The Dark Room (Nessa)

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

You couldn't really compare one hangover to the other. Each had their own nuances, their own character that aggravated the body in their own unique ways. Right now Nik's had the heady scent of vomit, with a distinctive nose of urine followed by a sharp tang of memory loss. It wasn't the worst he'd experienced but on the day it didn't really matter.

The first sign that something was wrong-more so than usual-was the darkness. The inky black that greeted his eyes sent a flood of ice water into his gut. "Just how drunk did I get?" He thought with panic lacing his voice and brought his hand up to his face, waving it inches from his nose. The darkness was deep but not entirely devoid of light and he saw the outline of his hand- That ruled out blindness by alcohol, so what then? Had he fallen in a ditch that even he could not clamber out of? Or had he stumbled into some abandoned building with no visible light source?

The Corellians other hand came up and instinctively made to run through his mess of brown hair but found its progress halted by a jingle of metal. His other hand reached for the source with renewed terror and found, to his dismay, a shackle around his wrist.

"Seriously...what the bollocks did I do last night!?"

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"Are you all right, mister?" a female voice came from the corner of the dark room. It was a young voice, with just a touch of concern in its tone.

The voice belonged to the young teenager who sat in the corner of the square room. From her eyes came a soft green glow, drawing more attention towards her than actually lighting their surroundings. It was, truthfully, a really useless glow. But it was still there, being glowy and stuff.

Her head was prounding. She wanted to say that it was the first time something like this happened, but that woudld've been a lie, and Nessa... Well, she lied sometimes. But only when it benefited her. This time, it did not. And it wasn't the first time this happened either, but at least last time the kidnappers had provided a blanket. It was kinda cold, and there wasn't anything to burn.

Nessarose pouted. Waking up like this was a recipe for a disaster of a day.


@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

The voice was unexpected. The green orbs of dim light floating in the darkness somewhere ahead of him even more so. It wouldn't be right to say he screamed. A scream was unmanly and if anyone who was anyone that knew Nik Woverius Rillians-not very well at all-would tell you he was the height of manliness (If manliness was knee high to an Ewok.). He instead let out an admittedly overly shrill single syllable exclamation.

"No! I'm not! I near wet my kecks-" The faint waft of last nights toilet mishaps reached his nostrils once more and he added hesitantly. "...again..." A thought swam sluggishly in the soup of his mind for what could have been anywhere from half a second to several minutes before he spoke again. "Did you do this? Who sent you? It was Hanvar wasn't it! That lousy snake charmer, I swear you mix up a cargo drop and wind up supplying his mortal enemy with a batch of rifles and suddenly its bondage dungeon time!" This tale spun out for several more minutes, the intricacies of which were so garbled and obviously falsified that it would be entirely useless to explain them as an author. What you could take away from it was that Nik had a lung capacity bordering on evolutionary mutation and it was only after his face had gone a dull shade of blue did he suck in enough oxygen to keep a ships crew of twelve in the land of the living for a six day journey.

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessarose stared at the man as he continued his verbal dhairrea. She had no clue who or what he was talking about, and not even the name Hanvar (or any other mentioned names or details) rang a bell. The smell coming from the man was... Uncomfortable though, to say the least. As he continued with his prattle,Nessarose's hand moved into the air, sending the gentles of breeze in his direction, moving the stink as far away from her as possible. Why couldn't human piss smell more like sunshine and roses?

Letting the air linger for just a few short moments after he finally stopped talking, Nessarose sighed. "So you have no clue how you got here or what happened," she concluded from his story, "seems like we're in the same boat."

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

"Well crap..." Nik responded. It was a well known fact that you had to blame someone for all the misfortune the universe hands you. He jangled his chain again and then feeling a cramp in his leg made to move it into a better position. He only got as far as half stretching them outwards before they too were halted by links of metal. It was a predicament, one he'd love to say had never occurred before although this time he hadn't been expecting it and stashed lockpicks in places best left unmentioned.

"Are you chained up as well? Or are these smeggers sexist as well as poor hosts?" He asked more to take his mind off the trifecta combination of hangover, need for a drink and above all else a lungful of nicotine than real curiosity. Unless this...girl? Feminine man? Genderless being? Had a few party tricks they hadn't thought to use yet they were boned until whomever played the dungeon master decided to make an appearance.

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessarose laughed, and raised her arms. The sounds of falling chains was heard, the cold metal clink echoieing. "They're going to need more than chains if they wanna keep me down," she said, neglecting to mention the whole Sith and Force thing. She wasn't entirely sure that the poor man's heart was going to be able to take it all.

Still, the darkness was slightly... Uncomfortable. While perfectly capable of just seeing things through the Force, Nessa hated to rely on it. She preferred using her actual eyes all the time. It was much more comfortable anyway. "I don't suppose you have anything to burn, do you?" she asked, sparks beginning to fly from her hands. They lit the whole cell, showing it for what it was - a cubicle, not quite... What she'd expected.

First of all, it was a cube made of substance that felt like stone, but was as clear as glass. And around the tiny cube, she could now see the outline of other such cubes, though the light was hardly enough to show who was in them, or how many of them there were at all.

Her throat going dry, the bursts of light quickly ended. "Nevermind..."

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

Well that was a shocker, he thought before adding. "Wouldn't mind doing me, would you?" Another jingle jangle of his bonds accompanied the request. While his cell mate cast shed a light on their more than humble abode. A hand came up to shield his face from the sudden luminous intrusion upon his retinas before he acclimatized and saw, with a gulp, that they didn't appear to be alone.

"Well bugger me sideways..." He said, only half aware that he was taking off his shirt and throwing it her way while his nose was pressed against the strange glass. "Thats more flammable than a ships engine-" The light fizzled out as quickly as it had come. "..Room.."

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"Please putyour shirt back in," Nessarose asked with a kind little smile, "there weren't any windows or openings in the cell, so I'm not going to burn whatever oxygen we may or may not have."

Rising from her corner, the remaining shackles fell away from her body, and she paced across the cell. Four meters by four meters, she counted with her feet. Not much. How far was the drop? She didn't know. But she had a plan.

"Are you afraid of heights?"

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

"You sure know how to make a boy feel special," He said injecting what little humour there was to be had in their predicament. "And yes, oxygen good. We need that. Wait...do you need that?" He'd gotten a look at her briefly when the strange light danced from her fingers. She seemed human but in a Galaxy like theirs that was an assumption one was loathe to make.

Nik waved his question away like a bad smell and attempted to stand with her. The chains, thankfully, were long enough for him to do so but moving more than a single step in any direction was impossible. "Heights? Dear me no, I'm a pilot. Its gravity that puts the fear up me."

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"Good," Nessa said.

Within a milisecond, her arms were wrapped around the man whose name she did not even know, and she closed her eyes, the dark glow disappearing beneath her eyelids. A shield erected around them; spherical, with a soft pink hue tint to its otherwise mostly transparent appearance.

And then the cell they were in, along with them, began to drop.

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

Rillians was embraced. As first dates went this wasn't the worst but it surely didn't rank high enough to warrant hugs, he barely knew the girl and why were they glowing? And- His world dropped away from him.

"This wasn't what I had in miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiindddddddddddddddddddddddddddd!" His voice carried like the boom of a cannon into the darkness beyond their tussle with gravity. A part of his mind that wasn't predisposed with praying to every god that existed, had existed or would exist noted that the space they were in must be vast.

"Tell me you have breaks on this thing!" He screamed above the woosh of the wind in his ears.

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessarose couldn't respond. All of her energy was put to use as her Presence darted around them, feeling for however many people and cells they passed. Their own dropping cell hit other cells numerous times - what happened with them, she was too busy to even begin to guess, though a well calculated assumption was that there were a few more cells and/or people dropping as well, but they did not have the protection of a Sith Sorceress.

As a result of the impacts, their own cell began to come apart. They were falling down and breaking around them, pieces of whatever it was that their cell had been made of flying around their ears as well.

At last, Nessarose began to slow the descend down gradually, until she and the man were hovering in the air. And then she let go again, causing the last 3 feet to be a normal drop. The two landed on hard durasteel floors.

Sweat decorated Nessa's back and face now. The fall had taken a lot of energy out of her. She needed rest, and more importantly, she needed nourishment. And she had none on her body. "I don't suppose you have any food on you?" she asked weakly as she sank to the floor, exhausted.

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

A shard of their cell as big as his fist sliced past his ear and he found that maintaining some semblance of bladder control was growing all the more difficult. One more shock to the system and he was sure there would be an leak of the most embarrassing kind.

That worry aside he tried to take in the other boxes that slipped by them in the dark, once or twice he was sure he saw silhouettes inside but that could have been his imagination mixed with sheer terror. When finally he dropped to the ground, his legs like jelly, and fell backwards onto his rump he looked up at the girl.

"Do I look like I have food? Do I seem like a man that carries around a stockpile of munchables in case I meet a random stranger in a creepy ass- Are you dead?" He asked the withering form of his saviour and probable cause of cardiac arrest in the near future. Nik slid a foot toward her, and gave her a nudge. "You can't die yet, I haven't finished dramatically complaining."

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessa's eyes flashed open, the glow of the green obviously weaker than it had been before. "No," she retorted, her voice lacking any of her infamous patience. Not dead. But weak, and weaker. Oh, she doubted she would actually die. But with her energies so depeleted, sleep was not far off, and then sleep would last for longer than acceptable in this surroundings. And that, that was scary. Because it meant she would be entirely defenseless if their captors decided to make a comeback.

Saving whatever few energies she had left, she only moved her neck as she tried to look and feel around. "There," she said, nudging the man, "someone who fell with us and landed bad. He can't scream but he's still alive. Bring his body to me."

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

"Excellent! Now as I was saying..." Thats as far as he got before she nudged him. He looked over in the direction of the downed individual in question. "Why in the buggery would I want to do that? I'll have to carry you at this rate never mind some random arse stranger...which I suppose you are as well but you get what I mean..." He faltered, there was something in the girls stare that told him he wasn't going to win this one. So with a jingle and a jangle of his still shackled limbs he made his way toward the injured party.

"Hello there," Nik said, crouching down on his haunches to take a look at what turned out to be a wounded Twi'lek. "Losing quite a bit of blood eh? Thats a pity. To me." He said gripping the sentient by the arms and dragging his unconscious body back toward his cell mate.

"One half dead stranger, as per your request. Let me guess, you're some kind of healer too?" The Corellian enquired while surreptitiously poking the Twi'lek in the ribs with his toe. "Need to be a miracle worker for this one..."

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Healer? If she had any energy to spare, Nessarose would have burst into laughter. Her kind did not heal. Her kind built or destroyed. Looking over at the mostly dead Twi'lek. Mostly dead was good. Mostly because mostly dead meant slightly alive, and slightly alive was just what she needed.

It was all too easy to see the great amounts of effort it took from Nessa to move herself then, turn around on the cold floor until her body touched the Twi'lek's. If the man she'd saved was talking, none of it was passing through to her mind. With an unhappy grunt, she laid herself on top of the Twi'lek and pressed her lips to his.

Whatever remaining life force the Twi'lek had within him, Nessarose took it into herself. The alien's corpse beneath beneath her began to shrivel and shrink as she took the remaining life out of it, until it was little more than a gray matt beneath her.

Rolling off, the Sith Sorceress already knew it was not enough. "There," she pointed, "another one."

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

Somehow, in the back of his mind, Nik knew this would happen. He couldn't say why he knew that this poor frakker would meet a horrific end but he did and he'd been the delivery boy.

If any complaints were upon his tongue as the sentients body began to shrivel up like a prune then the cold terror of the act silenced it. This was beyond his mind ability to comprehend, that this young girl could commit an act of such depravity on another being simply did not compute. When she demanded another he didn't move or speak for several seconds but quickly his revulsion gave way to anger.

"If you think," He snarled through gritted teeth, his hands clenching into fists. "That I'm going to lead another lamb to the slaughter, you must be more buggered in the head than you obviously are." It was a bold move, stupid but ultimately the right thing to say after her little display. He was under no illusions, if this girl wanted him dead then he would be. At least he'd die with his morals intact.

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Nessarose rolled her eyes. She simply did not have the patience for someone to be an idiot about this. Forcing herself to sit up (and one could visibly see the amount of effort that took), she glared at him, the anger flashing in her eyes.

"Now listen up, mister!" she half hissed at him, "he was going to die anyway. As are all the others that have fallen but were not protected by me. Who was I protecting? You. Otherwise you'd already be dead. Do you wanna die? Then you're welcome to come here and let me suck your life energy out of your decaying body. If not, get me someone else who's on the ground, because the death I give them is swift and painless, especially when you compare it to the anguish and pain they experience while life slowly drips out of them as they lie in puddles of their own blood. I need another five or so, and once that's done, I can actually get us out of here, which is more than you or they can say. Now get to it!"

And then, as though that entire speech didn't just happen, she smiled sweetly at him. "By the way mister," she asked, "my name is Nessa. What's yours?"

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]

 

[Nik Woverius Rillians]

She made good points, reasonable points, but then again didn't all psychotic killers justify their actions? Nik looked around at the moaning bodies, clinging to life by a thread. Most of their bodies would be shattered, he knew, they must have fallen over sixty feet from their suspended cells.

Rillians tore his eyes away from her intended victims and to their surroundings, the darkness was invasive. It obscured anything beyond a few feet and even then only the barest outlines of the downed prisoners and his cannibalistic cellmate were evident.

"You have no weapon, you have no clue where you are. You'd be alone, you'd die..." He thought, his brow furrowing in thought and a snake of guilt began to slither into his guts as he reached a decision.

"After today, after we're out of here. If I ever see you do this again, I will try and stop you." Somehow saying it didn't stop how wrong the act he was about to commit felt.

It took some six or seven minutes but he finally dragged, some screaming and others lost to unconsciousness, five more bodies to her. He tried not to look at their faces, he could only imagine that he'd be forever seeing them in his dreams after today. He failed, each and every time.

@[member="Nessarose deWinter"]s

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

"You're so adorably sweet when you try to act all manly and tough," Nessarose half-purred half-giggled. But she already knew what he did not - no one saw Nessa once and decided to call it quits. Everyone wanted to hug her, love her, be her friend, or kill her. All of those things required seeing her more times, and people generally came to learn to just... Accept her. This man, this somewhat rude man who had not told her his name, would be no different. But that was all right. For a teenager, she was a bubble of bubbly patience.

She waited patiently as he gathered the bodies. She could feel their pulses as he dragged them, the beat of the heart quickening in response to being touched, and then slowing down again once their bodies came to a rest. Hope. They all had so much of it. None of them in their misery had seen what happened to the first, and all of them clung to that feeling of fate, that their saviour had arrived.

And she had. In a way.

There were no screams to fill the air, no moans of pain. Their deaths were sweet, sweet as candy, and their remains had the tiniest of smiles etched upon their faces.

Once that all done, Nessarose bounced in her place before jumping up, standing on her legs again. "That was delicious, mister," she said with an ear to ear grin as she hopped to him and gave him the sweetest of kisses on the tip of the nose. Now she just had to figure out a way out of here.

@[member="Nik Woverius Rillians"]