‘This is the worst headache anyone has ever had. Period.’

  I feel pretty confident in that declaration. All I can feel is the pounding in my head when I wake up. Slowly sitting up from the brick floor I am laying on, every time I open my eyes the room is spinning and tilting in a sickening fashion.

  I feel like vomiting, but there just isn’t anything left to give, resulting in miserable dry heaving. Afterwards I sit with my back against the cold wall, with my eyes closed for several minutes trying to center myself.

  It’s not working.

  “Come on EVE.” I shake my head. Ouch. “No. Lexi. Father isn’t here, you can have your name back… Alright Lexi, you can’t get anywhere if you just sit here and do nothing about it.”

  Psyching myself up works a little better. Eyes open, the room is still spinning but it’s slowing down. I look around and see that I’m in a dark brick lined prison cell, with a solid metal door for an exit. My hands are chained behind my back, so with some struggling I slip my them under my feet to bring them in front of me.

  ‘How long was I unconscious?’

  “I’m so hungry”

  There is a stinging pain and ringing in my left ear that is making it hard to concentrate so I reach up to rub my ear and find nothing but jagged torn skin -

  ‘Fucker tore off my ear! I still don’t have the resources to heal my hands or the rest of me and now I have to grow back my fucking ear!’

  This hunger is just getting worse and worse as I continue to move around inspecting the cell, at least my stomach quit protesting audibly weeks ago. Hearing someone walking down the hallway outside of my cell, I quickly run over to the slat in the door that people can look through. Bending over so my face is level with it, I try calling out to the guard. They thankfully didn’t chain me to the wall.

  “What do you want?”

  I put on my best pleading voice, which is not that hard right now.

  “Please, can I get some food, I’m sooo desperately hungry and-”

  He spits in my face.

  ‘He spit in my face.’

  ‘He spit in my-’

  My neck twitches causing my head to jerk.

  ‘Need to think calm thoughts. Freaking out won’t help.’

  “No food for foxes. Need to keep you weak.” He said with a laugh as he slams the slot closed and locks it.

  The hairs on my neck raise.

  ‘Weak for what?! Why do they keep calling me a fox anyway? I need more information dammit.’

  Deep breaths

  ‘I’ll ask him nicely for more information once I get out of here.’

  I go back to my spot to think a little more, wiping off my face, when I notice movement in another corner. There are a couple of shockingly fat rats over there, so I get up with a shrug, swaying slightly in the process. It’s not really food but its something.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I manage to saunter up quietly behind the rats to catch them by surprise, and then pounce on them, both squeaking in terror when I catch them. Fighting and trying to claw their way out of my grasp while I bring them to my corner.

  ‘Sorry no skin left to bite on...’

  While they are panicking I concentrate heavily on one of my powers pulling everything I can from the rats. After a moment the squeaking dies down as the rats first start to slowly deflate and then crumble into dust that flows through my fingers and onto the floor, with that the wounds on my fingers start filling in and stitching themselves partially together. Not enough to heal or even bring back feeling, but enough to bring back some dexterity and focus.

  Time to get to work.

  I start by examining the manacles placed around my wrists, they’re plain iron without any of the engravings that got my hackles up.

  ‘Why?’

  I shake my head again

  “Questions later Lexi. You need to get out of here first.”

  Continuing with the manacles I reach up to my remaining ear and rip a hair out before placing it in the lock

  ‘Now for concentration.’

  I take in a deep breath and close my eyes. Several minutes later the locking mechanism starts degrading and crumbling, twisting the manacles round and round until the chain bunches up tightly and give a final twist with all my strength behind it resulting in the manacle snapping open, releasing my hand-

  Too much…

  I wake back up a little while later feeling silly about passing out using my connection just that much. My vision’s spinning again.

  “How far have I fallen?” I say with a chuckle, as a couple tears escape my attention and run down my face.

  “Once I find out who blew up my home with me in it, I’m going to force feed them their hands, and testicles.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘If its a women I’ll have to get creative… force feeding ovaries just doesn’t have the same ring to it. All for not if they didn’t get transferred with me though… never that lucky to begin with.’

  I shake my head yet again. This hunger… I’m cracking…

  I wonder what time it is. There’s no window and it’s dark enough in here I can’t even tell if it’s night or day. As I’m wondering how long I was first unconscious for I hear the guard starting to make another circuit, I have probably been awake for less than an hour and a half given the likelihood of hourly patrols.

  I start examining the door to see if I can use my power on anything like I did with the manacles. Finding no access points on this side, more tears escape my attention. I’m not proud of it, but I start to get a little desperate. Those rats were only a drop of moisture in a desert.

  “I can’t concentrate like this!!” I scream at the top of my lunges and start punching and kicking the door with all that’s left of my meager strength, dust and mortar dropping off the brick surrounding the door. That’s at least some progress, but I can’t keep it up.

  I hear the guard start sprinting over, ripping the slat open to yell at me. When the light shines through I notice for the first time that the slat is large enough for my arm to fit through. A plus of starvation is my arms are bone thin. I get an idea with no time to think it through more. It’s now or never.

  Shoving my arm through the slat I jam my finger all the way into the mans eye socket with a crack, curling it behind broken bone to prevent him from moving away, and pull back violently to slam his head tightly against the door while my other fingers sink deeply into his cheek. Blood flowing down my hand, I whisper with all the malice I can manage.

  “Never spit in my face.”

  The twitching muscle in my neck finally relaxes, and I continue whispering into his ear.

  “You will unlock this door willingly, or I will start rooting around the inside of your skull searching for the right combination of buttons to push, either way. You. Will. Be opening this door.” I give him another slam “Stop screaming, it’s painful for my ear.” After a couple more slams he reduces the screams to pained whimpering. “Now, I want you to whimper if you understand me.”

  He understands.

  Within seconds I hear his keys jingling and the panicked scrapping of them missing the lock. Finally I hear the insertion and click of the lock.

  Pushing the door open slightly to make sure it is unlocked, I put my foot in the way to prevent it from closing. Then I release his face and slam the door wide open at the same time, throwing him off his feet and head first into the wall knocking him out cold.

  Looking at his collapsed figure I start wavering on my feet… too much again. His blood on my hand starts sinking into my skin, causing my eyes to dilate.

  ‘I can’t focus like this. I need to ask him questions. I need to get out of here. I need to-’

  This hunger...

  I blank out for a second. When I open my eyes I’m crouching over the man with my hands around his throat. I can’t take it anymore, I feel his life flowing out through his skin. The relief I feel is so immediate I get a little light headed, my hands start stitching themselves back together becoming completely whole again, my ear reforming as well. Those were the “easy” fixes. Continuing on, his body starts deflating like the rats did, in exchange the muscles in my body start inflating and trying to tear through my shrunken skin, screaming to be set free.

  This is the feeling I’ve been Needing.

  Just as I feel his pulse start to slow down an unbearable pain starts shooting around my neck like someone put a white hot metal collar on it, the pain so great it pulls me out of my trance and back to momentary unconsciousness.

  I wake up on my back staring up at the hallway ceiling. The guard is still unconscious next to me looking weak and pale, his face an unrecognizable mess.

  “What the hell was that pain? That’s never happened before.” My voice coming out hoarse.

  Lets try this again, I can’t ask him questions anymore anyway after I went so far, but I need to know. Once is a fluke. If it happens again I know something is wrong. Putting one tentative finger on the guard feeling a slightly stronger heartbeat than before, I start the transfer again, just as his heartbeat starts to slow down again the pain returns with a vengeance, almost knocking me unconscious yet again. Quickly letting go with a yelp I put my hand around my neck to see if I can feel if anything is there.

  Nothing.

  ‘I need to find a mirror, or someone willing to answer questions’

  Moving on I search the guard for anything useful. Finding: keys, a pouch full of silver and gold coins, maybe he was important?

  ‘Why is someone like that guarding me directly, and alone?’

  A larger knife, a weird glowing ring with more of that script and symbols on it, a cloak, and a few metal armor plates. Using the hooded cloak I hide my ears, tail, and the holes in my clothes that are revealing far more than I’m generally comfortable with.

  The dagger isn’t reflective enough to reveal much detail, but I do see a dark smudge that is circling my neck when I look closely. More questions for later.

  With that I start thinking about next steps: I need to get out of here, find actual food, finish healing, get information, and get back onto secure ground to give me room to breathe and plan.

  Now that the guard isn’t up to doing much of anything other than existing anytime soon, I move him into my old cell and close the door, my next priority is to get out of here. Looking both ways reveals a long curving hallway with more metal doors in regular increments. Both sides look exactly the same so I pick at random and go left, dagger in my right hand, newly unlocked manacle chain in my left.

  After a little while of walking I come across a desk closing off a set of stairs behind it that lead upwards. I inspect the contents of it finding only papers and a journal, both written in a language I don’t recognize.

  I shake my head and move on, taking the journal with some of the loose papers stuffed in it with me for later, I don’t have the time or the notes to learn their language right now.

  At the top of the stairs is yet another solid metal door with nothing on it other than the keyhole. As I start trying different keys to unlock the door I look down and see a note that had been slid underneath the door written in Polish. Picking it up to read-

  Heard the screaming, figured you finally escaped. Want to talk? Meet me at the Carine Inn. Ask for beer with ice at the counter and they’ll direct you to my room.

  PS – that man has a ring with a translation inscription on it.

  PPS – if you don’t trust the ring, I verified it myself, he’s very friendly with a lot of alcohol in him.

  PPPS – if you don’t trust me, I’m the reason nobody else was around outside to hear the screaming. Also a little bit of information to sweeten the pot – that man was a high up researcher for their military and was planning on using you as a soldier, with or without your consent. You want more, come meet me.

  Love, a friendly connection

  The note crumbles to dust in my hand.

  ‘Without my consent huh? How am I supposed to feel if the person I’m supposed to get revenge on is already taken care of before I have the opportunity to get properly pissed off?’

  Now that I think a little deeper about the note I get more confused.

  ‘Translation inscription? What? This is all… really convenient…. am I being set up? Who do I know that knows Polish?’

  Shaking my head I take the weird looking ring out of my pocket and look at it closely, searching the script and symbols on it for any hint. Can’t read this.

  ‘Nope. I’m not putting that on, at least not yet. Need to find a guinea pig to test it on first.’

  New priority, find out if this ring does what they say it does. With that decision made, I restart testing the ring of keys on the door until I find the right one unlocking it with a small click. Slowly pushing open the door I check the slits revealed on both sides additionally using the knife to see if I can spot any movement. Finding none I open the door just enough to slip out, closing and locking it behind me, then toss the keys up on the roof. Hopefully that was the only set. Looking around reveals that I’m in a deserted open area with the prison in the center surrounded by brick and wood buildings along the perimeter. It looks to be almost nightfall based on where the sun is positioned.

  “Okay, where to now? Even if I wanted to go meet them, they didn’t provide directions!”

  So once again I pick a random direction and go left.