Becoming Sleepers (2/14)
Title: Twenty-four (The Cage) (2/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Twenty-four (The Cage) (2/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers. It’s amazing. Really.
The creature in the cage looked like a man but River knew better than to take outwards appearances as truth. It snapped and snarled at the guards who pushed its steel cage into River’s room. Strings of saliva dripped past its lips and splattered on the shining bars that separated them from its vicious attacks.
It was a Reaver. River had thought they didn’t exist and were simply campfire stories made up to frighten children into behaving and obeying their parents’ wishes. Since coming to the Academy, however, River had learned a lot about the true state of the Universe. As a child she would never have believed that a person could possibly know too much, but time and experience had proved her wrong once again.
When they had removed her amygdala they removed her ability to keep others’ thoughts out of her head, effectively creating a psychic or a reader as they called them on the outer planets. Thoughts came barreling into her head like runaway freight trains. Sometimes they were innocuous bits of information like what her doctors were planning to have for lunch but sometimes people thought about secrets. Secrets they didn’t want anyone else to know and forgot that she couldn’t NOT know them. One of these secrets was Miranda and the deadly, monstrous side-effect of trying to create a perfect world.
River knew Reavers. She knew what they did to people and the carnage they left behind by people who had witnessed it. She knew the guilt and anger some carried for their creation and the blithe indifference of others. Most of all she knew the memory of fear of them. The blind terror that came with knowing they were near and you might be their next meal, toy and hat all in one.
So when the cage was wheeled into River’s room and she felt that first wave of raging thoughts push into her head she screamed as though her very soul, if she even believed such a thing existed anymore, was being pulled out of her body through her throat. The Reaver’s attention was quickly attracted more to River’s shrill sound of fear than the quiet trepidation of the guards. It attacked the bars separating them with a fury so violent the guards exchanged a quick look of amusement that perhaps the timed locks on the cage weren’t even necessary, that the Reaver would break through the cage all on its own. But the bars held firm against the attack and the creature remained enclosed.
With a swift nod to each other one guard opened a small panel on the side of the cage. Without turning towards River and heedless of her cries, he tossed over his shoulder, “You have twenty-four hours. Starting now.” He pushed a button and tightly closed and locked the panel. The two guards walked briskly back across the room and, with one last look at the screaming girl, closed the wide heavy door behind them.
Blood. Skin. Rip.
River’s terrified screams dissolved into whimpers as her hoarse voice finally gave out. The Reaver’s single-minded, raging thoughts trampled through her brain like elephants, filling her head with its hungry and cruel ideas.
Tear. Bone. Crush.
It didn’t speak. It had the physical ability but not the will. Language was the tool of humanity and was buried deep inside the monster with the man who had once been, but no longer hoped to see the light of day.
Hungry. Fuck. Bite.
Regaining control of her body, if not her mind, River looked towards the cage. It was about seven feet tall, the side facing her couldn’t have been more than five feet long and though she couldn’t see it clearly from her position on the bed, she thought it was about the same in depth.
Slice. Flesh. Need.
The Reaver sat crouched and clawing at the bars, but upright it would have stood over six feet. It was dressed in loose blue pants and plain blue shirt that hung in tatters over its chest where it had ripped and torn in frustration. The smooth skin stretched over its shoulders peaked out through ribbons of fabric as if in mockery of the internal turbulence of the beast. Its fingernails were trimmed back to prevent it from tearing at itself though a few scratches, scars and plenty of bruises were scattered across its muscled body.
Screw. Kill. Cut.
Burning blue eyes were focused intently on her. The Reaver’s fierce look roamed up her body and locked on her gaze when they reached her face. The force behind the stare made her look away with the irrational fear that looking too deeply into those eyes would turn her into a monster too. Her voice rasped out great big wheezes of breath as she tried desperately to wrest her mind free of the Reaver’s thoughts.
< Previous: chapter 1: Restrained | Next: chapter 3: Twenty-two (Skin)>
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Twenty-four (The Cage) (2/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers. It’s amazing. Really.
The creature in the cage looked like a man but River knew better than to take outwards appearances as truth. It snapped and snarled at the guards who pushed its steel cage into River’s room. Strings of saliva dripped past its lips and splattered on the shining bars that separated them from its vicious attacks.
It was a Reaver. River had thought they didn’t exist and were simply campfire stories made up to frighten children into behaving and obeying their parents’ wishes. Since coming to the Academy, however, River had learned a lot about the true state of the Universe. As a child she would never have believed that a person could possibly know too much, but time and experience had proved her wrong once again.
When they had removed her amygdala they removed her ability to keep others’ thoughts out of her head, effectively creating a psychic or a reader as they called them on the outer planets. Thoughts came barreling into her head like runaway freight trains. Sometimes they were innocuous bits of information like what her doctors were planning to have for lunch but sometimes people thought about secrets. Secrets they didn’t want anyone else to know and forgot that she couldn’t NOT know them. One of these secrets was Miranda and the deadly, monstrous side-effect of trying to create a perfect world.
River knew Reavers. She knew what they did to people and the carnage they left behind by people who had witnessed it. She knew the guilt and anger some carried for their creation and the blithe indifference of others. Most of all she knew the memory of fear of them. The blind terror that came with knowing they were near and you might be their next meal, toy and hat all in one.
So when the cage was wheeled into River’s room and she felt that first wave of raging thoughts push into her head she screamed as though her very soul, if she even believed such a thing existed anymore, was being pulled out of her body through her throat. The Reaver’s attention was quickly attracted more to River’s shrill sound of fear than the quiet trepidation of the guards. It attacked the bars separating them with a fury so violent the guards exchanged a quick look of amusement that perhaps the timed locks on the cage weren’t even necessary, that the Reaver would break through the cage all on its own. But the bars held firm against the attack and the creature remained enclosed.
With a swift nod to each other one guard opened a small panel on the side of the cage. Without turning towards River and heedless of her cries, he tossed over his shoulder, “You have twenty-four hours. Starting now.” He pushed a button and tightly closed and locked the panel. The two guards walked briskly back across the room and, with one last look at the screaming girl, closed the wide heavy door behind them.
Blood. Skin. Rip.
River’s terrified screams dissolved into whimpers as her hoarse voice finally gave out. The Reaver’s single-minded, raging thoughts trampled through her brain like elephants, filling her head with its hungry and cruel ideas.
Tear. Bone. Crush.
It didn’t speak. It had the physical ability but not the will. Language was the tool of humanity and was buried deep inside the monster with the man who had once been, but no longer hoped to see the light of day.
Hungry. Fuck. Bite.
Regaining control of her body, if not her mind, River looked towards the cage. It was about seven feet tall, the side facing her couldn’t have been more than five feet long and though she couldn’t see it clearly from her position on the bed, she thought it was about the same in depth.
Slice. Flesh. Need.
The Reaver sat crouched and clawing at the bars, but upright it would have stood over six feet. It was dressed in loose blue pants and plain blue shirt that hung in tatters over its chest where it had ripped and torn in frustration. The smooth skin stretched over its shoulders peaked out through ribbons of fabric as if in mockery of the internal turbulence of the beast. Its fingernails were trimmed back to prevent it from tearing at itself though a few scratches, scars and plenty of bruises were scattered across its muscled body.
Screw. Kill. Cut.
Burning blue eyes were focused intently on her. The Reaver’s fierce look roamed up her body and locked on her gaze when they reached her face. The force behind the stare made her look away with the irrational fear that looking too deeply into those eyes would turn her into a monster too. Her voice rasped out great big wheezes of breath as she tried desperately to wrest her mind free of the Reaver’s thoughts.
< Previous: chapter 1: Restrained | Next: chapter 3: Twenty-two (Skin)>