Once she had finished her mental exercises she began to slowly move and flex her body as best as she was able. The cage didn’t move and offered her stalwart resistance for her stretches and movements.
While she massaged feeling and blood back into her legs and arms, she began her tediously slow task of introducing her own biochemicals and pheromones into the air and directing them gently toward the basement door and to the house itself.
Time passed slowly, too slowly sometimes. She had been at work for well over fifteen minutes now and still there was no sign of anyone coming down to give her the drug that her body was starting to adapt to.
She broke out into a sweat as large beads dropped from her forehead. Her vision blurred for just a moment, and then everything returned to normal. She ceased working for a moment and just breathed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, and even though she was no longer trying to work she felt a cold chill run through her body as she felt like she needed something, water, or something cool to drink.
Her throat suddenly became sand and she was drowning. She tried to scream but no sound came. Her stomach filled with a never-ending flow of tiny grains that impossibly came from nowhere. She tried to stand, to lean over but the sand kept flowing down her throat. She coughed violently and then sand started to fill her cage. She had become a fountain of earth particles as it alarmingly filled the basement around her.
Her whole body was on fire. Her eyes were burned out and she could only hear the terrible sound of running sand and the increasing pressure of it on her body, as it slowly buried her.
Her eyes snapped open. The dark basement was empty and there wasn’t a single grain of sand to be found anywhere. She took a slow deep breath and calmed herself.
She knew what the dream was and what it had portended for her. She was running out of time and the drug was to be her shackles. It was possible that this dream was simply a nightmare, or she could already be addicted to it. She had been given the drug continuously for a year. It was very possible that if she tried to escape on her own, lack of the drug would drive her right back here. It was a common thread in captivity cases. She knew about Kenneth’s slave trade and human trafficking. Regardless of whatever advantages his vampiric abilities granted him it would be foolish to assume that he would not employ the use of drugs. Addiction was a powerful thing, and it kept those he held docile.
There was nothing that she could do about it now though. Measured in handfuls and inches. She went through the same routine of exercises, massages, and her own brand of chemical warfare, the only tools left to her, that she had just gone through in her nightmare. She had to hold out, as long as it took. She hadn’t bowed to a man in her life; she hadn’t even bowed to the Mountain when it asked her to mate. She was made of stronger stuff than that. She had survived worse than what Kenneth the vampire had managed so far.
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It was just six months past her twentieth birthday when the Lunar Mother finally called to her.
She was thankfully alone in a quiet park off a small apartment building that she was staying in.
She had just finished with her parts in, “Seeta Aur Greeta.” She had been approached by one of the second unit directors and had been asked about her agent and what her schedule looked like. He had been very professional but was very full of himself. His cock-sure attitude left him as she spoke candidly about her wants and desires, none of which required her body. This had sobered the man and his whole countenance changed. He pressed his palms together in respect. The meeting was still offered but he professed that he was a first-time director and his movie would not get much money for casting or marketing. It would be a small film but he had enjoyed what he had seen from her, directing the second unit and he wanted her for his first film.
They had accepted a time and place to meet with her agent to hash out the details of the story, her role, and her salary. If all was in agreement with them the contract might even be signed that day.
Ansuya had smiled gently at the man as she watched him walk away. She was under no delusion. A starring role would help her career, but her road would still be a long one, especially if the movie tanked. But if it succeeded, then she would have her springboard into bigger, more prominent roles, in time.
She walked the park and touched a tree as the deep reds of the sunsets slowly gave way to deep cool blues of the night. Her ambitions went beyond the screen and she hoped that this may be the chance she needed to accomplish what it was she wished for her country and people faster.
The moon was just starting to show itself in the evening sky. She stepped out from under the tree and bathed in its pure white light.
Then a horrible wrenching pain grabbed at her stomach. The pain was a vise that ripped and twisted her insides. It was so intense she couldn’t even cry out. It jerked her whole body to one side and she could no longer stand. Her legs gave way under her and they twisted and convulsed as the pain wracked her body.
She had never felt this kind of pain before. Her body was on fire. She couldn’t see anything. Her beautiful brown skin had become blurry as tears welled up inside her eyes.
The pain subsided, but it wasn’t gone. Ansuya gasped for air, she tried to cry out, but pain, in horrible wave after wave crashed into her and smothered her. She was burning alive. Her skin must be on fire. Only ragged gasps escaped her lips as the fire rolled up and down her body, crashing into her with more force every second. The pain never stayed in one place and she thought she must go mad from it.
Suddenly there was a hand grasping hers, the physical touch alone held her to reality. The fire and the pain didn’t lesson, but she knew she wasn’t alone and the firm hand that gripped hers was probably the only thing keeping her anchored to sanity.