dated from 28th Sept - 2nd Oct
Danica had deemed the loss of her superhuman senses as good as going deaf and blind but when she woke up, cold and stiff-necked, she was met with a silence and a thick blackness that made her reconsider. The ground was hard and uneven beneath her, not so different from her bed in the Compound for her to notice right away. The air smelled stale and she pushed herself up, automatically reaching up to rub a goose-pimpling arm.
It was the weight around her wrist, not the sudden rattle of the chain, that startled her. Her gaze dropped, though she still couldn’t see, and she lifted the arm again, the limbed weighed down with heavy metal. Instinct made her tug experimentally as she stood, small stones digging into her bare feet. She couldn’t move far before the chains pulled taut and the shackles rubbed uncomfortably over thin skin and bone.
Danica wasn’t the best at waking up and instantly being alert, but it was far from dawning slowly on her that she was chained up.
“Asher?”
Her eyes darted around, ears pricked for anything. When no response came she let out a frustrated growl and tugged on the chains again, wrapping her hands around the links and pulling as hard as she could.
“Asher! Fuck.” She coughed, trying to suppress a shiver that ran up her spine. “Lew?” She hadn’t pegged him for a sordid sexual fantasist. Velcro restraints were more his style, not kidnapping and holding her hostage. No, that was very much…her style. Danica’s own entertainment of choice.
***
Time had as little meaning now as it had done when she’d been a vampire. She had no idea how long she had been there, an hour perhaps, a day. The last thing she recalled was climbing into bed with a scowl on her face, thinking about her brother and the fucking barnacles permanently attached to his lap. History proved that was enough to give her nightmares but this was something else. The ground beneath her fingertips was grainy and cool like marble. Her palms were already scratched from feeling her way around, as far as her chains would allow. She may as well have been wearing a fucking dog collar. Her eyesight had adjusted just enough for her to avoid low-hanging rock but she spent most of her time on her knees, fingers scrabbling at the hooks through which the chains were fed.
The plate was large and smooth, a level platform secured to the cave’s bed that let out a dull clang if she knocked it with her knuckles. Anybody’s initial reaction would be to call for help but not everybody had Danica’s pride. As far as she was concerned, she could get herself out of this eventually. She just needed to find a weakness, one link that could be manipulated. That was her speciality. So when she reached the last link on one chain and found every one as solid as the last, she began on the next chain, feeling carefully, concentrating on that, rather than the way her shoulders would shudder every now and then from the chill.
***
Her toes felt numb. She tucked her knees closer to her chest, wrapped her arms tighter around herself, sat stoically in the middle of the plate. The temperature had dropped and she was tired from straining on the shackles. She knew who had put her here. At first, she had thought it could be the man from the laundry room, the huge, burly, Grimwood-like buffoon who had threatened her over a fucking gun. But time had made her rethink and time had made her see.
Delirium.
***
Danica slept on and off, went to sleep disoriented and woke up the same way. Hunger made her restless and listless at the same time; thirst made her tongue feel too big for her mouth. She lay on her side, bare legs tucked up, hair collected in dry, messy clumps, fingertip running back and forth over a slight ridge on the plate by her head. For some unknown reason, it fascinated her, the one odd part in all the evens. She followed the outline, tracing its shapes numerous times. Each remained disconnected in her mind. Her thoughts were slow now, she was unable to piece them, or the shapes, together. Two long, parallel lines, a corner, another two long, parallel lines. Shorter ones and then this smooth, precise curve that seemed to go on and on. It felt beautiful, the way it ended in a perfect point. Danica started the outline again. In time, she would find that was almost all she could do, when her muscles would begin to seize and her blood pressure would drop and it would be too painful to even lift her head.
She didn’t know it but it was her shape, her stamp on the plate. A glyph, right in the centre, that she had had custom-made so that when King would eventually drop his head in defeat, he’d see what he really was. What he would be for eternity: hers.
***
By the fourth day and by the time her pride had weakened enough for her to bear the thought of yelling for help again, her throat was too dry for anything more than a hoarse half-word to come out. Her wrists were raw, there was no way for them to heal while she scratched and scratched at them. She sat, propped up against the cave wall, head hanging, hair covering her face. Her entire body trembled, had trembled for so long she barely noticed it anymore. The cold made her bones ache; a silk chemise that stopped above the knee offered no real protection. The cramps in her stomach prevented her from sleeping, hunger pangs ripped through her insides worse than The Thirst ever had. She was dirty and she smelt. Degraded, humiliated. She felt it inside but had no way to show it. The pain in her head got worse each hour, like her brain was simultaneously swelling and shrivelling up.
Her skin felt tight and dry when it was usually smooth and faultless. She slipped in and out of consciousness beyond her own power and every limb tingled. She thought she spotted a spider once, white and fragile, scurrying across the ground but it was just delirium. It was Delirium. She held onto that thought, her heart thumping in her chest. She was like this because of Delirium.
She didn’t remember much beyond resting a numb cheek on the ground as she lay down and shut her eyes. It looked like it was snowing, it didn’t matter if her eyes were open or closed, there was an almost constant television static in her vision. Crying didn’t count when there weren’t any tears.