Character: Maladicta
Rating: C

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.

Cold Bat
by Amazon Syren

     'Cold Bat', they called it, the people who had gone through — gone through and survived, that is.
     You didn't eat for over a week. Not anything. Certainly nothing human. Mal peered into the cell, small, stone floored, thick walls covered with sheet iron and insulated so that the only screams she would hear would be her own.

     She had joined the League of Temperance and taken the pledge to foreswear human blood, earning the ire of her father, the sorrow of her mother, and the loathing of her brother.
     There was no going back now.
     She stepped into the cell and the door clanged shut behind her.

     ***

     The inside of the cell was dark. Pitch dark. But that had never been a problem.
     She sat down on the hard floor, leaning her back against the door.
     It was then that she noticed the marks on the walls. Long, parallel lines, scored deep into the iron. She held her hand up to them, and the strips lined up with her fingers.
     They were made by fingernails.
     Mal took a deep breath.
     That doesn't mean you will, she told herself, firmly. But she wasn't certain. She rested her head on her knees, long hair falling over her like a curtain.
     She wondered when it would start, and what it would be like when it did.

     ***

     It began like an ache in her belly, the ache of hunger that spread through her body, making her feel hollow, and stretched too thin.
     She tried to stay still, to conserve her energy, but she could feel the sweat beading on her brow, trickling sickly down her back. She had peeled off her velvet jacket, pulled off her boots and tossed them away from her.
     It hadn't helped.
     She couldn't sit still.
     She stood and paced the chamber, walked in circles until she was sure she must have worn a groove in the floor. How long have I been in here? she wondered, slowing, resting her head against the cool of the wall.

     ***

     The shakes had come, after that. She didn't know whether it was from honest hunger, or from something else. From withdrawal.
     It's okay, it's okay, she kept telling herself, as she stumbled round the interior of her cell again.
     Maybe you should sit down for a while. Yeah... She sank to her knees, tried to breath calmly. Sh felt like someone had just sloshed a bucket of ice water over her. Her teeth were chattering hard, and she was shaking uncontrollably. She groped for her jacket, grasped it with icy fingers, and pulled it on again.
     You've had worse, she told herself. But she knew she was lying.

     ***

     How long had it been? She didn't know.
     She lay on the cold stone floor, body twitching, curled around the sharp center of her pain.
     I must be half-way there, she told herself. I have to be!
     She was avoiding the walls now. When she got up, if she got up, she was too unsteady on her feet not to use the wall for support.
     And she couldn't escape the nail-bitten walls. Those lines scored in solid iron that hinted at what would happen to her, what level she would descend to, before she got out of this room.
     This. Tiny. Airless. Fucking. Room! Her fist slammed into the floor, knuckles scraping on the stone.

     ***

     Then the pain had started.
     Little prickles, at first, like the sensation of near-numbness in her hands and feet, twinges in her side. But it got worse.
     Iron spikes driven through her shoulders, piercing her eyes, splitting her head from the inside. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her throat raw.
     "No, no," she whispered, clutching her head, rocking on her knees, as hot tears leaked from her burning eyes. "Please, no more..."

     ***

     They had warned her, before she took the pledge.
     They had warned her that the worst part was the craving.
     They were wrong.
     The worst was the smell of her own blood, under her skin.
     The worst was wanting to rip open her own arm just for one drink.
     She pressed her face to her knees, her hands tangled in her hair, her body shaking with sobs, wracked with pain.
     It was too much! She wasn't going to make it. She knew people died when they went through this, and now it was happening to her!
     She thought of the deep gashes in the walls. Would it come to that, after all? She dug her nails into her palms, and then stopped herself, abruptly, not wanting to go there, not wanting to rip her own skin.
     She splayed her shaking fingers against the cold floor. Maybe that was why they did it... Maybe they clawed the walls to keep from tearing their own flesh. Her fingers twitched on the stone.

     ***

     Where was she now? The pain was still there, but it seemed to belong to someone else. The world had gone red as a rose. Red as her mother's ruby rings, red as the silk dress she'd worn on her hundredth birthday, red as, red as, red as... But she couldn't finish the thought.
     Someone was screaming.
     She could hear someone screaming.
     That wasn't right.
     They said the walls were insulated.
     So how could she hear—

     ***

     The first thing she felt, was raw.
     Her throat burned with every breath and her fingers felt like someone had scraped away all of the skin. The stone floor was sticky under her hands.
     She could still smell her blood. Stronger now, and yet... And yet, it wasn't as bad as before.
     She crawled towards the door, body screaming in protest, eased herself against the wall, muscles jumping and twitching, panting with exaustion.
     But her head was clear now. The pain that had split it for what felt like months was gone. Finally, gone.
     She laughed, raggedly, her raw throat making her cough.

     She heard a scraping sound, above her. The key in the lock.
     A faint line of light appeared around the edge of the door.
     "Maladicta," came a man's voice, "Maladicta, it's Ivan." The door swung open, to reveal a bespectacled vampire of middling years. "Congratulations," he said, helping her to her feet. "You survived."
     He helped her down the hallway, to a candle-lit room, where she was offered a glass of bull's blood, and learned about the process of transference.
     She never knew what she'd left behind, scored into the stone floor of her cell.