The Witness

Amanda had no idea how long she stayed in the abyss of pain like that, it felt like days but could have been hours. Only her mounting hunger and thirst, let her know it was long enough to cause her considerable issues. Her stomach kept up a continual wailing in the darkness and her bladder felt like it was going to pop any second.

Just as she was going over the meager highlights of her life for the twenty-seventh time, the door squealed open and the gloom of dim lamps flicked on.

Instantly, a burning flood of light entered her eyes and everything became blurry. Tears from the agony of the light on her sensitive retinas dripped down onto the hardwood floor. She couldn't blink, only endure the blinding torment until her eyes adjusted.

"Who's this?" An unfamiliar man's voice asked.

"An unfortunate witness," a deep, dead voice responded.

"What are you doing with her?" the first man asked, "she's barely alive it seems."

"I'll have to wait until the new moon to drink her," the deep voice said, "so I'm keeping her here until then."

Amanda's eyes adapted and her tears stopped flowing.

"I think you've been alone too long," the first man said, "you have to take care of them you know, they have needs like food and water. She'll die way before the new moon comes round and you know Our Lady doesn't like wasted blood."

"Ah, advice from your own experience with that pet you have there?" the deep voice said, "if this girl dies, she dies. The goddess can't fault me for that."

The visitor laughed, "you know that's not true. You're just fighting the inevitable, hiding in this empty box away from the colony."

"What do you want Apox? What have you come to talk me into doing?"

"Brother Vexxer, you've been summoned, that's why I'm here," Apox said, "she told me to tell you, if you don't come, she'll send a staker after you."

"A part of me wishes she would," Vexxer said.

"You don't mean that," the visitor said, "tell me you'll show up?"

"Fine," Vexxer said, "I could feel her mind searching for me in our sleep anyway."

Amanda heard the door open, "the night's still early, so I'll tell her you're coming tonight. You better show, she seemed serious this time about the staker."

"Why do you care Apox?" Vexxer asked.

"Because unlike you, some of us still have hearts, brother," Apox said.

The door closed and it was quiet before Amanda heard a snap of fingers echo. Her body reacted like she had been given some cue. Her arms reached behind her and pushed her chest off the edge of the couch. With flopping numbness, she scurried to kneel in front of the man on the cold hardness of the floor, her head bowed before a pale set of feet.

"Stand and look at me," the voice said.

She obeyed automatically. The experience of her body moving on its own rattled her notion of what consciousness really was.

Amanda stood at attention and her eyes found Dameon's.

Within the glinting wells of his dual oblivion, she found herself held aloft and floating. He stepped forward and placed a hand on her chest, just above her belly and she felt the chill of his fingers as he dragged his nails gently across her flesh. Amanda's skin vibrated with goosebumps and her nipples stiffened.

"I'm going to loosen my grip on you," he said with sculpted lips that made the rims of her eyes tremble, "if you make it difficult for me, I will force you out of there and make you nothing but a drone. Do you understand?"

Amanda didn't.

She felt the fuzz that choked her consciousness retreat enough for her to enter more fully into her body, though she felt his control over her floating just outside her mind like a velvet noose ready to strangle her will at any moment.

The full brunt of her body's suffering caused her to crash to her knees, gripping her chest where she had the most pain. Gasping, a violent shudder shook through her body and the room started spinning. Amanda's bladder panicked, no longer held sealed under his control and she pissed herself.

Amanda curled up naked on the floor in a puddle of her own urine, all she felt was pain and hunger. Shame and embarrassment seemed like a far away luxury.

The vampire growled, "what a bother."

When he talked directly to her, the words entered her head like echoing flames drenched in honey that trickled from the center of her brain and slithered down her spine.

"Are you hungry?" He asked.

She nodded.

"Can you walk?" He asked.

She tried to stand, but her muscles were like overcooked spaghetti and she flopped on the slippery floor like a freshly born doe.

He scooped her up by her soggy hair so he could see her face. Her eyes could barely stay open, they were so raw from not blinking for days.

"You need food before we can leave," he said, dropping her head back into the warm puddle on the floor.

He left the room.

Amanda struggled to sit up. The combination of her exhaustion and the sloppiness of her control over her body after regaining it, made her feel like a slab of dead weight. Her eyes refused to open, so she sat up, blind, waiting.

He returned with a plate of cured fish. He squatted down in front of her and she felt the warmth in the air around her die. Amanda fought with her eyes, only catching glimpses of him.

"Open up," Vexxer said.

Her body was snatched from her own will and it opened her mouth for him.

He slowly fed her forkfuls of salty fish until she regained a bit of her own willpower, after which she was able to take the fork and finish the meal under her own means with squinting eyes.

He had also set down a cup of water at her side, that she hadn't seen, but he guided her hand to. She concentrated as she picked up the silver goblet of water with two wobbly hands and guzzled herself into choking, dropping the goblet and spilling the water all over the floor with an echoing clatter.

Dameon or Vexxer, whoever her captor was, left to fetch her more water. He left the door wide open and she gazed with alternating eyes into the hallway towards what looked like the front door.

Amanda searched her skull for the thought of trying to escape, but she found it locked behind a red door with a strange insectoid emblem on it. She shook her head, she couldn't escape, it would mean something far greater than death if she tried. She glanced down at the plate of devoured fish on her lap as she sat naked on the wet floor. Amanda felt her sense of shame and embarrassment resurfacing as she tried to squeeze urine out of her inky tresses with trembling fingers before he got back. A cold terror filled her veins instead of blood. She didn't know what was to become of her. Vampires were real and one had her will caged up in her own body. She gulped as an intuition dawned on her that she would never see her old life again. Her parents, her house, her siblings, all were rapidly flying away from her.

"Stand," the vampire demanded from the doorway.

Like a record scratch, her body instantly stopped obeying her will and switched over to his. She lurched up with a wobble, sending the plate flying from her lap.

Vexxer strode over to her and held out the goblet of water. Amanda put her hands out to take it, but he ignored her. He brought the cup up to her lips and supported her head as he helped her drink her fill. He tossed the goblet to the floor when she was done and Amanda flinched.

"Good, you've been fed and watered, now cover yourself with that, so we can leave," he said, pointing to the thin cloak from her costume.

Her body moved on its own, picking up the cloak and twirling it about herself. She tied the ribbon as she fretted beneath the thin polyester.

-

Amanda clutched the folds of her cloak shut around her as the breeze of the Greymore subway whirred. Her eyes glanced around probing to see if anyone noticed her, a barefoot woman in a cloak. She tried to stand in Vexxer's shadow because when a bright enough light hit the cheap cloak, it revealed her nudity below. Amanda shivered as she lingered next to her captor, trying to hide behind him. She bumped into him and he glared down at her sharply.

He gripped her chin and forced her head up into his eyes.

"Don't get any ideas," Vexxer said, "as soon as I can, I'm going to kill you and drink that nasty blood of yours. You sicken me, I wouldn't normally eat something so scrawny and meek even if you were the last woman on earth. Now move away from me."

Amanda paled at how horrible he was. How did this happen? The image of her friend's blood leaking off his chin swirled in her mind.

She vomited.

Vexxer growled and yanked her away from the small pool of half-digested canned fish splattered across the subway tile. He dragged her by the wrist onto their train that just arrived. Amanda wiped her mouth with her cloak and wept silently as she sat next to him on the train.

Amanda trembled in misery as she stared down into her soot stained toes. Her black nail polish mocked her of a cozy life that felt somehow so far away now. The train lurched as it took off down the tube. She wanted to die when she saw her mess of hair flashing in the reflection of the subway windows. Amanda looked around the empty train section and only saw a group of four burly men looking towards them from down the gently shaking train car.

They were talking to each other, all wearing leather jackets with weathered patches splattered on their backs and sleeves. One of them stood and yelled at Vexxer.

"Yo fag," the tubby leader started with, "why don't you leave at the next stop so we can show the girl a good time."

Vexxer didn't stir as the chunky biker with a sunglasses tan maneuvered his way across the swaying car until he was standing in front of them. He guzzled down the rest of his beer and threw the can with a splash to the ground. After a belch, he looked at Amanda and grabbed his crotch with finger-less leather gloves.

"Think you can survive all four of us?" he laughed and his friends echoed his laugh further down the car.

Amanda's eyes widened as she clutched her robe tighter closed and huddled as far back into the seat as she could. The biker reached out a hand towards her. His meaty fingers gripped around the front of her cloak and he ripped it open. Amanda's hands fought weakly against his as he tried to grope her.

In an instant, the man's hand vanished in front of her, and reappeared in his mouth. The biker grunted as he choked on his own fist which had dislodged his jaw and jammed itself into the back of his throat. He fell to the ground and struggled with a gurgle.

"Carl?!"

His friends all jumped up and ran down the train, one of them slipped on the discarded beer can and skidded halfway. They surrounded their friend first, helping his hand out of his face and sitting him up on the floor as his jaw hung loosely about while blood gushed from somewhere in his mouth.

Amanda gaped. It all happened so fast, she didn't see anything. She glanced over at the icy Vexxer and found no reaction as he gently swayed with the train in his seat. His hands rested in the front pouch of his black hoodie and his eyes gazed out blankly from beneath the shadow of his hood.

"You mother fucker!"

One of the chunky biker's squad left his side and went for Vexxer. But again, Amanda missed what happened as the man crashed to the ground and gripped his head with a loud scream. He convulsed on the floor between the rows of seats.

Amanda's heart was a perpetually bursting balloon as she stared up at the still Vexxer. She didn't know what to think. He saved her from these other monsters, but she wasn't so sure it was for her benefit.

"This is our stop," Vexxer said, "up now."

Vexxer rose and Amanda's body scrambled to follow his will as she bolted up from her seat. She stepped over the seizing biker, the belts and chains of his jacket jangled as he writhed on the floor. Amanda encountered fear in the eyes of the other three as she strode closely behind her captor out of the sliding doors of the subway car.

The way the bikers shriveled away from them distracted Amanda and she bumped into Vexxer's back. He glanced down at her with a growl. Amanda gulped and took a step back.

They walked past escalators going up and Amanda tried to think about escape again. The thought was utterly unreachable to her. All she had to do was book it up the escalator and be free, but her body continued to trail behind Vexxer like a lost soul instead.

He stopped in front of a nondescript door with a black disc on it. Vexxer opened it into a void. Amanda stared up at him as he held the door open for her.

"Come," Vexxer said.

Amanda's body obeyed and she disappeared into the abyss with Vexxer. She stole one look back before the door shut and saw a speckled owl perched on the back of a subway bench. The train whizzed off and the bird blinked at her with orange eyes under the buzz of fluorescent tubes. The door slammed shut.

-

They ventured for a long while in a desert of nothingness with only the glowing eyes of Vexxer telling her where to go until they spilled through a heavy curtain into a cavern. A set of doors embedded into a stone wall at the back was the only thing in the room. Two pale green candles flickered on both sides of the entrance.

"Stop," Vexxer said.

Her body halted as if she had hit a wall.

"Before I forget," Vexxer said.

He opened his fanged mouth and dragged a sharp index finger along his tongue. Black oozed out of the middle where he sliced. He snatched up Amanda's head and drew a symbol on the left side of her neck with the inky blood he produced. He let her head go as he rubbed his stained digit off on her cloak.

They entered through the set of doors trimmed in gold and decorated with lead busts of bats sticking out a forked tongue. Amanda's eyes widened as they strode into a giant hall lined with tables and lit with dim lamps. There was a buzz of gossip from the groups that sat at the tables in the shadows below oil paintings the size of swimming pools that depicted diverse scenes of the night.

Vexxer strolled towards the back of the room and Amanda trailed behind him.

"Stay," Vexxer said.

Amanda felt her body set her feet to the ground as he left down a hallway. She stared up into a ruby chandelier that hung down like a rain of blood frozen in time. She explored the grand room with her eyes. There were two floors and three sets of hallways leading off into darkness. Two, threes, and fours of abnormally pale persons scattered about the room. Tinking of glasses and small bouts of laughter rang out in pockets here and there. Amanda counted twenty seven people spread across nine baroque tables. A man of seventeen or seventy one and a woman of fifteen or fifty was close enough to hear.

"Did you hear Mota came back?" A man said.

"Mussy's Mota?" A woman asked.

"Apparently, he's without a body and speaks through his thrall," he said.

"His thrall?" the woman gasped, "he took a thrall? He disappears for what fifty years-"

"I think it was more like seventy," the man interrupted her.

"Whatever, he vanishes for over half a century then shows up in a thrall?" She said.

"You know how that colony is," he said, "they all go a little mad."

"It's because they intermingle with those fairies so damn much, they all end up in weird spots," she said.

Vexxer returned accompanied by a woman wearing a white latex dress with bleached hair and red eyes.

"Can you clean this mess up for me," Vexxer said, pointing to Amanda, "I have a meeting and I need her to look respectable."

"Of course," the woman said, "I'll bring her to your apartments when I'm done with her."

Vexxer left down a different hall.

The woman in the latex dress with an oblong window that showcased her colorless cleavage approached Amanda and lifted a hand up to her nose with a grimace.

"Ugh, you poor girl," she said, prodding Amanda's hair with a careful finger, "I can't imagine being Vexxer's thrall, he's old guard."

The woman swept some hair away from Amanda's neck and pushed her chin slightly to the side. She studied the symbol on Amanda's throat and squinted.

"Ah, but..." she said, "you're not a thrall, are you?"

She let go of Amanda's hair and glanced down. She rubbed Amanda's fake cloak between her fingers, "what's your name?"

"Amanda," she said with a raspy voice.

"I'm Leppy," she said, "why don't we get you cleaned up dear, you smell like piss and vomit. Come now."

Leppy collected Amanda's hand and led her down the hallway where Leppy had just come from with Vexxer. Baby versions of the ruby chandelier hung every nine feet from the ceiling. They passed curtains the same pale green as the candles out front. Within, Amanda caught glimpses of chalky statues writhing.

She spotted a woman dripping with bloody lip gloss reclining on a velvet booth. Two twin men bobbed between her lap. Their rosy complexions made her skin look like fine china. The woman's mouth fell open and flashed fangs. She clutched her lovers' hair while Amanda caught her eye through the gap in the curtain. The blanched doll smiled with rolling eyes as her head lolled back into the couch. Amanda darted her gaze away and pulled her cloak tight. She heard the woman laughing as Leppy led her deeper down the gloomy hall.

Amanda followed Leppy through a set of doors with black and white twisted ropes for handles into a room with a bath steaming in the center. Four women with milky eyes and ivory hair prostrated themselves around the bath, their hands stretched out in front of them like porcelain spiders, their eyes peered up as Amanda and Leppy entered.

"Give this one a bath, polish, and embellish her," Leppy commanded.

The four woman unfolded in sync and rose from the floor. Amanda flinched as they converged on her. The first one to reach her, focused her ghosty eyes on the ribbon that tied Amanda's cloak together as she unraveled the knot with her fingers. Another woman took the soiled costume from her shoulders and Amanda hunched a bit, trying to hide her nudity. The two others lifted Amanda's hands from her front as they guided her down the steps into the bubbling pool.

The heat soaked into Amanda like a sponge as she sunk into the pool up to her clavicle. Her soul felt refreshed and her skin flushed.

The women in the pool took Amanda's hair and slowly plunged her head back into the water. They stroked their spidery fingers through her tangled mane and worked out all the kinks so her locks spread out in the water like spilled ink. Amanda's head danced with a delicious crown of tingling tranquility from their gentle tugs and scrubs of their nails along her scalp to the tips of her tresses. A sigh of serenity slipped through Amanda's lips as she conceded control of her neck over to the kneading of thumbs that pressed under her ears and advanced down her jaw. She felt the clenching muscles of her face relax into loose butter as the other woman started massaging her forehead and threading her nails from the tip of her widow's peak to the back of her skull. Amanda's face was popping with ephemeral bubbles of warm delight as twenty deft fingers nurtured her head into ease. A breathed moan escaped her lips and only she heard it. She knitted her brows, confused by the joy she was suddenly gifted after days of pain. The tips of fingers pressed the worry from her eyebrows with a soothing ballet of taps.

The two other women entered the pool from the sides like quartz mermaids. They unfurled their arms, lifting Amanda's legs and back so they supported her horizontally in the bath. They laid a pale green washcloth, a mother of pearl comb, and mauve bar of soap on her chest. The two other women took up the washcloth, soap, and comb.

Amanda stared into the light above that illuminated her body in the dark pool. The woman with the washcloth rinsed the dirt from her toes and the one at her hair untangled the mess of her black roots with the comb. They four lulled her into a cozy slumber as they caressed and cleansed her to the center of her marrow. They worked all over her, cleaning between her nails, in her ears, between her cheeks, they purified every part of her they could reach.