like a thin veneer, but it was translucent now, like floating water. This door had a handle and opened easily, but downstairs in the remains of what looked like lab equipment, there was a rusted metal door, sealed with chains and barricaded from the outside. I pushed away the heavy metal cabinets, then grabbed a pipe and gritted my teeth as I smashed off the padlock, twisting the handle until it snapped off in my hand. I kicked the door in and entered carefully, brandishing the pipe like a weapon.
The darkness was impenetrable, except for the slits of the grate above, which cast thin rays of light down on the thick bar of an iron cage. The wretched figure inside was shrouded with long dark hair that covered most of her body. Her entire face was stained red from the still-dripping blood above, her neck arched back as she strained to gulp it down, revealing sharp white teeth and a long tongue.
Then her eyes snapped to me and she jumped up, clawing at me through the bars with long, bony fingers.
I backed away, trembling, dropping the pipe I’d been clutching until my knuckles turned white.
My stomach roiled again with sickness. The elixir in my veins only heightened my senses, and the stench was overpowering.
It was like Penelope all over again, but so much worse. How long had she been caged down here... since before the Culling?
“Why are you down here?” I asked, daring to take a step closer.
“What does it matter?” she moaned, her voice like gravel. “You’ll leave me. They always leave.”
“I swear I won’t,” I said. “I’m afraid we haven’t been completely honest with each other. I was chosen, by your son Damien. I can get him a message. I can let him know you’re still alive. I know he’d come for you. But you have to tell me about your husband’s research. It’s the only way to stop King Richard.”
“King,” she spat. “So his plan worked out then. I mean, I assumed, but it’s been so long.”
She crawled closer to the bars to get a better look at me.
“I could smell him on you, you know,” she grinned, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and rocking forward, hitting her forehead against the bars.
Now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, I could see the cage had once been equipped with some small comforts; a pile of books, pillows and a radio. But it was all so old and nearly buried under layers of rat skeletons and filth. Rough sketches and notes were scrawled on torn bits of paper, a dark descent into madness.
“I’ve read the articles. King Richard, he invented the elixir here, right? Trying to cure you, your cancer. So how did you end up... like this?”
“He succeeded. The cancer was cured, but I was cursed. I was stronger, faster, but I had this terrible thirst, and a sensitivity to sunlight. It was so loud I couldn’t think. Every time my husband, my son were in the room, all I could hear was their heartbeats, their pulse.”
“I made him lock me up down here until he found a way to make it stop. I was afraid I’d hurt someone. In the meantime, he brought me fresh pints of blood.”
“But the days became weeks, and then months. He was getting famous for his miraculous panacea. He had investors that gave him millions.”
“I begged him to cure me or kill me,” she said. “He did neither. Then he truly started going mad. He started talking about evolution. The human race was the plague; those with the elixir became elite specimens in every way. All we needed was a stable blood supply.”
“At first, he started signing private contracts: the elixir could cure cancer, it could cure anything – and provide decades of robust health; in exchange for a weekly blood donation.”
“He was going to let me out; we could rule together, we could be like gods. Always just a few more days. But then he turned Damien, and I knew I could never forgive him.”
“By then, he was selling complete conversion therapy, or gifting immortality to those loyal to him. It made him untouchable. He could control congress, the government, the billionaires. But it was a racket; you either joined him, or you became food for the new apex predators.”
“And once the elixir was out there, there was a complete breakdown of society. The elite were feared and hated; some of them kept their own blood banks or