Post by conchita on Mar 2, 2015 22:28:10 GMT -5
This wasn't real. Sooner or later she would spring from her bed in a night terror, covered in a thick sweat. Then she would clasp her hand to her chest, wipe her brow, and flop back on her soft pillow. She would pull the blankets up to her face and try to forget her nightmare. She would thank the heavens that it wasn't real; that it was just another sick construction of her mind. She would cry a little with relief and terror... then she would slowly drift back to sleep.
But it never happened. She had yet to wake up from this nightmare. She was still in the cruel confines of the Menagerie, at the mercy of the Keepers. Surely she had to wake up. This had to end, right? This wasn't her life now! It couldn't be. It just couldn't. Others were put in the Menagerie; others were branded as shapeshifters and treated with cruelty; others begged to be let out of this terrible game of survival. This sort of thing just couldn't happen to her. It was impossible. This couldn't be real.
Yet the terrible shriek of her nails as they clawed desperately against the dome... the whip of the wicked wind in her hair... the fire of adrenaline in her blood... it was all too real. It said that she was, indeed, fully awake. That she had fallen victim to one of life's twisted games.
The past couple of days had been wrapped in a storm of emotions; namely terror, sorrow, disbelief, and anguish. And through these bombarding emotions came something new. An occasional electric pulsing through her bones could quickly catch her attention. Sometimes the beating of her heart became so loud in her ears that she begged for it to stop. She knew what it was - that her body was threatening to undergo its first shapeshift - but she preferred to sit in her deep puddle of denial. She wasn't a shapeshifter. There had been a mistake in the doctor's records. Soon, they would find it out and pull her out of the Menagerie. Right? How could she be a shapeshifter when she was scared to death of animals? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.
One thing she did know was that she needed food and water. She had resisted searching for them; it would make her feel like some helpless sailor stranded on a deserted island. But her dry mouth and growling stomach had told her enough that she needed food and water - desperately. There had been some rainfall recently, and she had managed to drink from that. But now she was thirsty and shaking from a lack of food. She needed to, (oh how she hated this word), survive.
So she had meandered across this strange land in the hopes of finding a lake of some sort. It seemed unlikely; the land was quite dry. But to her delight, after a couple of hours of wandering helplessly, she spotted clouds clustered in the distance. That had to mean a water source. So she followed the clouds, and sure enough, found herself by an oasis.
Now she knelt beside the lake, scooping up water in her cupped hands and bringing it to her lips. She drank, and for a moment, the water washed away her troubles. It brought relief to her. After several minutes of gratefully gulping down the sweet water, she spotted something behind a cluster of bushes. She brushed her hair away from her eyes and squinted to try and get a better look. Then she cautiously crept towards it.
It was a backpack... totally unclaimed as far as she could see. Hopeful that there was food or something equally useful inside, Conchita glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. Then, she unzipped the backpack and peered inside.
Food. Her day just got even better. Delight filled her. For once, a smile touched her lips, and she reached inside to take some. She could even keep the backpack!
(ooc: the backpack belongs to Paja's Abi. but anyone can come in to the thread!)