thehive-book

[thehive-book]

Chapter 1

The first thing I am aware of is the buzzing. That low electrical hum that penetrates into your skull and drills into your brain. The noise niggles in my ear like a fly that is trapped in my head and desperately trying to escape. All I can sense is that sound, incessant and furious and I am trapped in a cacoon of darkness with only the buzzing for company.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

What feels like hours pass, although I am sure it has only been minutes. The hum is like torture, infuriating and relentless. I try and focus on my other senses, anything except that awful sound. I notice that I can feel a cool breeze coming from somewhere, it’s making the hairs on my legs stand on edge. I realise that I am lying down, the sheets beneath me are rough and itchy and there is a faint smell of bleach in the air. I observe my breathing as though I am an outsider floating in this sea of nothingness, and feel my breath coming in slowly and out steadily. My head aches, my arms and legs are like lead weights pulling me down and I’m struggling to open my eyes. My mouth feels thick and parched and I try to lick my lips hoping for a tiny bit of moisture but there’s nothing. I’m not even sure my tongue moved.

I try to focus on opening my eyelids, willing them to split apart and show me the world around me. After an eternity the darkness gives way to a hazy white light which burns my eyes. I blink once, twice and after a while the glare subsides, the black patches in my vision fade and I can see. The electrical hum is coming from the ceiling strip lights above my head, one of the rods is flickering on and off causing that god awful noise. I am unable to turn my head, but in my peripheral vision I can see white ceiling, the tops of the white walls and the rim of a tiny window to the left side of the room. There is a clock opposite me, it’s second hand ticks furiously as I stare at it. It is quarter to two.

I rack my brains, straining to remember where I am and what brought me to be lying on a bed too lethargic to move. As I try and think back to what came before but there is nothing. I don’t know who I am. I have no recollection of who I was before I heard the buzz of the strip light. I am certain I am a ‘She’, but I’m not sure how I know this. I also feel like I am not old but then I don’t know how old I am. I can see part of my body and I am covered in a blue cotton gown. I am thin to the point that my bones protrude, although my skin is pink and healthy without lines or blemishes. I assume I must be young-ish. I can see some of my hair peeking down from the corner of my eye, it is long and red and I have flashes of brushing it as a child. Is this a memory or just a dream?

My brain whirrs straining to remember anything from my past but it is pointless, there is nothing. A thought occurs to me, does it even matter who I was before today? Maybe my memories will come back to me, or maybe I will be stuck not knowing my name for eternity but one thing is certain, I will not be stuck lying down on this bed for the rest of my life.

I reach out mentally to my limbs, it feels as though I am tied to the bed and that I am being prevented from moving. I hope that my body begins to wake up soon.

* * *

It is four o’clock and I have seen nobody in the two and a quarter hours since I woke up and yet I can hear shuffling outside of my room. I tried to yell a few times but have only managed to let out a faint rasp. I have managed to start moving my head slightly from side to side and I can see that I am in a square room with a single door to my right and one small window to my left. It is dark outside but I can see no stars just the inky darkness of early morning. The room is sparse with only a single chair in the corner, a small table and the bed in which I lie. The floor is linoleum in a dull grey and I find the room increasingly depressing and cold.

I have been getting flashes of thoughts as I lie here, I can recall the red hot sun and running through a field, I can remember sitting on a train with its hard seat digging into my back and if I strain really hard I think I can remember my face in the mirror. It was young and freckled with wide green eyes but I have no way of knowing if this is real or not.

I force myself to keep awake by turning my head as much as I can. I am parched and can hear my stomach rumbling involuntarily. I struggle to stay awake for another hour hoping for some relief but every sound I hear from outside my room leaves me feeling more alone.  

I am starting to drift into unconsciousness when a loud bang startles me awake. The door to my room has been swung open and in walks an older lady, her face weathered and her hair scraped into a bun. She has a board in her hand and is quickly scribbling notes on it as she walks into my room. Looking up, she stares at me and I turn my head to see her more clearly. Her surprise is evident and she rushes to my side with an audible gasp.

Her voice is loud and garbled as though she is speaking under water and it takes me a few seconds to realise what she is saying. “Thank god it worked.” She fusses around me pressing her cool wrinkled hand against my brow.  She gets a tiny torch and flashes them into my eyes as presses her fingers of her other hand to my wrist. As she tends to my frail body she starts to hum. It’s like a song I once knew but can’t quite remember and I get the impression that this woman has done this to me a thousand times before. She lifts up my arm and begins to manipulate the joints, bending and moving each limb. It feels so strange having someone move me in this way and yet I can feel the pins and needles within my body as though she is rebooting me.  

I try to lick my lips again and she notices the dryness of my mouth. She rushes out of the room and swiftly returns with a pillow, a cup of water with a straw and a bowl of gloop. Propping me into a seating position she presses the cup to my mouth and lets me sip at the straw slowly like a child. The water feels like heaven as it drips down my throat and I drink it all down until the cup is empty. She spoon feeds the soup into my mouth, and it slides down my throat easily. As she does this she stares at me, assessing every move my face makes. She is aware that I am unable to move and the thought of this makes me feel completely vulnerable.

“I can’t believe you are awake,” she mutters to me as she puts the bowl to the side. She brings the chair around closer to the bed, sits and places my hand in her own. Her pale blue eyes are watery, darting frequently to the closed door. “You’ve been asleep so long” she says.

I try and speak but my tongue prevents me from forming the words, instead the only noise I make is disgusting thick grunt like a wounded animal. I contort my face in disgust and I find the woman laughing at me. “You have been asleep for 8 years my child, you can’t expect to wake up perfect like sleeping beauty!”

Eight years, how have I been asleep for 8 years! My face must’ve betrayed my shock and she responds, “You were brought in years ago as a child, bloody and broken and we patched you up as best as we could. There were so many people coming in when the first wave of bombs went off and we never found out who you belonged to.” Her hand reaches up to my hair and strokes me. The action is so familiar it leaves me feeling unsettled. I try and bat her away forgetting my arms won’t work properly.  I manage to lift it up part way before it flops back down loosely at my side. The frustration builds up in my chest and I can feel the hot swell of tears prick at my eyeballs.

“Focus on getting your fingers and toes moving, get your control over those and we can work on the rest” she soothes and I look at her again this woman in her nurse suit. Her name is Jane or at least that is what her badge says. I try and form the word but it comes out sounding more like “Dane” but that seems to be enough. “Yes I’m Jane and we call you Bea although that definitely isn’t your real name.” She reaches for my neck and holds something up to my eye line, it is a necklace with a small golden bee as a pendant. “This is the only thing you had with you other than your clothes, so we called you Beatrice or Bea for short. I suppose you can change it now you’re awake, although I think it suits you,” she says with a smile on her face.

As she stands up, she squeezes my hand tightly and with a determined look she heads for the door. As she opens it she turns and her face is full of an empty sadness and something that looks like fear. “We must get you up and moving before the Reaping, we won’t be able to hide you here much longer.”

I watch her as she closes the door and leaves me alone with my thoughts. I don’t know what the Reaping is but I feel a dread in the pit of my stomach. This world is foreign to me and I’m not sure whether this world is twisted up into something unrecognisable or whether it was this way all along.