Finders Keepers
Heart racing and gasping for air, she runs barefoot down a cold, damp corridor. Her dirty feet patter as they hit the hard, concrete floor. They are so cold that they are long since numb, but she hardly notices.
Her filthy, tattered nightgown is hardly recognizable. The pale blue flowers that delicately decorated her decolage have long since fallen to whatever fate had in store. And the rest...?
Well, none of that matters. She's lost and desperate and she needs to find a way out. There must be a way out. After all, somehow she got in!
Up ahead she sees the corridor bending to the right and (praying it isn't her imagination) she thinks she sees a glow. Light!
She slows to a trot and hugs the wall. Down to a walk, she holds her breath and takes a quick peek.
Her voice nearly escapes in a yelp of joy before she clamps down on her lips to silence it. She sees light! It must be a way out! It must!
She picks up speed again and peers into the glow as it becomes brighter and brighter. Her heart skips three beats as her eyes land on an old but still glowing "exit" sign above a metal door. She crosses her fingers and dares not hope as her little body collides with the heavy door and... with surprising ease, it slowly swings open under her weight!
She glances behind, searching the dark corridor for a split second before disappearing through the heavy door and emerging into a starry night.
Looking up at the sky, she doesn't notice the tears wetting her cheeks, running in streams down her filthy face. The face of a child, no more than 11 years old.
With a furtive glance around, she takes note of her surroundings. A building, low to the ground, surrounded by a fairly high chain link fence with barbed wire running along the top.
Any other time would have found her seeking out another route, but right now...? She figures she can handle a scratch or two after what she's already endured. She doesn't have time to find a different way and if she did, it would likely be locked or guarded or both. They had to know she was gone by now. They were probably searching for her. She doesn't know how many there are and only ever has seen one. The same one.
But she has heard voices. Conversing voices just out of her line of sight or in the next room. She never saw who was conversing, though. It was likely her nearly broken mind. Auditory hallucinations. She doesn't know. She doesn't know much, really. Less and less as time slips by. How much time? She doesn't know that either. They didn't give her information. They stole it from her. The endless nightmare of torture, experimentation, and extraction (a word she had heard uttered at some point) left her knowing less and less with each excruciating, painful, and terror-stricken second that ticked by.
She runs to the fence and without a backward glance, begins to climb. In no time she reaches the top! She would make it! She would get out, be free, and find help! She reaches out her hand toward the evil looking barbs... but it freezes when an even more evil sounding voice stops her cold.
"You shouldn't have done this... You have made me angry, daughter..."
A cry bursts from her chest at the same time the electric shock of fear grips her heart and turns her blood to ice in her veins.
"I'm not your daughter!" she screams.
She starts to reach for the wire again but she knows escape is futile when the slithering, snake-like creature below her slips a cool, tentacle-ish appendage around her ankle, coiling it up along her leg to her thigh and then tightening It's grip.
She already knows.
She is not strong enough.
Not fast enough.
Not smart or stupid enough.
Not sly or tricky enough.
Not big or small enough.
Not heroic enough.
Not brave enough.
Not enough.
She is not enough.
Not anymore.
This was her chance and she failed. She wouldn't get another. This she knows, like she knows it is the last time she will ever see the stars.
Quickly she turns her gaze toward those very stars and, just before her disgusting captor yanks her unceremoniously off of the fence, a light bursts from her eyes and bright lettering appears across the inky darkness. It reads, "Help Me!"
The poison from the creature's tentacle then shoots into her thigh and blessed sleep overtakes her and carries her to a place where she is unaware of the horror, the pain, and the neverending voice that hisses from the inherently evil being it has been her everlasting displeasure to become acquainted with...
She has no memory of how she came to be there, imprisoned in this hell.
She used to.
She has no memory of the faces of her family.
She used to.
She has clung desperately to the only memory she has left.
Her name.
She knows her name, and that means she still exists. She is still her. They have yet to steal that from her although they continue to try.
"My name is Victoria..," she mumbles in her sleep, barely above a breathy whisper, "...named as such so that I would be ever victorious."
The slithering, vile creature that carries her sleeping body, shudders ever so slightly. One of It's many eyes/antennae curl around to inspect her face.
It used to have a face.
It used to have a name as well.
It was ever patient with the child as It worked tirelessly to remove all sense of individuality and self-awareness from her ridiculously resilient mind. The process hasn't been easy.
Once It succeeds, however, It will have a face and a name again.
When the name no longer belongs to her and she finally loses it for good...
Well!
It was "finders keepers!" Was that not the universal rule?
Yes. It must be. Every human child utters it like it's a law that outlasts time.
"Finder's keeper's, losers weepers!" It was not going to be a loser. This child was more difficult than any in the past, but that would mean she would be worth it. The more difficult to break, the more evolved and intelligent the child, and, as a result, the more powerful It would be when It finally slips inside It's comfortable, new, fresh, young body. Oh yes. This child was worth the extra effort indeed!
...
"Help Me!"
The words still hang in the sky, miraculously even when the darkness lightens into day. Her unique ability attracts little attention, however, in the dense wilderness somewhere outside of Sydney, Australia. Eventually, when it's far to late for Victoria, it gets discovered and creates enough of a buzz so that the creatures have to migrate to a safer location. They do so effortlessly and the slow process of integrating and eliminating the humanity on Earth continues...
(Parts of this write have been stolen, but they have been stolen from my own book, so it's okay. I gave myself permission.)