Darkness presses all around her. She can't see anything. The smell of something wet and decaying fills her head, a wave of nausea rising from within her. She tries to escape, but her arms and legs won't move. She's trapped in this dark place with no way out. She tries to scream, but nothing comes out. Someone help me, she thinks. Get me out of here!
Then she hears a voice that sounds distant, as though she's hearing it from the bottom of a well. "What do we do with her?" the voice asks.
"Toss her into the sea. By the time she washes up we will have long since departed."
She struggles against the bonds holding her, whipping her body around like a caged animal as she tries to escape. "She's awake," the first voice says.
"No matter. She can't escape from there. Put her on board and let us be gone from here."
"We can't do this," a third voice says. "We can't kill her. It's not right."
"It is necessary. Sacrifices must be made. I thought I had made that abundantly clear to you already."
"Take her with us. Make her one of us."
"I will not have one of her kind living with us. She's far too dangerous. She could destroy us."
"But think how useful one such as her can be."
She stops struggling then, awaiting the judgment against her. "Yes, she could be an asset, if controlled. Very well, she will come with us." There's a pause and then she finds herself suspended in midair. A moment later she's flying, only to slam into something solid. Colored stars pulse and explode before her eyes as her world spins out of control. "You had better be right about her," the second voice says.
"Stop it! Leave me alone!" Samantha cried out. She sat up to find herself still in the girl's dormitory. Around her the other girls continued sleeping. Rebecca sucked her thumb and kicked at her blanket on the pallet next to Samantha.
A familiar odor came to Samantha's nostrils. Samantha thought Rebecca had wet the bed until she felt a wet spot beneath her. Samantha's underwear and the back of her nightgown were soaked through. Not again, she thought. She got out of bed and went to the door to escape before the others woke up and made fun of her again. Before she could open the door a crack, she heard the growl of one of Pryde's dogs. She remembered what he'd said earlier and closed the door.
She crept down the row of beds to the back of the dormitory, searching for a clean nightgown and underpants to get through the rest of the night. She couldn't find any cabinets with spare clothing. Where did they get clean clothes?