My watery eyes crawl up to her face, and her green ones are dulling, only flickering with the last fragile sparks of life.
“What did they do to you?” I murmur, unable to hold back the whimper that leaves me, utterly horrified.
She tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace, dried blood flecking her lips.
“They… took everything,” she rasps, her head lolling slightly toward me. “You’re next, aren’t you?”
My eyes widen with pure dread, ice freezing my veins.
Please, God, no. I’m not next. I can’t be next.
“They said I didn’t need my legs where I’m going,” she continues through a wheeze, and with what little strength she has left, she tilts her torso toward me.
The movement reveals the full extent of the mutilation, showing her left arm is gone too—severed clean at the shoulder, the stump crudely sealed with the same jagged black thread.
“My buyer… wanted to see me try to get away with only one arm.” A weak laugh escapes her. “Said it would be more fun… watching me crawl away from my nightmares.”
Feeling sick to my stomach and utterly repulsed, I swallow hard, but it does nothing to stop the wave of nausea crashing over me.
This isn’t the same place I was sold from before. That was for the pure and untouched. The ones they could break carefully, savoring every scream.
This… this is something far more evil and demented.
This is a market for broken toys they sell to the most depraved buyers, who get off on watching what’s left of a person, twitching and suffering, in the final stages of death.
My breath comes in short, panicked gasps as the realization sinks deep into my mind, sucking me toward the same shattering void I’d barely got out of last time.
If they’ve already taken her legs and arm… what the fuck are they going to do to me?
But I push my selfish terror aside as I stare into her green eyes, my own filling with fresh tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, voice wavering “I’m so fucking sorry…”
“I’m so scared,” she says, her young gaze swelling red and watery as if she’s finally found something she can hold onto.
Mine softens, my heart crumbling under the weight of her fear. and suddenly, all my problems don’t seem so terrible after all.
My shaky fingers stretch out to reach her, although I can’t touch her.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say with a quiver on my lips. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise, I’m here now.”
Suddenly, the metal door is unbolted and pushed open, the rusted hinges shrieking like something dying.
My gaze darts to the doorway as a man steps through.
No… not a man. Just something with the odd shape of one.
He fills the doorway completely, forcing himself through the opening like a beast emerging from an enclosure too small to contain it.
He is impossibly tall, and every step he takes is heavy enough to make the floor tremble beneath him.
His head is shaved smooth, the pale skin gleaming under the flickering fluorescent lights. A vicious scar divides his face from forehead to chin, the skin around it puckered and twisted, warping his features into something grotesque.
His enormous stomach hangs over the waistband of stained jeans, swaying as he moves. The remains of a white tank top cling to his body, soaked with old sweat and blotched with countless blood stains.
Draped over his bulk is a doctor's coat, sleeves rolled back over forearms thick as tree trunks, revealing skin marked with burns, scars, and faded needle tracks.
He doesn’t speak, he barely even looks at us.
