The Supremacy (11 page)

Self-preservation kicked in, my mind shut down. I turned away from the screens, unable to watch anymore. I could not look at the monsters that stood before me, “
Why
?” I asked, my throat tight with emotion and not yet fallen tears.
“Why else, Erin?” He crooned, his fingers brushed over my fevered cheek just to rest atop my parted lips, “You are our meat.
I was numb.
I mumbled through trembling lips, my voice hallow, “What are you?”
“Not much different from you.” He smiled down at me, his crooked finger pulled, lifted my chin until I was forced to look into his piercing blue eyes, “We look like you, talk like you. Some of us even
live
like you. Going
completely
unnoticed.”
“It’s impossible.” I muttered to myself in disbelief.
“We have been studying your kind for a long time. We know your weaknesses, what makes you
tick
, we know
everything
.”
Nothing made sense. My mind remained numb as I continued to ask questions that I was unable to absorb, “What are you?”
“A species superior to yours.” He finally answered before turning to the screens that hung overhead, “The closest known to you that we could compare with would be a spider, I guess.” He paused, a lone chuckle leaving his lips, “Although, we can survive on human food, it would be like a human only eating junk. We would live, but never would we be healthy.”
Too much. Much too much.
“We drain everything from your body.” He continued when I did not speak, “Liquefying you from the inside out. Tissues, bone, organs.
Nothing
goes to waste.”
“
No
.”
“Isn’t this the
freedom
you wanted?” He mocked, turning to face me, “Wasn’t this what you asked for?”
No
. It wasn’t true. They couldn’t be doing that to us.
NO!
He laughed into my silence, “What? Out of the infinity of space you think humans are the only ones that exist?”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked him, my voice still hallow, my body still immobile, “Why haven’t I been taken away like the others?”
He brushed a loose strand of hair away from my face, “So many questions. For now, you just need to know that you will not die. Not here.”
“But others will.” My breath rushed out of my lungs as I tried to process his words. Everything that he said, none of it made sense.
“I can’t save them all, and neither can you so
stop
trying. The only thing your actions are accomplishing is making it that much harder for me to keep you alive.”
“You don’t seem the type to give favors or show compassion.”
“Oh,” He breathed as he held me to his chest, “You’re right. I’m not.”
Before I had the time to react, before my mind could register his movements, Declan had a syringe buried into my neck.
“
Why?
” My limbs weighted almost immediately, and the room spun, tilting, rippling at the seams.
“I need something from you first.” He whispered before my senses shut down.
“
No.”
My plea hung in the air as I was pulled back into the darkness.
 

Chapter Twelve
I woke to piercing blue eyes hovering over me as my body lay motionless on a metal table. “It’s all over,” He crooned near my ear, “Much easier than last time, wasn’t it?”
Last time
. The last time I woke in an operating room, I had been drugged and bound, held helpless while he shoved needles into my spine.
“‘
Marrow harvested.’”
I whispered, still groggy from the sedative.
“Yes.”
“‘
It’s better this way.
’” I repeated his words from before.
Smiling down at me, he brushed the tangled strands of hair away from my face, “Much better.”
“But why me, why haven’t I gone like the rest?”
He sighed and looked over my face with what could have only been described as disappointment, “Many factors, but the main one being… your
flavor
.”
“‘
We’ve found our grade A in this one.’”
I echoed Tarant’s assessment of me from when I stood before him on the lectern.
“Yes
,
” He agreed with a curt nod. “You cannot kill your best. By keeping you alive, we can recreate your essence. In death, your flavor would be…limited.”
“Create more?” I asked, completely shocked by his statement.
“Stem-cells,” He smiled, “Technology has made it easier for us to feed undetected. It has advanced enough that we can
create
our own food from human cells.”
“Then why kill any of us at all?”
“Time, money, resources.” He shrugged, “We need sustenance. We can’t wait on a lab to create it for everyone. Plus, not all of us can afford you.”
My head started to swim as his words hit me. It was all still too much to process. A species that looked like us, spoke as we spoke, lived as we lived, yet fed on us.
“
The rest will die.”
I sobbed once the image of Faith flashed through my thoughts. They will kill her the same as they had the Tester on the screen, the same as they had done the rest that had been taken away. They will impale her tiny body with hooks and drain her for their meals.
“We are still working on the right formula, Erin. So far, all our tests have proved to be failures. It’s hard to create a new line of food from scratch.”
“The vaccines,” I muttered, remembering the four Testers’ swollen bodies.
He nodded calmly before he spoke, “Yes, our ultimate goal is to add human cells to the already existent food supply. By doing this, the human population will remain in the dark and still thrive as a species. We cannot wipe the entire race out. If we did that, our own species would go extinct.”
“So you are creating your own Franken-foods.” I shuttered at the thought of humans unknowingly consuming other humans, “
Impossible
,” I breathed, “They will find out eventually. Get suspicious when none of us make it home.”
“You were sent to another Zone to serve The Supremacy.” He winked, “No movement pass, no visits.”
“How can you do this to us?”
“We have seen how your kind treat your livestock. Is what we do any different than what you have done?” Inhaling a deep breath, he buried his nose into the crook of my neck, “We have to eat, Erin.”
“
You’re a monster
.”
“Oh,
no
, Erin,” He chuckled close to my cheek, “We are what your nightmares are made of.” Cold fingers traced the line of my spine, “What sends goose bumps racing up your back. We
are
what goes bump in the night.” I watched, frozen, as he slowly leaned away. He pulled another syringe from his cloak, “But first things first.” A wicked smile took over his once placid expression and he grabbed my arm in his unrelenting hold.
“
No!”
I pleaded, trying in vain to free my arm, “Not again!”
“This is the beginning to an end, Erin. You
want
this.”
Without further warning, the metal syringe plummeted into my flesh, the needle scraping against bone. Crying out from the excruciating pain, I collapsed onto the table.
He laughed, and then rocked back on his heels. “It won’t be long now.”
Fire licked at my arm, burning, sizzling as the serum from within the syringe slid into my body. Gritting my teeth, I looked to him for answers, “
What did you do
?”
“What I always do, Erin, I’m saving you.”
The inexorable pain only grew stronger. Agonized screams left my dry lips as the skin on my arm felt as though it were melting off my body.
Soon, the burning surmounted until my entire body was engulfed in the flames.
“Now,” He said with a chuckled before he leaned down to wrap his arms around my trashing body, “It is time for
you
to go back to your cell,”
“
AHHH!
” I screamed when he moved me, “You cannot be serious.”
But he did not answer. He carried my convulsing form down the darkened hallway, only pausing when a fellow Keeper addressed him, “Forget to sedate this one before you stabbed her?” He laughed, watching me suffer.
“Something like that.” Declan winked, quickly sidestepping around him to reach the door to my confines.
Gasps from the shocked Testers filled the dim cell once Declan entered. The first face my eyes landed on was Faith’s, my heart clenched in my chest when I saw the tears fall from her red-rimmed eyes. Those big green eyes widened in terror once she saw me in the arms of the lead Keeper.
Declan carried me to her, slowly laying me by her feet. For Faith’s sake, I tried to quiet the moans that were escaping my lips, to slow the jerks of my body as the fire continued to consume me.
No sooner than Declan dropped me did he leave, the sound of the door slamming and latching being the only indicator of his disappearance.
“
Shhh
,” My hand caressed Faith’s wet cheek, “I-I-I’m h-h-here.”
“What did they
do
to you?” She sobbed, and held my hand tightly in hers. I presented her my arm, red, swollen and still jerking uncontrollably.
“Yet you’re not dead.” Stephanie spat, looking over my convulsing frame, “The only one that has been taken and returned. Why is that, Erin?”
“Shut up, Stephanie!” I heard Brian yell as he pushed her aside and came to sit by my head, “What did they do?”
“T-t-took me to a room,” I stuttered through convulsions, “Injected me w-w-with something.”
“But you don’t know what it is?”
“N-n-no.” I shook as the pain sizzled through me, tightening my muscles until they tried to jerk free, and convulsing when they couldn’t.
As the burning reached my neck, tensing it, pulling at my throat, I thought it was only a matter of time before I suffocated.
“You
can’t
die,” Faith sobbed into my neck, “How many times do I have to say goodbye to you?”
“None,” I gritted my teeth, “N-n-never say goodbye.”
“Two more were taken after you left,” Brian whispered into my ear, “We are dropping like flies here.”
I knew they needed answers and they looked to
me
for those answers. They would not have believed the truth. If I hadn’t
seen
it with my own two eyes,
I
wouldn’t have believed it. The cruelty, the malice and complete disregard for life was unfathomable. To kill innocent lives to sustain a species as callous as The Supremacy seemed incomprehensible.
“‘
We have to eat.’
” Declan’s words came rushing back to me, “‘
You are our meat.’’, “Do humans not do the same?”
We did. We slaughtered to sustain our life.  We killed weaker species for their meat.
Were we any worse?
The all-consuming pain radiating throughout my body demanded all of my attention. I could no longer deny the agony of it. I could no longer hide the torment. Screaming out a blood curling, heart-stopping wail, I grabbed Faith’s hand, nearly crushing it in my grip, “Whatever they do,” I panted as my breath was stolen from me, “never let them take your spirit.”
“
NO!
” She sobbed on my shoulder, watching wide eyed as my body was taken over by spasms, “You can’t go! You can’t leave me again.” Tears streamed down her cheeks while she held me, and she sobbed into the crook of my neck.
“There’s nothing we can do for her,” Brian whispered to Faith, trying to pry her arms from around me.
She cried out, pushing his hands away, “
No!
I will not let her die alone.”
“She will not die.” A sinister voice filled the cell, taking dominance over every other hushed whisper in the room, “Not today.” It was the most chilling voice that I had ever heard, a voice that could stop your heart from beating if it wanted to, a voice that sent both Faith and Brian tumbling backwards until their bodies collided with the unforgiving surface of the cement wall. It was a voice I prayed to never hear again, it was Tarant.
As I lay convulsing at his feet, consumed by the fire that devoured me from the inside out, I watched as his cloak hovered over me, “How could you allow this to happen!” He demanded in a clipped tone, anger radiating off his body.
“She was brought in like this,” A nervous Keeper stuttered from behind him.
“Lies!” Tarant screamed as he turned to face the cowering monster, “You blatantly disobeyed orders!”
His hand appeared from beside his cloak, his rigid fingers clasped around a metal baton. The same as the one that had been used on the Tester that refused her feeding tube.
Swiftly, Tarant hurled it across the trembling Keeper’s head. Shattering upon impact, the multitude of crystal shards sliced his face before raining down a sea of glass splinters around his body. The Keeper cried out, scratching at his face, only to dig the slivers of glass deeper into his flesh. “Take him away!” Tarant ordered to an empty doorway, “Get her out of this filth,” Tarant demanded, his anger consuming him.
“Yes, Tarant.” Declan was there. He was talking to
Declan
. I wanted to cry out, to refuse him, tell that he was the one that did that to me, poisoned me, but my jaw was locked, fused shut by my teeth that ground together as the fire consumed me.
Tiny cries sounded from the darkened corner of my mind. I could not see her, but even in the darkness, I knew Faith. Silently, I begged her to remain quiet. I pleaded with her in my mind to stay away.
She did not listen.
“Take the tiny one too.” Tarant ordered with disgust lacing his voice, “Runts are of no use to us.”
NO!
I screamed, but the cry remained trapped in the dark recesses of my mind, unable to reach the surface.
Faith
, I sobbed as I was pulled deeper into unconsciousness… but not before her cries of horror reached my ears.
Don’t take her
.
No longer able to bear the pain, I allowed my eyes close, escaping the onslaught of agony with the only defense I had being my own mind. I let go, let the darkness of unconsciousness save me from the agony that I could no longer bear. And I prayed for death the save me.
***
“Rin,” John’s laughter filled my ears, “Rin, wake up!” He chuckled and my body began to shake, “You’re going to get a sun burn if you lay there all day.”
My eyes fluttered open to see John’s beautiful smiling face hovering over me, “Are you going to nap all day, or swim?”
“Let her rest.” A tiny voice teased him.
Faith
. My heart tightened inside of my chest as I turned to see her standing next to him, smiling a crinkly dimpled grin.
I was in the forest that lined my Zone, resting near the crystal-clear spring that fed into it. I watched silently as the two ran from me, jumping into the water with long lithely strides.
“Come on!” John begged, laughter consuming him, “Nothing’s going to get you.”
The sun beat down on the spring. The blaring light shimmered and danced off the water’s rippling surface, reflecting the swimming duos dazzling faces back to me.
It was no secret to me that this was a dream. A wonderful dream that would soon turn into a nightmare like all the rest, but for the moment, all I wanted was to enjoy it. To bask in the scene before it was ripped away from me. To remember the carefree moments John and I had together before the regime took over power. When we could laugh, run, be free. Faith did not belong in that memory, but I welcomed the sound of her laughter, the sight of her healthy body as she swam with my best friend. She was free; a child like any other child.
“Come
on
!” He yelled again, spitting water up at me.
“We don’t have all day!” Faith added with a giggle.
I ran to them, wanting nothing more than to be near the two. I jumped into the shimmering crystal water only to be met with inexorable pain. It ripped through me the moment my skin touched the surface of the spring,
Slicing, cutting, shredding
pain. I struggled to make it to the surface as the glass shards dug deeper in to my flesh with every stroke.
Sizzling, burning
it tore through me.
Treading water, I looked around in a panic to find John, to find Faith, but the only thing to be seen was the crimson sea that consumed me.
John
, I sobbed, allowing the agony to overpower me, dragging me under the red-stained water,