The White Raven

Cut Me Once...

I'm escorted to the testing room soon after I wake up. Izzy follows on my trail, bringing up the rear of the little party. On either side of me stand two fully-fledged slayers, making sure that I don't run like many trainees do. They walk to the test seems like it's never ending; no one speaks; we just stay in our little formation all the way to the door. Izzy grasps my hand once before the other two push me forward through the door. As I look around the barren room, I can't help but shiver as I remember the last time I had to do the test, over six years ago. Nothing has changed. The only thing in the room is a single chair with thick leather bands on all the rests. I take a step backwards, I can't do this again, I think. I feel hands grab my arms and then they push me forward, a single tear escaping my eye. They force me down on to the chair, cold and hard, like the people who do this job. I clench my eyes closed a little sob escaping my lips as they wrap the leather straps as tight as they can possibly go around my legs and arms, making my fingers go numb. They move around me and put a thick one across my chest, knocking the breath out of me, before they wrap the final one around my forehead.

"Good luck," I hear one whisper, before they turn and go out the door.

I stay there for a while my eyes darting around waiting for them to come, and then they do. They're all dressed in white, like doctors, but inside they were cold hearted, ready to cut and hurt the one on the chair. Cut and hurt me. There are only two of them, they each where a white lab coat and have a surgical mask covering their face. They don't come to close, they stay at the edge of the room until one pulls out a tiny remote. I look at them desperate, I know that it's seconds away from beginning, I know that they wont stop and that I should be stronger but I still don't want to go through with it. And then they press the button.

The floor falls away beneath me and the chair falls through. There's a splash as the chair lands in the liquid and sinks to the bottom. The liquid doesn't hurt my skin but it burns my eyes, a combination of garlic juice and alcohol to increase it's potency. I try to close my eyes to protect them against the liquid but I can't, a force bigger than me stopping me from closing them. I open my mouth to scream forgetting that I'm underwater and the juice floods inside, setting the back of my mouth on fire. Even if I'm not carrying the disease it hurts. My chest begins to hurt from lack of oxygen, but I barely register it above the pain of the juice. Then the chair is pulled back up and the floor seals beneath it. My vision is blurry and I can only see white. Tears well up flushing the juice away but this sting more and suddenly the chair is snapped backwards so that it resembles a table. The restraints slither around me still holding me in place but adjusting the way that they do it.

Then a pain like fire spreads in my torso, I try to look but the straps hold me down and I realise I'm onto the next stage. Cutting. I can feel their long knives slicing through me, letting me bleed. They'll cut shallow enough for it to heal eventually and not die from blood loss but enough that it's painful. I try to stop my screams but they still come out. I can see their faces, filled with an evil glee and their coats are splattered with blood. My blood. They're one step away from being a murderer. I can feel my body growing heavy, physically and mentally, from my own blood and my eyes grow heavier. I try to fight it but, the pain is too much and I pass out.

*

When I next wake up I'm tied up. Tied to a pole on the courtyard with bandages covering all my cuts. The sun is shining on my face but it just hurts my eyes. My arms are stretched above me and my legs below me like a sacrifice. I have no idea how long I've been out for, but still with in the two-day mark or they would have taken me down. Pain throbs in every inch of my body as I stay there, unable to move, just waiting for them to retrieve me.

It isn't till the next night that they come to get me. They take me down and look at my wounds, now bloody messes. They carry me to the next and final test without a word, the most definite one that there is. They throw me into a white room with one-sided glass on all walls to watch me. I crawl to the middle and lay there, all hope having vanished. I know what comes next, before I hear it or see it. Red crawls in the room from grates in the floors. Blood. Most vampires would go made by the mere smell of it. It just repels humans. It feels like I am going to vomit, like something is crawling up my throat trying to escape. I curl up as it circles around me, surrounding me and then it gets heavy to breath, the air no longer having enough oxygen for me to stay awake. A vampire wouldn't notice, would keep acting "normal" but I notice and it isn't long before I start struggling for air, my lungs feel like they are collapsing and dots dance in front of my eyes. I try to push myself up, a part of me wanting to to fight my way out, thinking that I;m dying, but the other part of me lets me go. Truly having given up and I pass out once again.