Chronicle:Prey and Predator/2

The world seemed to slow. Ren's body grew heavy with every passing second. She struggled to keep her eyes open, wringing every fiber of her being left to force out a few soft utterances.

"?"

"Mhm."

"?"

". "

"!"

Alaþius' eyes glanced over at the silently watching bunch in the distance, and whispered a reply.

"，. . ，. "

She collapsed into his open arms. In her final moments of lucidity, she muttered a few unintelligible curses at Alaþius. She barely understood the words she said, let alone his.

.

...

......

Ren woke up.

At least she thought she did.

Everything felt numb.

That was about it.

She struggled to form a coherent thought in her haze.

...

She couldn't see.

Her eyes wouldn't budge.

Something was covering them.

Same went for her mouth.

"..."

She tried to move anything else.

Arms? No. Forced behind her back.

Legs? No. Her thighs and legs were forced together.

Hands? Not even that. Forced into fists.

She was stuck. Fetal position. Immobile. Something adhesive. Tape?

What?

It took some moments more before she regained enough bearings to tell anything else.

Her description of everything was vague.

Her bare skin was touching something cold. It was difficult to tell with her sense of touch crippled, but it felt like wood. A crate?

Below that, vague rumbling. Movement. Faint rattling of metal. An engine. A vehicle.

Where the hell..?

The haze was clearing. A bar. Booze. Conversation. Laughs. Melancholy. Regret.

Alaþius.

He drugged her. The perfidious bastard.

Why was she alive then?

Other plans?

Where the hell was he taking her?

She didn't want to find out. She didn't like her chances. She didn't take chances in the first place.

She regained enough control of her body to strain. To struggle. Hard. Harder. Against her bindings. Her predicament. Everything.

She levelled every curse in every language she knew and barely knew at the irredeemable bastard that had put her in this predicament.

Useless. She barely moved. Was it the sedative or the bindings? Her shouts produced unintelligible grunts against the gag.

No. No. No. Not like this.

She ignored the burning in her muscles mounting by every minute, straining, pulling with all her might... left.

Nothing.

The unaffected durability of her bindings. The uninterrupted march of the vehicle she was in. They all mocked at the futility of her actions.

Her breaths grew rapid, raspier. She struggled to draw breath in the crushing heat of exhaustion. And yet she struggled nonetheless. Until she couldn't even do that.

Minute after minute.

Her struggles grew weaker. Thrashing. Floundering. Then, just ineffectual writhing.

Her calls, quieter. Shouts. Whimpers. Cries.

Her already blinded vision grew fainter. Shadows bled in from the peripheries.

Why was he doing this?

She would've accepted it if he'd ended her right then. He was doing his job. She planned to do the same anyways. He would've understood. It was war. Fate had placed them of such divergent backgrounds together, and she often wondered where fate would bring them at the end of it all. What rational conclusions she reached, she usually disregarded.

But this?

To leave her here, helpless, with the barest slivers of hope for her to chase in vain. Confused in the dark, blinded yet conscious enough to contemplate her fate, reminded constantly of her final moments to come yet with the dreadful uncertainty on how it might come. It was an alien sensation, terribly so.

Had she done him wrong somehow?

She didn't think so. She'd forgiven him for getting her fired all those years ago. He'd repaid her in full and some more all those years later. She enjoyed her time with him. There was the occasional daydream that something more could've happened, but it was just that. She was open with him. She thought he was too.

...

She clung on.

She resigned her fate to his hands now.

Hope. Trust. Would she be rewarded for her loyalty, or would the impending fall just be that greater?

She didn't know.

Then, the lid opened.