but it doesn't need to, because I can see them all in Her eyes.
She makes a little cooing noise as she lowers the wretched little thing down, down, ever-so-slowly, towards my tongue. It's been useless, continues to be useless, but I thrash even harder, a whine of discomfort escaping my throat in a graceless gurgle. It touches my tongue, and the texture is at once somehow smooth and fibrous.
She smirks as my eyes bulge. "Now chew, pretty thing. Hound. Help it chew."
The hand around my jaw tightens, squeezes, pressing my teeth together. Tears well up in my eyes. The taste is... sickly sweet, like melted caramel, and bitter, like fresh-roasted coffee beans. It's sticky, sticks to my teeth, to the roof of my mouth. Cloying. It feels like it seeps into the spaces between my teeth, under my tongue. My eyes roll back.
"There's a good dog. Now swallow. Hound, you remember this moment, don't you? Tell it."
Inside the clicks and hisses of the beast's mask, I hear something quiet. A growl; sharp, guttural sounds, but they almost, almost make words. It almost sounds like "sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So sorry. So sorry. So sorry..."
Mercifully, I finally black out.