Trapped

Author's note: I wrote this back in early 2006. I've improved since.

Light flashed in Rose’s eyes, nearly blinding her as she peered out of the bathroom. Rose slammed the door as the gas mask-clad miner ran toward her, dropping her flashlight as she dug for her keys. The sturdy metal keychain clanged and jingled, Rose shakily pulling it out of her pocket and rifling through each key for whichever one would lock the bathroom door. Each key slid between her delicate fingers as she moved to the next one, a click from the door bringing out a breathy pause. Putting her back to the door, Rose felt the heavy stomp of the miner’s foot against the thick door, wood the only barrier between Rose and her imminent capture. She clasped her handcuffed hands beneath her chin and uttered a solemn prayer, wishing that the miners would give up their attempts and leave her to continue her search for Sharon.

After minutes of relentless pounding, the air turned silent. Some idle whispers barely passed to Rose’s ear, followed by a light scurrying of feet that slowly faded out. Rose let out an open-mouthed sigh before reaching down to unlock the door. But just as she began to turn the key, the unexpected happened: it broke. The key snapped away right at the base of the hole, leaving half of it irretrievably wedged deep inside.

"Shit!" Rose shouted. She pounded on the door with her elbow a couple times before it sunk in that if the miners couldn’t bust the door down, her chances were even slimmer. She scanned the room for another exit, noting the rectangular windows on the far end to her left. Rushing toward the windows, she skidded in her tracks as the air raid siren blared through the air. Her balance thrown, Rose toppled to the ground face-first, mashing her clothed breasts into the dirt-encrusted floor. The room dimmed into darkness, the walls seeming to almost melt away into the air to leave rusted walls behind. Left in a pitch black room, Rose fumbled around for her silver flashlight. Once she felt the ribbed plastic in her fingers, she flipped up the switch and shone the light ahead of her.

Rose shrieked as her flashlight illuminated the visage of a man clad entirely in barbed wire directly in front of her, his tongue wagging wildly around in his mouth. Rose’s boots slipped along the wet floor, the man slinking closer to her with every lurch. Within seconds, the creature crawled directly on top of the blonde woman. His hands ripped through the sheer fabric, clawing off every loose scrap over which his hands wandered. Barbed wire tore into Rose’s jacket. Despite all of Rose’s kicking and screaming, she could not prevent her forced stripping by the gruesome creature.

"GET OFF YOU FREAK!" Rose exclaimed, pulling back with all her might this time. Her elbows latched into tiny grooves in the floor’s surface, giving her more leverage to move away. Positioned further out from her assailant, Rose booted it in the head, the creature recoiling from the attack before launching at her again. Another blow to the head only infuriated it, and Rose found herself driving the sole of her boot harder and faster into its skull, like a drill into wood. She steadied her feet as she stood from the ground, the last bits of her clothing falling away from her now naked body. A few more boot prints into the monster’s head and it slumped to the ground in a bloody mess. The world slowly flourished again with the light of the fog world, and as she looked around, Rose could find no traces of her attacker.

Rose peered along the shrapnel cloth trail that marked the very real nature of what she just experienced. Walking that path, she yanked a chair up to her chest and carried it to the nearby windows. Along the way, she kicked a garbage can into position beneath the window and placed the chair on top of it. "Okay, you can do this, just take it slowly." Rose swallowed and stepped put her foot onto the wobbly combination of can and chair, starting with the edges of the can and working her way up. The makeshift ladder threatened to topple, but under Rose’s careful manipulation, it stayed perfectly in line long enough for her to reach the top.

Standing atop the chair, Rose glanced around and soon realized the windows had no locks, no way to open or close them. She banged on the windows with all her might, yelling out as she attempted to break the glass surface. Both handcuffs scraped against the glass, scratching all across it. As Rose’s determination mounted to a frenzied high, she lost her balance and fell as her creation crumbled beneath her feet. Air whooshed past her body, and in a matter of seconds, she felt a sharp blow to the back of her head. The bathroom immediately turned to black as she lost consciousness.

***

Rose coughed as her eyes fluttered open, dirt flying into the air with her more labored breathing. Rising to her feet, she wiped down her dirt-encrusted breasts as best she could, the tiny granules stuck to her skin. Her head throbbed beneath her temples. She rubbed the palms of her hands over the sorest spot, the crusted feel of dry blood easily distinguished amongst the rest of her smooth forehead.

"Uhn," she groaned. Limping along, Rose’s knees buckled into place with each step as she headed toward the bathroom sinks. She paused in front of the porcelain basins for a moment to check her body, swallowing her rough, parched throat in the process. Reddish-black scabbing covered the new injury, a perfect match to the one on her right temple. Both hands grabbed onto a knob at the faucet and turned.

Rose stared down at the faucet head, waiting expectantly for even the tiniest drop, only to be left with nothing. She turned the knobs further and further, reaching the point where they refused to budge an inch more, but nothing poured from the sink. Sidestepping to her right, Rose did the same for the next sink. When that one didn’t work, she continued down the line. All four remained barren.

Rose hacked out a few coughs, falling to her knees for a moment. Her head motioned to the left, a long row of toilets in perfect sight through the bottom slats between stalls. A lump traveled down her throat and into her chest as she rose and allowed her awkward gait to carry her to the first of seven stalls. With each stall she entered, she checked the contents of the bowls hoping for clean, clear liquid. But for every toilet in that bathroom, she only found pools of yellow past the black seat rims.

Rose stared down hard into the last bowl, dropping to the ground and pulling feet beneath her firm buttocks. Lifting the plastic lid, she let her eyes wander over the cesspool of liquid waste. Pungent air wafted into her nostrils, forcing her to recoil and cover the lower half of her face with her hand. Just as Rose placed a firm boot out in front of her and began to rise from the floor, she plunged forward with a deep, guttural cough. She looked over the bowl’s contents again, able to see her yellow reflection on its glass-like surface.

"I can’t believe I’m doing this," she said in a husky voice, and in an instant, she plunged her slender hands into the toilet. Forming them into a cup, she brought her hands out of the bowl with her payload of contaminated water. Raising it to her soft and trembling lips, Rose puckered out and sucked the combination of water and urine into her mouth. Gagging at the taste, she spewed most of it onto her thighs while what once rested in her hands now splashed onto her face and chest. She wheezed a bit as moisture returned to her throat, urine dripping down her face and off the tip of her chin. Ready to take another attempt, Rose dove her hands into the bowl and repeated the ritual of corruptive baptism.

Urine coated her entire body by the end, so wet that she felt almost as if she had taken a much-needed bath. This feeling was eclipsed by the overpowering stench that now emanated from her body like a foul aura, polluting the very air around her. The last of the scabbing on her forehead pulled away from her skin as she rubbed over the area with urine, her drenched hair pulled back to make the task easier. Her thirst quenched and stomach full, Rose turned onto her back and rested against the toilet seat.

A stream of her own breath tickled along her nostrils to accompany the sickening taste on her tongue, barely able to hold back revulsion. Throwing her head back, Rose’s bare chest heaved up and down as she looked up at the ceiling. Unfortunately, she looked just a second too late. Before she could react in time, a single giant cockroach dropped down onto her head, immediately traveling down to the cold outer flesh of her supple bosom.

"Ah! Get off me!" she shouted, leaping off the ground and out of the stall. Her hands brushed against her body to knock the cockroach off. She spun around in the middle of the room and slammed her back into the wooden back boarding of the nearest locker. Sliding downward, her head propped up to leave her chin directly touching her collar bone. Immediately, she saw a swarm of cockroaches converging on her naked, vulnerable form. Their small legs brushed along her smooth skin all the way to her face, gradually covering her completely.

"NO!" Rose fought back with her hands and legs to knock them off, losing the battle in spite of all her flailing. They journeyed over every inch of flesh, and in a matter of seconds, she was overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Everything turned to black again.