Bees in the Garden of Eden

The Trick is to Keep Breathing {11}

COME GET Y'ALL JUICE!! (**Trigger warning for kidnapping and potentially disturbing imagery. I won't spoil, but skip this chapter if you feel you cannot handle detailed descriptions of intense fear, anxiety, and other semi-grotesque horror aspects. It's NOT a romantic chapter, this is purely plot-based. If you want to understand the story but don't want to read all of it, I recommend at least skimming it to understand what is going on! Thank you, and enjoy the story.**)

For the first time in months, her world was quiet--daresay, even silent. She could remember the strongest, the gaudiest mint smell she'd ever inhaled, knowing full well that it'd be stuck in her mind for years to come. The scent would be unforgettable and linger longer than she'd care to recall. The sensation of her hair being pulled harshly from her scalp and a large hand covering her mouth with such force that she'd surely have a bruise on her lips afterward, pulling her skin so close to her teeth that it could cut the inside of her lip.

Even now, the dulled sensation of pain against her scalp spread to her joints and kept her from being able to sensibly assess the situation. She couldn't even remember it from before, but she could tell that the pain she had previously endured was unbearable. How long ago had it been? How long had she been gone from the care of the people whom she had grown so fond of, those who had tenderly aided her in her time of need? Nothing was right, and nothing would be right until she could find a way to come back to them.

Where even was she? Looking around, she tried desperately to piece together just where she could be. She could make out various stains of dark brown and red, along with rusted hooks and chains aligning the room she was in. However, her terror-ridden mind kept the majority of the world as only a blur, the dull but fast tattoo of her heart making it clear that she couldn't possibly focus on anything at all right now.

Right now, right now, right now...The trick is to keep breathing and do my best to stay alive.

No noise was heard aside from that of her own frail body. A dull yellow light flicked on in front of her, a distance away. A single shadow, barely illuminated by the light stepped forward. Standing before her was what appeared to be the figure of a man, donning torn and dusty grey and brown clothing and rusty, sharp tools at his side. She could not yet make out his face. He kept his head low, and paired with the poor lighting and distance between the two she wouldn't have been able to see his face anyway. Interrupting the impossibly still silence, his low, raspy voice came out and spoke.

"Despite the silence, you truly are the loudest thing in this room, aren't you?"

She did not answer.

"What, you don't remember me? Or is it that you can't?"

Kicking aside some chains on the floor, connected to the ceiling by a single hook, he continued forward.

"Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture, you know? I heard that somewhere...many years ago, without a doubt...almost as long ago as the first time I found you. Maybe longer, I've lost track of the years. We all have. We've been after you for so long, only for you to slip up enough for us to have searched and searched and finally all that work paid off. All for the moment we can..."

Stepping forward, he finally tilted his head toward her.

Good God, what was wrong with his face? It looked mangled and wrong, like a mannequin sculpted from bone and flesh and twisted into a recreation of human features by a creature who had never seen any member of mankind.

"Bring some things to light."

It wasn't until he moved closer that the stench hit her. It was that of rotting flesh and years of corpses existing in the space around her. He drew nearer and nearer until he came towering over her paralyzed figure.