Page 2 of Senseless
“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Stay away from me!”
“You honor us with your blood.”
Next came the wet, sucking, squelching sounds as she stabbed him. I never saw the ceremony, only heard it. To me, it sounded like she always took deep, long stabbing motions through them. I wondered if she did it to maximize the pain and fear of the victims. Wouldn’t surprise me.
“Agh—God! Stop, please!”
The man’s blood began dripping through the floor at that point, raining through the roof of my cell like a dark waterfall. I scooted to the corner to stay out from under it. Being covered in my own blood was enough when I had limited water.
“You honor us with your death.”
Then a final, wet slicing sound, which could only be across his throat. The doctor only made choked gurgling sounds now as his blood streamed through the cracks in the boards above me.
The doctor’s body made a heavy thump as he collapsed on the ground. He flailed a bit, slapping the ground a few times. The flailing gave way to twitching and then, dead stillness. They would leave him there until his blood stopped draining before taking his body to discard it. I never knew what they did with them.
“Because the only good man is a dead one.”
Like all the times before, I wondered why they insisted on keeping me alive if that was true. I’d come to my own conclusion years ago, with the help of another man who had shared my cell temporarily.
“You’re a training dummy,” that man had said. “They get to practice on you before doing the real thing.”
It made sense, especially as to why none of my cuts were lethal. Why the ones who cut me were usually the youngest. Some of my earliest memories were staring through the bars of a much smaller cage, my eyes locked onto a girl’s roughly the same age as me.
We were both just children, staring wide-eyed at each other, while an older woman pulled my skinny arm through the bars, placed a knife in the girls’ hand, and ordered her to cut me until she drew blood.
Sometimes the girls would cry and say no, but they always did eventually. They grew swift and efficient with it, the horror in their eyes morphing into cold hatred as the years passed.
The doctor had been sacrificed last week, so I was surprised to hear more male voices shouting above me as I contemplated my water rationing. The words weren’t clear and there seemed to be multiple men, which was odd. Sacrifices were only conducted once a month, the morning of the full moon. My cage was cramped with two people, so the women rarely imprisoned more than one man at a time.
A series of loud pops rang out, and then many voices screaming and shouting. High-pitched feminine ones, and deeper voices rumbling as they shouted things too fast for me to decipher. Dozens of rapid, running footstepsthump-thump-thumpedover the ceiling of my cage, running back and forth over the popping noises. My ears started to ring, the pops werethatloud.
Nothing had ever occurred like this in my lifetime and I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d never heard the women scream before, and the sound was jarring. Nor had I ever heard running around like everyone was in a mad rush.
Eventually, the footsteps ceased running. The screaming and the popping faded away to nothing. It became eerily quiet—I’d never heard anything like this either. Not even at night when most were asleep. Someone was always talking, cooking, or doing some other chore that I could hear through the walls. Was this what death sounded like?
At some point I heard voices and footsteps again, and that was a small comfort. But these steps were louder, heavier than I’d ever heard before.
The door to the basement slammed open with a loud crash, the wood bouncing against the wall as the heavy footfalls made their way down the stairs to my dungeon.
“Whoo-wee! Smells worse than the whorehouse your mom came from, Jensen.” It was definitely a man, dressed in some kind of tactical uniform with all kinds of items hanging off of the thick vest he wore. He held a long, dark object in both hands as he examined the corner of the basement by the door.
“Shut up, Lopez.” The reply came with a crackling sound from a small, black box on the man’s shoulder. “Just clear the area so we can get the hell out. This place is fucking creepy.”
The man chuckled to himself as he finished rummaging through whatever supplies he’d found and started making his way toward me. I kept still, barely breathing, and at a complete loss as to what I should do.
“Holy…shit!” The man stumbled back at the sight of me, eyes wide as he pointed his long, black stick in my direction. “Who are you?”
“I’m…” I stared back at him, noticing how his hands shook and how large his eyes became. “I’m the blood bag.”
“What?” He brought a slow, shaky hand to the black box on his shoulder. “Jensen, get your ass down to the basement. Someone’s in here, a guy. Looks like a prisoner.” He repositioned his grip on his weapon. “I’ll ask again. Who are you?”
I didn’t know how else to answer. I was a man, and therefore unworthy of an identity, or even a name.
“I’m just the blood bag,” I repeated.
“You got a name?”
“No.”
