'07 Phoenix Disclosed: The Centurions - Blood and Loyalty
an excerpt

The entire day was almost surreal, tasks went smoothly, people cooperated, and even the weather held to its promise of a good day. And yet somewhere, locked away from the life, a young cadet was bound to a cold slab. Imprisoned in the darkness, yet still blindfolded she struggled against her shackles. Determined for freedom, the only time she stopped was when she heard the footsteps.
Her captor never spoke. Occasionally a straw was served to provide her liquid nourishment. Still, there was silence. Hands cold as ice dragged along her arms, her legs, they pressed firmly against her sides. She could feel the heat of breath through her uniform and the closeness as the predator sniffed her. She would not give in, for her training was instilled and there was no surrendering to anything, not even the dark emotions.
Her body was jostled as her uniform was cut and then stripped away. She shuddered to the touch of the sharp blade against her skin. The pain it delivered was intense and unlike anything she had endured before. The cutting, the carving, the digging and finally she screamed. And then there was nothing but the silence. Not even the sound of her struggles for freedom, there was just silence.
In that silence, a sheet moved. It was placed over the cadet’s body as she died. The soft sound of feet shuffling away ended with the thud of a large heavy door.