New Tools

By Violet SH

In the dead of night, in a damp, ice-cold meat  packing factory far removed from society, hung hundreds of dead, soulless bodies of all backgrounds  and genders. A young woman named Alice wore black  jeans and a white tank top with no shoes. She hung  like everyone else in the factory: by her hands, pulled up by rusted metal chains that go up to the  ceiling. Her warm, bright red blood dripped down her  body from her injuries, creating a puddle as each drop  tapped on to the floor.  

Her brown eyes fluttered open, and she looked  around at her horror-movie-like surroundings. She  looked around the room that smelled of decay and  discovered a bloody handwritten note stapled onto a  dead body hanging across from her. The message read, you need to free yourself because no one is coming for  you.” She started panicking until she could only gasp  for breath, and her heart pounded in her ears. The  slippery sweat from her hands began mixing with the sticky, dry blood and dirt coating her body. This  combination allowed Alice to slip down from the loose  chains and hit the floor with a thud. Alice struggled  to get up from the freezing, gooey concrete floor  covered in different body fluids.

After finally pulling herself off the grotesque concrete floor, she limped over to the dead body with  the attached note. Alice pulled off the message along  with some of its skin. She stuffed the damp, blood soaked note in the back pocket of her dirt-covered  jeans and began looking for a way out of this  nightmare. After wandering around for what felt like  an eternity, she found a bright red exit sign above a  room that glowed a sickly yellow inside. Its entryway  had no door; heavy plastic sheets hung from the entry  framework instead.  

Pulling herself into the rancid-smelling room,  Alice saw a folding table with a chair. A white  medical kit sat on top of the table. Realizing she may  be able to patch herself up, she hobbled to the table.  Alice grabbed the chair and sat, finding another  bloody letter alongside the kit. This one read, “You  must take the pill or die.” She pulled the first  message from her back pocket and confirmed it was the  same person or thing that had written the note stuck  to the dead body. Alice then pulled herself forward  and clicked open the medical kit to see a vial of dark  liquid and a neon-red pill. She slumped back in frustration because she had hoped there would be  actual medical supplies she could use. 

Suddenly, an excruciating pain overcame her whole  body. The agony covered every inch of her body, making  her feel she was on fire. Her heart thumped so loudly she could hear nothing else. While this was all  happening, security cameras in the room watched and  recorded her every move. Alice could barely stay in  the chair with this sharp electrical pain coursing  through her. She took out the red tablet and drank the  dark, bitter substance from the kit. But the pain did  not stop; it grew more intense. Alice fell from the  chair onto the floor with a thud and clang.  

As she lay there, screaming and in agony, the  pain started moving away from her body and into only  her eyes and teeth. Alice’s body went quiet, and she  could no longer hear her heart beating in her ears.  She coughed, and the pain stung in her mouth as four  teeth fell out, along with a trail of black goo. Fangs  broke through her bleeding gums within seconds. As  Alice tried to figure out what was happening, her  brown eyes burned, and her vision sharpened. Her soft,  light brown eyes became a dark, demonic red instead. 

Once these new tools were in place within her body,  the pain finally receded. 

There was just one problem. Instead of feeling  peace and freedom, she felt one thing: hunger. She  smiled with her new sharp fangs as she heard the  heartbeats of four men in boots carrying heavy guns.  Alice pulled herself off the floor and walked into the  room of dead bodies. The warehouse came alive with the pop of gunshots and screams of fear as four men were  slaughtered for their blood.  

Violet SH is an up-and-coming writer who grew up in a library and escaped this world by reading all kinds of stories. Now she wants to help others escape this world’s stresses and horror by making worlds to escape to.