The Ruined Luna

Sixteen

(TW)

Five Months Ago

"Wake up. Hey, wake up!"

The pounding in my head beat in a steady staccato against the walls of my skull, growing worse by the minute as someone pulled incessantly at my arm. I swatted at their hand with a groan.

"Stop touching me." I grouched at them. This was literally the worse hangover I'd had to date. My stomach rolled, mouth filling with saliva as it churned and twisted. What the hell had I been drinking? Jet fuel? I opened my mouth just to unstick my tongue from the roof. Ugh. Cotton mouth was nasty.

"You need to wake up!" the voice insisted again, a little more frantic. "They'll come back any minute! Please, get up!"

"God, what the fuck is—" I cracked my eyes open, expecting to see the familiar white and black checkerboard kitchen floor. Instead, all I saw was light grey concrete.

I sat up, hissing as my head throbbed even harder. I grabbed it with both hands, needing to try and physically hold it together, but jerked them back as a stinging fire lit up the right side of my head, and at the feel of something wet and viscus against my fingers. I stared at them in my lap. They were covered with blood.

"What...what is this?" I gasped out, unable to speak at a normal volume as my throat constricted, and a cold numbness raced up my chest.

"Shhh. You have to be quiet." The same voice rushed out, a small hand patting me on the shoulder in what normally might have been a comforting gesture. Might have been, had my vision not began to clear, and my surroundings came into focus.

Oh, God. I was in a cage. The bars were covered in rust and stank of iron. But beyond them was a concrete room with a single stainless-steel examination table in the corner, chains attached to all four points, and a small partial wall covered in menacing looking tools. Every single one of them was covered in dark stains, as was the stone beneath the table itself. There was only a single door up a short flight of stairs. The only way in, or out.

A whimper slipped out from between clenched teeth as I stared, my whole body starting to tremble as my breath sawed in and out of my chest.

'Shit, shit, shit, shit. Oh no, oh fuck no. What's happening?!'

A pair of big brown eyes blocked my view. Her medium length dark hair was matted, and gore splattered her front. Other than the goose egg sprouting from the side of her head, she looked otherwise untouched.

"She's not going to scream, is she?" a pinched voice whispered, drawing my attention from the girl in front of me. I sucked in a breath. I wasn't alone. There were easily ten of us in this tiny cage, and now that I'd sat up, they were able to spread out again, though it was still a tight fit with each and every one of them sitting either crisscross or tucked tight into a little ball. There was an orange bucket occupying the front right corner of the cage.

"No, she's not going to scream." The brown-eyed girl rushed to reassure her, meeting my gaze again. "You can't scream. If you scream, they'll only take you faster."

I clamped my teeth down so hard on my lip it ripped open on the inside, flooding my mouth with the taste of hot copper. It made me want to wretch.

"What's happening?" I whispered, trying not to gag as I swallowed. "I don't understand."

"You were kidnapped." The girl told me, like she was describing the weather and not our fucking abduction. "We all were. All with the same story. Hit over the head and woke up in here."

"All?" I repeated, looking at the other women in the cage. The only thing we all seemed to have in common was age range. No one looked older than their mid-thirties or younger than eighteen.