Escape

"Sister, I told you not to take that child from before," Glenn neatly stacked their belongings into specific piles so he could place them into their leather brown bags.

"I knew from his clothes and temperament that he must've been from one of the nearby nobles' house, and now that he's dead, they've begun to investigate," He gave a small sigh, as if the death he was speaking of was a trifling little problem.

Miran scoffed back at his comment, "It was his bad luck coming across me. Who would've thought he would be dallying around in the forest all by himself? Well not like it matters, we'll be gone in 3 days and they won't be able to find this place before then."

She then glanced at the still chained-up Olivia.

Olivia stared right back.

Regarding her, Miran had always hated Olivia. Especially that face of hers. That beautiful, soft, youthful face of hers. If not for her being a successful test subject, she would've already skinned every inch of her being.

As the years passed by Olivia became increasingly more delectable. More Prettier. More Bewitching.

She never missed the occasional infatuated gaze her own brother sent the test subject. Their test subject. And that's what she was to stay as. As a lowly, dirty, ignoble test subject. Her brother couldn't possibly obsess over something so inferior.

Over something that she could break at any time if she so wished.

With such thoughts swirling across her mind, Miran slowly approached Olivia, one of her favourite testing tools firmly grasped in hand.

"How should we go about today's test, little Olivia?"

"Neck?" The dagger gingerly swept past her jaw.

"No? How about stomach?" The dagger slid down Olivia's chest in a soft, gentle manner, finding itself at her abdomen.

The dagger then, like a graceful dragonfly, hovered upwards, "Or heart?"

Olivia did not react to Miran's taunting. She had long learnt that reacting in anger or panic did nothing but heighten Miran's wicked sense of entertainment.

Rather, in moments like these, Olivia found it better to drive her mad with anger. It was one of the small forms of entertainment she had to keep herself from going insane during the years.

"Has anyone told you that lately, you're looking more and more like an old hag?"

Miran's eyes blazed before a cool, recollected reply was heard, "I'm not too surpised. I've been up most nights with Glenn, looking over my results that I've gotten thanks to you. A pity you can't read."

"No wonder you're still without a husband, sticking close to your brother like a moth to a flame. I wonder what will happen to you when he leaves?" Olivia chuckled, her words just as piercing as the other.

Miran gave a sigh. She picked up the dagger and without hesitation, plunged it into Olivia's heart.

Amidst Olivia's heart-wrenching scream and agony, Miran leaned close to her, speaking in a low voice, "Dear Olivia, after all these years you still really know how to make me angry."

Glenn watched his sister walk away from the stone bed, leaving the dagger plunged in Olivia.

He helplessly walked over to the pale faced woman, the hilt of the dagger sticking out of her chest like a sore thumb. Although she had stopped making sounds, blood continuously gushed out of her chest yet, Olivia was still conscious.

Glenn caressed the side of her face with one hand while the other, with a swift pull, took out the foreign object. A few minutes later the wound had already closed on its own, and all that was left as evidence, was the blood surrounding the floor of the stone table.

Olivia's face had long resumed its normal colour and she looked as though nothing had occurred.

"Why do you always aggravate Miran? If you played a bit nicer, she wouldn't have done that."

"Soon we'll have to leave to go to another location to start our second phase of the experiment and on top of that, those damn vampires are coming, so we can't continue to be here any longer." Glenn's hand continue to caress her rough dark hair. His fingers ever so gentle, as he weaved in-between the tresses.

Olivia looked up at him, her eyes fixated on his face, roaming across his every being in the dim light.

Her pink, chapped lips parted after awhile, "Will you let me leave?"

This wasn't the first time Olivia had asked, but the answer had always been disappointing, so she stopped asking over the years. From time to time however, she still test the waters, just in case there really was a glimmer of hope.

"No," Glenn replied in a baritone voice. His face devoid of all previous affection.

He then switched to a soft smile, as if the previous emotion was all but a lie and changed postions to caress her cheek, "You can't leave. We still have things to finish and you're an important asset. Besides, haven't these last few years been fun? Although there were a few unfortunate moments, it hasn't been all too bad has it?"

This was how Glenn was. Although he had an amiable smile on his face most of the time, he wasn't much different from his sister. If things didn't go his way, he would make it so that it did.

Olivia turned her face away from his hand and did not respond to his delusional nostalgia. Neither did she harbour any real hope, especially after all these years. No matter how many times she 'tested the waters' she was destined to drown in them instead. This time, she would need to find her own way out of this God-forsaken place.

In fact, the oppertune time for her to leave would be right now.

She knew that although it had already been 7 long years, they were far from done with their insane experiments, and her current condition was definitely not the end product they were looking for.

She couldn't let them take her to another location, otherwise who knew how long they'd keep her for? What if they never let her go? She couldn't afford to take the risk. The vampires, she could think about later.

Banking on Miran's estimates, the siblings would be leaving in 3 days, just in time to evade the vampires. Therefore, Olivia had around 2 days to pull this off. One day to escape, and the second day to travel as far away as possible.

At the moment the siblings were occupied with their own things and were not paying much attention to Olivia. Over the years, although they still kept her chained and occasionally drugged, they didn't keep too strict of an eye on her.

She didn't quite know what bought about this change. All she knew was both Miran and Glenn had become increasingly more agitated and paranoid. Olivia had also witnessed the siblings go out more and more frequently, often taking their papers with them.

She didn't know what or who, had riled the two up and frankly, she didn't want to know. All Olivia could hypothesise for now is, it was more than vampires that the siblings were running away from.

With the siblings distracted, Olivia took this time to silently eye the room. The cell wasn't too spacious but it was enough for 3 people to move around freely. The area was only lit by two oil lamps, leaving a few dark corners in the room creating eerie shadows in their wake.

The nearby table held a few objects, one of them being the dagger that was often and repeatedly used on Olivia, another being a set of pliers and next to it, a medium sized hammer.

Another two tables, used by both siblings, had all the paper and notes they had written during their observations. This was also where the potions and parchments of spells lay. In the far right corner was the oil can that was used to light the dim lamps. The rest of the room consisted of 2 wooden chairs for when the siblings felt tired and a flimsy mattress that they took turns to sleep on while the other kept watch overnight.

There wasn't a kitchen that they could use to cook, so one sibling would cook in the forest and bring it in when they finished. That, however, was only when they were sick of eating food from the nearby towns. Neither was there a fireplace. There wasn't really any room for one, the cell was just that crowded. During winter, they did nothing but make do with the few rags they had and by keeping the doors tightly shut, keeping the cold out.

Continuing to keep an eye on the siblings, Olivia quickly carried out her makeshift plan. As her body structure started to change along with their experiments, the siblings began to drug Olivia more and more, in fear that she would gain the strength to escape. During the last few months, Olivia found out that she had gradually built up resistance to the drug, it almost not having any effect on her whatsoever. Yet, she continued to act sluggish and docile in front of them. Today she planned to take advantage of this fact to the fullest.

Although she knew it would be painful, she silently angled her wrist all the way until a small crack was heard, quickly taking the time to slip it out of the chain before her bones could repair themselves.

It was excruciating. Every single cell in her wanted to scream in agony but she couldn't.

She dared not.

She tried her very best to keep her movements quiet, sweat pooling on her forehead.

Once her wrist was free and the bones moved back in place, she did the same for the rest of her limbs as quietly as possible.

Right now... right now she wanted to scream. To cry out. To relieve herself of this suffering she was forced into. Keeping her rough breaths to a minimum, Olivia continued to remind herself silently, over and over again.

'You'll be free. Freedom. Soon.'

She repeated these sets of words as if reciting a mantra. Over and over again, she reminded herself what was at stake.

For her, the pain was absolutely worth the freedom she would gain in return.

During this, she didn't take her eyes off the siblings. Thankfully, she had learnt that once the duo were absorbed in something, their attention was not divided and they focused solely on what was in front of them instead.

Olivia exploited this and quietly stretched out her arm to pick up both the dagger and hammer beside her.

"I'm just going to go to the toilet," Glenn broke the silence in the quiet room.

Olivia almost jumped out of fright, her heart hammering against her ribcage. Her palms holding the tools were slick with sweat, but she managed to keep a strict, firm grip on them.

Miran hummed a sound of approval, not bothering to look up from what she was occupied with, while Glenn cast Olivia a gaze.

Olivia looked back with her normal blank stare, but the sweat on her brow and her fingers clenching from pure anxiety, betrayed her emotions. Thanks to the room dimly lit however, Glenn wasn't able to catch this anomaly. Neither was he able to catch that Olivia was no longer bound by her sturdy chains.

Once he made sure everything was still in order, he sluggishly walked into the outback, firmly closing the door behind him.

Confirming he had left, Olivia let out a slow, ragged, long breath that she didn't know she held in. She once again looked at Miran to affirm that she was still entranced in her work, before quietly slipping off the stone bed, clutching the dagger and hammer in both hands.

She thought for a moment before ripping off a corner of the rag like cloth covering her body as slowly and quietly as possible, each tear muffled by Miran's frantic scribbles on the parchment papers.

Once that was done, she inched her way over to the table Miran was working on. It was a good thing she didn't have shoes, as no sound was made while she made her way over.

Miran, still oblivious to the danger that was creeping up on her, continued to be occupied with her work.

Suddenly, she felt a sharp tug on her scalp, causing her to drop her pen in surprise and forcefully look up.

"Just what on ear-," Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes went wide, while her mouth was hastily stuffed with a familiar dirty rag. Olivia forcibly shoved the cloth into Miran's mouth as deep as possible so minimum noise could be heard.

Olivia had always wanted to do this. Throughout the last few years, many-a-time had Olivia imagined just how she'd deal with them. How she would exact her punishment, her long due revenge.

Before, she would dream of torturing the siblings and making them beg her for their deaths, but now, just before the final stage, she no longer wanted to do such a thing.

"You know what? I was going to torture you at first, but now I don't think I will," Olivia said. Her hand still tugging forcefully at Miran's hair making sure her dull brown eyes were trained on her solely.

"Although it would give me immense satisfaction, that wouldn't be truly hurting you, now would it?"

"Do you know what I think the best way to deal with you bastards is? It's to let you die before completing all your shitty experiments and making you watch as I burn all your pretty notes and research papers in front of you," Olivia looked deep into her eyes as she delivered her verdict. She waited for Miran's reaction as she allowed her some time to absorb her words.

And what a wonderfully tasteful reaction she gave.

Miran's eyes slowly drew bigger, the veins surrounding her pupils turning a beautiful scarlet as she registered Olivia's implications. Her body jerked but Olivia continued to hold a tight grip on her hair, keeping her steadily in place.

This.

Now this was entertaining. Delightful even.

Watching her every reaction, Olivia felt a thrill run through her. A chuckle bubbled in her chest as she keenly watched Miran writhing around in her hands. Although she couldn't quite make out her emotions, whether they were from anger, fear or shock, Olivia nevertheless enjoyed the array of emotions displayed on Miran's face.

Having relished enough in watching her, Olivia lifted up the hammer she had previously taken with her and aimed at Miran's throat.

While she was frothing blood at the mouth, Olivia picked up a few pieces of paper from the desk, dragging the thrashing Miran over to the single oil lamp in the room. In front of her bulging eyes, Olivia put the stack of notes above the fire, Miran thrashing wildly in her arms with her tears, mucus and blood mixing together while being forced to watch her life's work vanish and turn into dust. Although this wasn't all of the research, Olivia had seen that recently, this was what Miran had been obsessively focusing on.

By the time the papers had finished burning, Miran lay slack, Olivia holding her up. She had lost a lot of blood in that time, so now she could no longer exert any strength and was left looking at Olivia with eyes of resentment and pure hatred.

Olivia ignored her gaze and dragged her over to the familiar stone bed, laying Miran on top, "It seems it's time for your end to come too, don't worry, I'll be sending dear Glenn to you as a parting gift."

"Seeing as your favourite pastime was stabbing hearts, I'll let you leave in the same way," Miran finally had eyes full of fear. Olivia ignored this trivial look and raised her arm, without delay stabbing Miran straight through the heart.

"Olivia? Wha- what are you doing?" Olivia turned away from the stone bed to see Glenn stood at the door with a pale face not daring to look towards the figure laying there motionlessly. It seemed that Glenn had already registered what had happened but was denying reality.

He slowly trudged towards Olivia, getting a closer look at his sister.

"Miran? Sister get up now, this isn't a joke," Glenn spoke with bated breath.

"She's already dead, Glenn. As will you be," Olivia informed, looking indifferent to the whole ordeal. Once Glenn heard her voice, he turned towards her, his face twisted in hatred.

"You! You did this to Miran! Why did you kill her? We were nice to you, we clothed you, we fed you, we housed you. The only thing we took were a few samples and conducted some experiments and yet you kill us? Is this how ungrateful you are?!" By now Glenn was seething, his veins bulging and his eyes red, yet Olivia remained blank at the face of all of this.

Seeing no response, Glenn picked up his own dagger attached to his belt and in anger stabbed towards Olivia.

Olivia did not dodge out of the way, merely bearing the excruciating pain. She put her hand over Glenn's that was holding the hilt of the dagger and that was currently embedded in her chest, "What are you doing Glenn? Are you trying to kill me in a last-ditch effort? Don't you remember? This is what you turned me into, you can't kill me but I'll be sure to kill you."

The pain had finally registered in Glenn as he looked down to see a similar dagger entrenched in his own chest. Blood started pouring out of both the wound and his mouth, just like his sister. After a few twitches, Glenn silently fell to the ground his eyes open with an unwilling look. The floor was drenched in blood, trails covering most of the ground. Olivia, however, did not care.