Having found nothing in her mind to calm her, Linda prayed to God for her safety, and asked Him to forgive the sins she had committed in her life. But when she finished, she did not feel His grace; there was still nothing but the terrible reality of what she now knew was a coffin.
Wait, she thought. The respirator. If they want me dead why go to all this trouble? They could have just shot me. She couldn’t conceive of anyone being as cruel as to plan a gradual death in a coffin, unless the Leopards were going to use it as terrorist propaganda. But they’ve already said they would behead me, she told herself. Something that now seemed perversely preferable.
She heard the lid being wedged open. The bright, artificial light hit her eyes and she squinted. The face of the man who’d punched her appeared.
“You’re still alive. That’s good. It won’t be long now. I’ll just check around here,” he said in his British accent as he thrust his hand in and tugged on the ropes that bound her.
Then he fiddled around with the breathing apparatus. Presumably satisfied, he lifted another hypodermic syringe, the needle glinting before a tear of liquid ran over it. He brushed the burqa up her forearm, revealing bare skin. She felt her lower forearm being slapped harshly before he injected a vein with an unknown drug and lowered the lid. She strained to soak up the last of the light, her sense of confusion only matched by the terror of her further confinement in the coffin, the dread of claustrophobia and the sense of being buried alive.
Faintly, she heard what sounded like metal claps being snapped down. Then was nothing but her dreams and nightmares as she passed into an induced unconsciousness once more.