Tempting Fate

One: The Rebuild

Blood soaked the white cement walls of her cell. It dripped from the ceiling and oozed from unseen cracks hidden amongst the paint. Iron and decay soured the air, filling her nose until she gagged. Her gut upended, trying to expel something. Anything.

There was nothing to throw up. She hadn't eaten in days.

A loud plop of blood from the ceiling had her glancing up. Blood again today. Maybe tomorrow she'd go back to bugs...or shadows.

The shadows were the worst. She kept searching through them. Looking for black fur or yellow-green eyes.

Her heart was still telling her brain to keep an eye out. But her brain knew better.

No one would come for her. The shadows were and would always be just shadows.

I told you not to tell them, her mother's voice cooed from the distance. As the days passed, her mother's voice had taken on an edgier tone. A mocking one.

I told you—

The door to her room opened. Two individuals walked through the blood, their boots sliding through puddles of the thick red liquid. One had a white lab coat that matched what small spots of her cell walls she could see. The other was in plain black gear that had her heart racing.

They glanced over at where she huddled in the corner, knees pressed to her chest. It was the only spot in the entire room that was clean. The only spot that, occasionally, didn't smell like death and decay.

So she clung to it.

The white lab coat went to the small cot in the room and picked up the chart hanging from the top of the metal railing. As she flipped up the first page, the wet, sucking sound made Arietta wince. Deep red liquid matted the entire clipboard.

The guard only watched from near the door. Arietta found it odd that the blood from the ceiling didn't touch the female guard as it dribbled towards the floor.

"No change since yesterday," the lab coat said in a low voice. "No food yet either. We'll need to bring in an IV."

A large glob dropped onto the lab coat's shoulder, right where her dark hair draped across the collar. Arietta found herself unable to look away.

"Arietta?"

It was mesmerizing, the way it seeped slowly, carefully into the lab coat's clothes.

"Arietta, my name is Sophie," the lab coat said. "Can you hear me?"

"You have blood on your shoulder," Arietta murmured.

The lab coat and the guard shared a look.

"I'll let Reison know," the guard said.

In the corner across from her, something squirmed from one puddle. Warily, Arietta curled her legs tighter to her chest. Was that...?

A large, black cockroach squirmed and darted from the puddle. It shifted and swayed until—

Bugs.

Cockroaches, beetles, flying gnats, all dark bodies and small legs. Arietta whimpered and screwed her eyes shut tight.

Just your imagination. Just your imagination. It's not there. It's not there.

Yet she heard the chirp and hiss, the buzzing flap of wings as the bugs crawled over each other. They got closer and closer—

Arietta screamed.

***

"Anything?"

Lianna shook her head. "Nothing. We've combed the woods for days, but any initial survivors have since died."