Death's Pet Chapter Three

Blaring howls are reverberating off the walls freely now, pounding against her eardrums even as she tries to block them off. Even her choked sobs of terror and helplessness do nothing but blend into the screams making her feel all the more hapless.
         Silence suddenly fills the air. No noise fills the bleak emptiness but her fearful breaths. Stumbling to her feet she clumsily makes her way to where the horrible silence is penetrating; where the screams had been bellowing from not moments before.
         Blundering into the only room that light shines from she hesitates at the last turn; Murder, rape, torture, what is it she's going to see? Suddenly doubt seems overpowering, why should she see; just to satisfy her curiosity?
         The sudden hiss of a laugh answers her question and her feet, against her command, step into the room.
         The air suddenly becomes heavy, bearing down on her and her heart tightens, her ribs clenching around it. Silence's perceives the ghastly scene and tries to scream but a choked whimper comes out.
         Children's bodies are sprawled across the floor, dead after all the atrocious things that had been done to them. Blood pools around a pile of girls, their clothes ripped and shredded, barely clinging to the small children's skeletal bodies. A pile of boys is next to theirs, scars covering their young, frail bodies...
         Silence chokes on her breath and catches eyes with the one child left, a boy so much younger than her that she can barely conceive the horrible deeds that have obviously been committed to his body.
         Scars crisscross across his ebony skin and his skin seems to flap uselessly from his bones, no muscle in between. Something wet is dripping from his eyelashes and from under those sunken green eyes inspect her, unable to understand what she is.
         The boy's head is shaven, a few nicks on his head, as if they had shaven him with a razor. He's naked but for the rags drooping from his waist. Years ago they may have been shorts.
         Then a red-haired beast flicks open a lighter and clicks the flame on. The fire dances before the boy's wary eyes until the beast raises the flame an inch closer and the boy's eyes burst into flames.
         Blood and gas, death and fire.
         Agonized screams attack Silence's sensitive ears but she can only stare in a terrified shock. The boy's eyes are a flame. As he fights to jerk and convulse in pain thin wires hold his arms above his head, cutting and shredding his thin layer of skin exposing his ivory bone.
         His head-skull-whips from side to side and he shrieks in agony, blood dribbling down from his eyes. Silence almost can hear his eyes sizzling and popping. She can almost fucking hear it.
         His arms jerk and tear at the wires, the wires creating jagged wounds. To Silence's horror the boy's right arm jerks so hard that his wrist bone shatters away and the wire gorges his flesh before his blood soaked hand falls limply to the floor next to his feet with an audible thud.
         The fingers twitch still and Silence feels her stomach summersault. What does it feel like to have your eyes on fire and then have your hand cut off because of your own fucking shaking? A horrible voice whispers in her mind.
         "Sindano, sindano! SINDANO!" Convulsing and screaming in pain the boy screams in a language Silence doesn't understand but somewhere, deep inside her mind, the word needle comes to mind. Meaningless and helpless, the word only makes her sob.
         Tears flower at Silence's eyes as the boy finally stops his spasms and his left arm holds him up as his knees buckle. Finally he rests in the only safety he's ever had-death.
         As the room is filled with taciturnity all but for Silence's whimpers a blonde girl, maybe twelve, walks forward and cuts the boys' arm down. Then he is thrown on the other dead boys.
         Silence sobs quietly as the blond girl walks over to her by the red-headed beast's command. Looking up with swollen eyes her eyes meet those of Feu Chien's.
         Quivering and keening she allows the blond child to lead her away from the murder scene and back into her cell. The girl's hair is shoulder length, silky and straight. Her faded blue eyes bore into Silence's before she realizes the girl isn't even seeing her; the girl's blind.
         As the blind girl puts the old fashion key in the tumbler and locks the door with a click Silence focuses on her nimble movements. Silence watches the girl's meager fingers graze against the other cell's bars when she walks obediently to Feu Chien as he calls her to him.
         Pulling her to him he gives Silence a toothy grin before turning, holding the girl at least a foot shorter than him to his chest, and creeping down the hall.
         Both the girl and the man disappear around the bend and Silence sags down into the bunk, cringing as it screams in protest against her weight. Cradling her face in her hands Silence wishes for her room in the cabin, even for her old room at her house with her mother there to cradle her after every beating she may take.
         But there's no mom here to hold and soothe her after ever beating she will take, no pillow to cry into, no lock on the door to keep her assailant away from her. There is nothing to keep her safe.
         Staring at the floor between her vans Silence's hands fumble for something of comfort in her jacket's pocket. Her fingers caress her MP3nano and she tugs it out. Almost miserably she pushes the ear phones in her ears and turns the contraption on. As soon as it's on Bullet for My Valentine's "All These Things I Hate (Revolve around Me)" starts playing.
         Singing along faintly she watches the slide show of things pass over the miniature screen. When a rose starts to slowly fade away from the screen Silence burst up, hitting the back of her knees against her bunk and then collapses on the floor.
         "Oh my god, god, damn, damn, damn you, Silence! Cody's rose! His rose, it's still at home!" for some reason, the small metallic rose suddenly seems important to Silence and she stutters and mumbles about how important it is.
         Her MP3nano crashes to the floor, the headphones having fallen out of her ears. Stumbling across the room, the MP3nano crunching under her vans, Silence grasps the jail bars in her hands tightly. Banging her head against the door she curses herself for forgetting the rose.
         Sliding to the ground she crouches in the corner and holds her head in her hands helplessly. Imagining the rose's silky black petals, a coating of black dyed silver underneath to keep the petals from bending or even rumbling. The stem is coated completely in copper, the thorns creatively tipped with gold. Then the tiny pieces that all work to keep it alive. Water, the nutrition's dirt held...oh god, what is going to happen when she doesn't fill its water tube for a week?
         Whimpering helplessly she cranes her neck as she hears a stifled laugh.
         Blanching Silence averts her eyes from the plain cement floor to the man's ruggedly handsome face. But he isn't a man is he? No, he's a werewolf and the black humor of it all brings a joyless smile to her swollen and bleeding lips. She must've bitten her lip and broken the skin she observes disdainfully.
         The werewolf, the one who'd carried her to Feu Chien she realizes with a pluck of sorrow, lets another charming yet somehow sadistic smile twirl at the corners of his mouth as he tugs open the door. Silence simply watches; no place to hide, after all Beau-Ombre. No mom to keep you safe.
         Wincing away from his seamless movements, she fidgets nervously as his strong hands clamp around her narrow shoulders.
         At least the rose won't be crushed by hands. She thinks as her mind swims with the fear that is bringing her higher and higher into insanity.
         His fingers feel like thick hooks trying to impale her shoulder bones and drag her upwards into Heaven. Keeping her eyes clenched shut she tries to think of something peaceful then scares her self by wondering what she is trying to avoid. Peeking through her eyelashes she feels his violet orbs pierce through the skimpy protection her lashes give her and search her opening eyes much the same way Haine had.
         Searching and probing until he finds what he wants he then grins at her calmly. He knows very well that she is terrified, just locking the fear deep inside her. Just as all the mortals locked everything inside, especially the males.
         Cowering from his gaze her eyes twitch away, seemingly reluctant. Silence's nostrils flare suddenly as a scent drifts across the air towards her. Food; they're going to feed her then kill her?
         The werewolf, Brock by name, reads the uncertainty on her features and wishes to strengthen it. The stronger her unease, the longer it will take to trust him and the longer it will take to break; strange creatures, these humans.
         "Your sister requested you be fed," he speaks with a distinct accent and he looks different from most French men. "So you may be healthy when you're sacrificed." sacrificed sounds so much eerier and darker than murdered.
         The corners of his mouth quirk up at her wince and he slides a bowl of swampy soup towards her. Dropping the spoon on the mud caked floor on which he'd just stepped, he turns and leaves her to her meal...or starvation.
         She decides and she knows that very well she may have chosen the most wrong, stupidest thing in the world...but it is her final decision.
         Forcing her self on trembling legs she paces the room impatiently, afraid the food is poisoned and terrified that it isn't.
         Death seems so welcoming now, but...that stench-aroma-it won't stop making her legs quiver when she walks away and hurry when she walks towards it... Whimpering helplessly she kneels by the bowl of food, spotting chopped carrots and a few clumps of meat floating around in the swampy liquid.
         Die throwing up or live in this hell; which is worse? Of course she already knows it, but her self control had long ago dissipated. Relaxing her sore, aching body to her hands and knees-like a dog-she greedily claws for the spoon. Grasping it in her trembling hand she suddenly notices how claw-like her hand has become. Her bones are more evident, more pronounced.
         How long was I out of it, a day right? She wants to ask, but there her answer is, right in the palm of her hand; literally.
         But she has no clue exactly how long, no clue that she's been unconscious for little over a week, with a new proclamation on her back to prove that she is now wolf property; a werewolf bite. A mark that will rest with her long after her flesh had melted away into the shiny black pelt that the mark would generate.
         And then there is the mark above it.
         The black wolf with the barbed wire collar and the moon wrapped in thorns that the wolf sings to clearly marks her as Brock's property; property, nothing but a thing. A slave for his own wants and needs and Brock only wanted one thing: to grasp and hold her pain, to make it his own.

Weeks have passed by, the thin threads of light piercing through the bared window in her "room" the only evidence of the time. Silence has begun to get use to the pain both Haine and Brock inflicts upon her frail, breaking body.
         Of course she has no clue that it's preparing her for both the decontamination (but of what?) and her sacrifice.
         The screams of the young children, Eusi Damus she learns they are, have begun to evaporate any difference to music in Silence's twisting mind. It's not that they pleasure her, not at all, it's just they seem to hold the same tone as music; the same brain numbing meaning-whatever that means.
         Then Silence feels that oh-so familiar full feeling inside her. She has to pee; badly. Grimacing in self repulsion she thinks of different places, different times, as she urinates in the small tin cup Brock had given her when her bladder had all but exploded in electric need.
         "Your little luxury bathroom," he'd said with a heart-stopping laugh; heart-stopping? No, more like lets-kick-the-dog-until-it-dies kind of laugh.
         Finishing she cleans herself off as best as she can then looks up expectantly and there he is. She momentarily wonders if he'd just gotten a good look of her when she'd been pissing but then decides she doesn't want to know.
         Dragging her self over to the door she holds out her claw-like hands; awaiting them to be filled with dinner.
         Letting out a soft (growl) noise as Brock's fingers enter-lace around her wrists and yanks her out she whines nervously. Fidgeting she lets her other hand tremble by her side, hanging there uselessly.
         Yes, she has evolved quite nicely, Brock thinks while tugging her down the hallway.
         Silence resists at first but knowing all too well how it feels to have your shoulder ripped out of place then popped back in its socket she trails behind anxiously.
         She visibly relaxes as his fingers retract from their painful grip. Still she follows, knowing there is no way to escape without going through him. And she knows she will not be able to beat him, no matter how fast she ran, he ran faster.
         Been there, done that, she thinks with a rueful smile. Brock glances at her and catches her beautifully crooked smile just before it fades away and feels lecherous anger. The skin on her shoulders and neck are just so smooth; a perfect, unmarked chew toy. They just beg to have him sink his fangs in their flesh...
         The thought makes his fangs grow, splitting his lips apart to show their glistening pearly color. His eyes dilate and Silence tenses as he hesitates at the door all the little girls are dragged into before being transported to the place Silence begins to interpret as Stephen King's Dead Zone.
         Quivering as his hand passes over the smudged door knob Silence panics and turns to run to her cell.
         Cursing himself for frightening her so badly his hand snakes out and his fingers find the tender flesh of her wrist and lock them selves around her. Great, now he'd scared the bitch.
         She knows just as well as he what happens in that room, it's hard not to. But she hasn't had quite as much as a close-up as Brock has. He doesn't approve of it, but a girl is a girl in his mind. Hell, he takes his turn with the little female Eusi Damus.
         Shivering in his grip Silence uses her free arm to stop the chilling cold from reaching her chest and shoulders. Looking at Brock she momentarily pictures herself gorging his eyes out with her nails. Wondering, wishing, wanting to know what would happen if she does. What it would feel like. Quaking she waves the thought away with a slight hesitation. Maybe, just maybe if he would lose concentration...just fuck up once...
         He halts at a door near the end of the hall, clamping his hand tightly on her shoulder, digging at the tender flesh with his nails. The door is a blue-gray color and has the look of a kitchen or bathroom door. Brock fumbles with his keys before selecting a copper one, turning the key in the lock, and shoving Silence in.
         "Pick out a few clothes, girl, we can't have you freezing to death." Giving her his charmingly cruel smile, he adds, "I'll come back in thirty minutes...If you haven't picked something by then...well, you can go naked."
         Then the door slams shut and there's the eerie silence of totally loneliness. A hanging bulb gently rocks back and forth from its chain spreading its orange light around Silence.
         Clothes are scattered around the room in disorganized piles and Silence jumps for the one nearest to her. Clawing through shirts with gapping rips and children's clothing she finds a shirt, a red plaid shirt three sizes too big in fairly good shape and clings to it.
         Running over to a corner she kicks away other clothes and puts the shirt there, then searches for more clothes. Nothing is of her taste, except but one Harley Davidson shirt maybe one or two sizes big for her. She places it with the plaid shirt.
         Everything is either too big or too small for Silence. Silence doesn't even glance at the women's shirts; too flowery for her, even in these desperate times. Finding a pair of jeans with claw marks on the left calf she throws it with her other clothes.
         She does this for about twenty minutes, picking out mostly t-shirts and jeans. She finds one punk skirt and can't stop herself from adding it to her collection, though it is a size too small and much too short for any winter clothes. She is a girl after all, she can't help it.
         Much to her amazement and great pleasure, she finds sheers under a sliced up green blouse. She stares at it for a moment then snatches it up and slides it into her jackets pocket just as Brock opens the door. Sighing in relief she then hurries to her pile of clothes.
         Bunching them up in her small arms she looks at Brock helplessly as she tries to stand and her knees, weak from lack of nutrition, buckle under the extra weight. Brock makes no move to help her.
         Gritting her teeth she finally manages to drag them all up with her still healing shoulder and her shredding muscles. Just a month ago and she would've been able to lift twice as much as this!
         Growling and snarling at herself to stop being so weak she lugs the bunch to Brock, not really expecting any help and not getting any. Walking past him, stepping on the tip of his boot, she falls with a loud intake of breath as he shoves her forward.
         Staring in amazement she howls as he stomps his dirt clogged boots on her throat. Disbelief and utter shock roll around in her eyes as she digs her claws into the tough leather and yanks up, ripping off her forefinger's nail in the process as wild fear fills her.
         Putting more pressure to her neck he snarls at her, spittle landing on her face softly. "Watch where you're going, bitch!" Stomping down just enough to make her eyes water his boot then raises off her throat.
         That is it, over and done with. Silence's memory of it is almost gone by the time she gathers up all the clothing that had flown from her fingers when she'd fallen.
         This is her life now, being beaten and kicked around regularly, yet never enough to bring her to her climax; never enough to raise beyond her knowing of pain (which has grown since coming here) and release her into Death's capable hands. These creatures-werewolves-know just how to torture her without killing her. They know just how to strengthen her enough to take the pain without being able to fight back. That is what hurts the most; she can't even fight back.
         But then, just as Silence is about to grab up the last clothing she remembers the sheers. Where had they fallen? Tensing up, her eyes flow around the hall before turning to Brock who has this simply terrifyingly blank look on his face.
         "What you looking for, girl?" Silence stares ahead him, through him, and thinks of her father; Brock is so horrifyingly like him. Daddy, what are you doing! Shut up, girl! DADDY STOP, YOU'RE HURTING ME!
         Sucking in her lips she chews on them nervously as Brock spins the sheers around his finger. "Looking for these lying bitch!" he shouts the last in her face and slashes at her belly with the blades of the scissors.
         Silence tenses up but doesn't move, is unable to. She simply stares at him quietly. "Damn it girl, stop staring at me like that!" Blood runs through the dirt and grime covering her belly.
         "I should just cut out your eyes!" Silence blinks and suddenly screams at him in anger.
         "What did you expect me to do, Brock?! Did you expect me to leave them there! Did you expect me to pass up a chance to fight back!?" Fury burns its way into her blood and her natural instinct to fight back comes back alive. "I'm not like every other girl here! I'M NOT A HOPLESS WHORE! I'M NOT GOING TO DIE WITHOUT A FUCKING FIGHT!"
         This flusters Brock, but still Silence won't stop screaming at him. "What were you thinking when you stopped at that door, Brock? Where you thinking I would give you a nice blowjob? Because I would've probably bitten it off is what I would've done." She hisses this out in a hateful manner.
         Turning away from him she bends to grab up the last piece of clothing but Brock grabs the hood of her jacket, spins her around, and thrusts the sheers deep into her belly with a snarl.
         "What did you expect, bitch, that you would just shove this scissors up into my belly like this?" he shoves at them harder and Silence eyes fight to focus on him. From her chest to her waist she has no feeling. Blood slithers from the corner of her mouth as she smiles, her eyes glazed.
         "Yes."

What little medical knowledge the ‘doctors' have is barely enough to keep Silence alive. Mainly because the doctors have hardly any self control; their animal instinct try to drive them into her flesh, tearing her apart just at the stench of blood and in the way she whimpers.
`          But they manage to keep their instincts quiet and to save Silence. Feu Chien is furious with Brock, hissing and snarling at him in his office.
         "You could've killed her!" he shouts in Brock's face making the younger one snarl. "Yes, but I didn't."
         "But you almost had! And if you had then all this time, this planning and trouble we've gone through to get the Sang Chantre would've been lost!" Brock glares the older one down.
         "It doesn't matter what almost happened; what matters is she isn't dead and she learned her lesson."
         "Lesson," Feu Chien roars in rage, his blood boiling at how ignorant the young bastard is. "You almost killed her for a LESSON!"
         Brock rolls his eyes and leans back in the chair uncaringly, tipping it back to its back-legs. Feu Chien's eyes bulge from rage and he clamps his hands on the young male's thighs and slams him forward.
         Brock's eyes open slightly before Feu Chien is thrown back as Brock kicks him in the gut.
         "See, that's your problem old man. You're lying in the past; the future is what matters not what did happen, what will happen. She didn't die, that means our plans will be fulfilled."
         The elder's eyes burn into the other's and his lips stretch into a snarl as he stumbles to get up but Brock simply shrugs away the other's stare and walks off to check on his little prize slave.
         Gliding down the hall with what grace a man his size-being six feet six inches and weighing up to one hundred-ninety pounds-can
         Brock pushes the metal door edged with rust and is welcomed with freezing wind blowing on his face and the stench of sick and dying kin. Stone walls with a pipe protruding from the right corner with a bucket under it so the water will drip in it, next to the pipe there is a blue door. Around him nurses and sick alike bustle and race to try and save the dying. Gazing around a half breed woman rushes past him with a newborn cradled in her thin arms.
         Reaching out to grab her flailing blue dress he stops as he sees the newborns face. Its face is pasty color, its eyes opened in a wide stare. Blue veins crisscross under its skin making the skin a jungle of bumps and holes.
         Another diseased pup; Brock grimaces and instead searches through the many scents, trying to detect Silence's. Detecting her almost powdery smell with the slight taste of blood to it he walks into the room the aroma comes from.
         Walking into it he scowls as he sees Haine staring at Silence with his icy gaze. He doesn't even look up from his intent inspection of Silence as Brock comes in, dropping all his weight on a chair in the corner.
         Finally as Silence begins to moan in her sleep he looks up at Brock with an invading stare. Oh how Brock hates him. He'd stolen Félicité from him, and now he is trying to steal his little toy. No, not again; she is his property.
         Haine gazes at him longer before his lips stretch into a grin of amusement at the hatred in the other's violet orbs.
         Unlike Haine, Brock prefers to stay where he has all the keen senses of a wolf and a human, but without being the full wolf. He only let himself change into the wolf when he is in desperate danger.
         For a moment Haine's smile fades and he gives Brock a look of near pity, which makes Brock all the more angered, before he slips past him in the calm fashion that won him so many battles. Haine can stay calm under any circumstances, whereas Brock explodes at the littlest thing.
         Brock stays tense and angry until Haine's scent becomes unnoticeable, then he nears Silence in her bed and grins down at her.
         Reaching down to stroke her luscious hair, he then grabs a handful and yanks on it. Silence's eyes flutter open for a moment, but the drugs the doctors had given her drag her back down to sleep. Brock grins even wider.
         Sitting down at the edge of the bed he strokes her trembling legs. She must be having a nightmarehe thinks with a smirk, pinching her soft flesh until he reaches her thighs.
         No, patience, Brock, she's yours for the taking when you want, but not now. Not here, with the half breeds watching. Oh how he hates half breeds too. Half human, half werewolf; it is disgusting! When he becomes the alpha male he will be sure to murder every last half breed, Haine, and maybe even Félicité.
         Silence will already be dead by then, sadly. He frowns at the thought and then pinches her extremely hard on her inner thigh, knowing how sensitive it is there for females and then leaves her to her nightmares.
         
Thrashing and kicking in a pile of something that clings and constricts around her, Silence panics and screams. Her scream is cut short as one of the thick (chains; ropes; snakes?) fills her mouth, jabbing the back of her throat before (slithering) sliding down her throat.
         Silence's eyes bulge and she jerks upright. Trying to spit it out in a panic she grabs what is still wriggling inside of her mouth, swinging and whipping her in the face. Yanking at the thing as thick as her wrist she is filled with dismay as a sharp pain shoots up her arm. Something bit her.
         Screaming, despite the thrashing thing trying to find its way to her gut, she rips it out as adrenaline gives her extra strength. Puke and blood leak out of her burning and over stretched throat as she grasps her now bleeding shoulder.
         Opening her petrified eyes she goes ridged in utter terror as she grasps what all is happening.
         Jumping as something scurries over her thigh she begins flailing in a wild panic. Her instincts set in as she feels something poke at her left shoulder blade and she dives forward.
         Crashing into something bristling in a feeble attempt to escape the mass of writhing snakes she looks up with wide eyes.
         Staring at the unidentifiable form of fur she gapes at it a moment, shivers dashing up her spine.
         Suddenly another snake, a diamond back rattler, darts its head from the now swinging form of fur and snaps its jaws closed by her ear. The loud snap of its jaws make her sob without tears.
         As the snake drops away from the form in a clumsy heap at her feet she kicks it away then stumbles herself as another snake-one she can't recognize-wraps itself around her ankle. Throwing her arms out to grab something her hand brushes against the hanging creature and she twists her arm to tangle her hand in the hair.
         But, instead of it stopping her fall, there is simply a loud ripping sound and then she collapses on the squirming mass of snakes. A black widow crawls across her nose and she jumps and screams at the sight of it.
         Then, turning her head in a bewildered fashion to see what her hand is trapped in she jerks her hand away to try and block a scream of repulsion.
         Her tangled hand jerks away from the form and she brings it to her mouth then tries to throw it away from her because of the hair twisting around her hand, and the blood coating it. The beasts, a strange looking half-human half-gorilla child thing, empty eye sockets stare out at her.
         Sobbing in true terror now as the child's face stares at her, her horrified eyes peer at the pale, angelic looking face between her fingers trying to hide it all away from her view. The poor thing's lips are a torn mass, the lips literally ripped away from the angelic face and a pale scar cuts its way across its nose.
         Lying there, being partially covered by snakes, she sobs quietly in true and utter despair. She is going to die in this hell-hole. She is going to die and no one will save her. No one.

Staring at the ceiling Silence's tired and weary eyes stray up to the door. Unlocked; ready to let her go out of this hell-hole. But that isn't true is it? No, it's there to torment her with the illusion of freedom. But a real hell, a place like this, has no escape.
         Forever and ever she will rot in this hell hole, being tortured and killed slowly until there is nothing left. Just like every other like her.
         There is no sacrifice; it's just a nice little word to give her some hope that she will escape into Heaven, but it isn't real. No...they are just going to torture and torture her until her skin has been stripped away; maybe not even then, maybe they will keep whipping, burning, raping, and torturing her poor body until not even her bones are left.
         Silence shudders and bites into her already cracked and bleeding lips.
         "Forever..." She whispers in the humming dark, watching the lights breaking through her window fading. Forever, not even after her body died will she escape. Never.
         And then this hollow realization sends ripples through her body. It's not her room. The window is misted over, without any bars. The bed is softer and this soft, bitter, almost metallic smell drifts on the air caressing her face from the creaking blades of a fan.
         Looking around her eyes take in the plain almost depressing room with an inner grimace; it has the same look, feel, smell, and taste as a hospital.
         Her nostrils flare slightly as she smells something different from a normal hospital. There is the strong scent of death and decay. Yes, all hospitals have the air lightly sprinkled with it, but the stench of it in here is almost head-spinning. But that's also because all her senses have become keener, although she has yet to notice.
         Pursing her lips in almost a pout she makes a move to sit up but freezes as pain races over her body in waves that only become stronger the longer she stays in her half sitting, half laying position, her stomach muscles cramping around her still healing wound.
         Tears burn her throat and she jerks herself upright. Unable to decide which, she had finally just let her mindless body decide. Crying out slightly at the reopening of her wound she whimpers quietly for a moment.
         As the sharp pangs of misery fade to a deep, bone-numbing throb, she opens her eyes and observes as much as she can of the wolf-men's doctoring.
         As much as she loathes and fears their kind curiosity drives her down until she finally gives in and watches the hurrying women. She doesn't know they were half breeds, and wonders at their nearly complete human nature.
         Watching them silently for around five minutes, a short and stocky woman with cropped black hair spies her watching and stomps her way into the room, as if angry. Silence's brows furrow but she doesn't move away from the woman's angry stare.
         For, as much as the woman tries to hide it, Silence sees sympathy in her grey oceans.
         "Damn girl, look what you've done!" Silence almost jumps at the unexpected shrill voice; for the woman's tough look she sounds almost child-like. Gawking at her Silence hasn't notice that while she is sitting bolt up...she is completely naked but for the bandages keeping her wound clean.
         Nor has she noticed her bandages are nearly bled through.
         The woman snorts at her and points at her abdomen then says: "You've re-opened your wound! Now I have to replace your bandages, stupid girl." And although she said this with disgust Silence hears the laughter dancing around her voice; friendly laughter. Laughter of someone that is at least humane.
         Silence looks down at her chest, and, not expecting the sight of her naked breasts, turns beet red with shame. The woman nears her then, seeing Silence's embarrassment, she cocks her head at her and crosses her arm.
         "You have a fever too, girl?" she questions observing Silence crossly. Yet a smile of pure friendship tugs at her lips.
         "No...Um... is there a shirt I may borrow?" the woman's pulls her head back and her brows furrow. She seems confused by Silence's shame of her naked breasts.
         "Why?" she asks, her nose twitching slightly.
         Silence, her face turning redder, motions at her breasts. The woman stares at her for a moment then bursts out laughing. Silence is stunned by the sound; it seems so long that she has heard real laughter.
         She laughs nervously as the woman, Nasai, her name tag read, shakes her head while still laughing. "Why, girl, you have your own clothes!" she barks out in an even shriller voice.
         "Yes but is there something I can wear NOW?" she raises her voice to be heard over Nasai's insistent laughter but not quite a shout and the woman simply shakes her head.
         "Let me change your bandages first."
         This time Silence does shout. "But the men will see me!" Nasai laughs even harder, her voice rising higher and higher until the shrillness is making Silence's headache. "They're werewolves, not men!"
         "I don't care just give me a fucking shirt!" by this point Silence is overwhelmed with shame because now both men and women are openly staring at them so she is now screaming and trying to cover her breasts with half asleep arms, and trying to avoid hurting her stomach in the process.
         Nasai laughs but shoves a shirt down over Silence's head un-expectantly then immediately starts shooing the other men and women watching away.
         Slowly she bandages Silence's wound, which, much to Silence's amazement, soothes her into a sleep which is not haunted by nightmares.
         After she wakes up, Silence is taunted with the memories of Brock impaling her with the sheers, and then Nasai's insanity. No, not insanity...friendship...the first Silence has been able to have since arriving here.
         Then, as she remembers Nasai, she starts to giggle, and then after a few moments laugh, and then she's literally shaking with laughter. For the first time since arriving here, something has happened that belongs in a comedy instead of a horror. For the first time in so long!
         Letting her fits of laughter die away to a soft giggle she looks up wonderingly at the door, her bandaged hand (she must've grabbed the sheers to defend herself but she can't recall) opening slightly in a welcoming gesture before clenching shut and her lips compress in a white line.
         Dragging the corners of her mouth away to reveal her teeth glistening with her spittle she gives Brock a grimacing sneer as he leers at her in the doorway, blocking some of the light to make a picture-perfect horror movie moment.
         Snarling in a somehow gurgling fashion she continues to stare at him with ice cold eyes. Brock gives her a slight grin, the kind a biker might give the girl that loves him when he rides away, and Silence let loose a high-pitch growl.
         Suddenly her face twists into a mesh of pain and she recoils from him as, somehow in a matter of seconds it seemed to her, he had lunged from the doorway to her and had knocked on her swollen belly. Starting in agony she lets out a choked noise of pain and slaps at his knowing hands as they massage the healing damage he had inflicted on her.
         Brock laughs pleasantly as Silence slaps his face hard enough to leave a faint welt and maneuvers himself away from her, avoiding every clawing hand and slap. Silence's breasts are rising and falling rapidly from her exhaustion. Trying to heal the wound on her belly had stolen away most of her energy and fighting with Brock had just stolen what had been left of it.
         Watching her rising breasts he then pats her swollen belly lightly, enough to make her wince but only in fear of the pain, and brushes some hair from her face.
         "Pretty bitch, aren't you?" he asks in a friendly way. Silence sputters a moment, fear and anger dance in her brightening eyes and Brock smiles warmly at her. "Fuck off." She spits out without much power or force.
         He gives her a hurt look before sitting up rigid and alert, going from playful to emotionless in a matter of seconds.
         Looking around Silence spots Feu Chien and her blood goes cold. His ocean blue eyes pass over her reddened face and the bandages around her waist once white now a faded pink. His eyes stop on Brock and he grins his demon smile.
         "Time is up, Silence; time to get prepared for purification."
         Silence's brows furrow at this but Brock's eyes burn with fury and he stands up as if to confront Feu Chien but instead he shoulders past the older man a head shorter than him.          
         Feu Chien observes Brocks exit, and then turns on Silence with sudden ferocity. "Didn't you hear me you pathetic-excuse-for-a-woman!" he roars in her face, busting her already horribly abused lips with an angry punch; probably blackening her eye, too-so much for looking her best at this ceremony.
         Silence is utterly amazed and stunned, desperately trying to tell him that the nurses said to wait until she is all healed but she keeps choking on the words so they come out in a slur of syllables lacking meaning.
         Crying out in a panic that she can't move as his hands twist towards her stomach he snarls, "Well, we'll just have to change that no won't we?"
         His hand shoots out as she writhes on the bed in panic, trying to get up and trying to fight the urge to get up. Tangling his fist in her knotted hair he rips at it and she howls in pain, kicking at him in a red blur of torture as, yet again, her wound rips open.
         Jerking her head back her legs then weakly push herself towards him to make the pain burning at her scalp lessen but he only yanks harder.
         Sobbing in confusion and agony her body finally lurches off the bed with a sudden burst of energy. Her body lunges on the floor more from her own instincts than any of her brains commands for it to do so.
         Resting her abused body on the floor she starts to cough roughly and then to dry heave. Her heaving sounds like the noise of a dying animal. After her breathing calms she tries to curl into the fetal position but is too weak to do so, so instead lies flat on the floor staring at the ceiling with blank mindedness.
         Illusions dance before her eyes, first a nightmarish squirming and wriggling mass of snakes, then her mother, and then a small, fragile girl.
         Silence gawks at the girl whose fine hair glimmers red in the light. The girl giggles shyly and tries to hide behind her hands covering her blue-green eyes before pulling her hands away and shouting a playful "boo!"
         Silence, despite her jumpiness, laughs nervously with the girl. The girl smiles at Silence, putting her hands behind her back. Silence feels a cold certainty that the girl is going to pull out a gun and shoot her in the head, but the girl just rocks back on her heels and laughs anxiously.
         "My mama was taken by the man with white hair." She pipes up suddenly, her swamp-like eyes opening wide to stare at Silence. Silence tries to gulp back the lump in her throat, chokes for a minute, and then catches her breath and replies: "What about your daddy?"
         The girl's nose scrunches in distaste. "Daddy use to hurt me. He's the one that told the man to take mama." The girl steps a little closer to Silence and lowers her voice as if to tell a secret.
         "The man's going to kill mama, you know? He told me so." She smiles brightly and hums slightly and her eyes close slightly, the way a girl imagining something wonderful sometimes will. Silence's eyes never leave the little girl. Something about her is familiar.
         "Daddy is going to try to kill me," She broke in again licking her little pink lips, wiping her hands at her lip which is smudges with rust colored liquid. Silence voice cracks as she tries to speak and the little girl gives her a quizzical look.
         Silence clears her throat and tries again to find her voice very hoarse. "You can runaway with me." The girl giggles at this and closes her eyes and shakes her head, and, to Silences astonishment and horror, when the girl opens her eyes, there's nothing but two holes staring out at her.
         "No, no, Daddy's already killed me." She smiles sadly and Silence notices fine dips of scars surrounding her mouth, and an X scar crossing both her lips at the left. "But you might get away. Daddy might not catch you. You can getaway, you know that? Mama told you that." She nods smartly but Silence just shakes her head stupidly.
         "Mama is at home..." Silence murmurs but the girl shakes her head, more violently, at this. "No, no! Mama is here! The man with white hair is killing her, right now!" The girl said this sharply, as if she were an adult scolding a none-too bright child.
         Then, a question pops into Silence head and she blurts it out. "Who are you?"
         The girl looks at her with her empty sockets for a minute and her lids droop into a blink and her eyes are back and the little scars around her delicate lips are gone. "A dead girl,"
         And like that, the girl is gone.
         Just another illusion, her friendly imagination says hotly.
         Who the hell has an illusion like that? She snaps at herself with resentment.
         No answer. She doesn't know and neither does her subconscious mind. Turning her wide, glassy eyes from the empty doorway the girl had come in, she looks up at Feu Chien helplessly.
         "What am I suppose to do?" She asks in slight fear, then quivers and stands up with difficulty. "Do I have to kill myself? Or maybe is she going to cut my eyes out and sow my lips shut?" Her voice rises in a mixture of anger and fear as she asks the last question and Feu Chien's eyebrows raise in question.
         "Clever and smart, but you couldn't have known on your own. Did Brock tell you?" Silence goes rigid. She is going to be tortured to death.
         Her eyes mist over with sorrow and fear, but she shakes her head. "Lucky guess," she says hollowly. Giving him an empty smile he gives her an uninterested look and then turns and walks away.
         She trails him on numb legs that quiver and fight to give out with every step.
         Crisscrossing her eyes against the spidery cracks that race across the cement floor at irregular intervals. For the first time she notices the blood smears on the wall and, at one spot, a particularly gory pile.
         Blinking in fascination instead of disgust she stares at it for a moment and actually makes a move to touch it. Feu Chien snatches her wrist away before she can.
         "What do you think you're doing?" He roars at her, spittle flying in her eyes. She blinks her large, sunken eyes, and just looks at him.
         "I was going to touch it." She says it with obvious confusion. Why is he yelling at her?
         "Why in hell would you want to do that?" he shouts at her and she blinks again and her eyes seem more golden this time. "I want to know what I feel like." It is his turn to blink in confusion this time.
         "When I die and you mutilate my body, I want to know what it feels like. What I'll feel like." She says with exaggerated slowness and he just shakes his head fiery and stalks off. Silence follows him dreamily, now looking at the blood smears with adoration.
           Hell is my home,she thinks with a touch of irony, but mostly lunatic festiveness.
         Insane.