don’t breathe.
The world has turned red. Silenced, suffocating, I lunge forward and slip in a pool of my own blood. Kill. I get up, charge again only for the silver shackles around my neck to yank me back. It almost crushes my throat. Doesn’t matter. I can’t breathe either way. Trying to tear my arms free, I hurl myself against the restraints again. You’re dying. SEE IF I CARE!
halt.
My body freezes mid motion, falls into the shackles like a statue. Pathetic. SHUT THE FUCK UP!
“Pathetic”, Niilan says.
“…”
“Do you have any idea how much I invested in you?! Not just money but time!”
I’LL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!
“And as a show of gratitude you try to kill me. Is that it?!”
I can’t move, can’t even glare. The black dots in my vision flow together like puddles.
He buries to his head in his hands: “The others will laugh me out of any respectable gathering… To believe I trusted a wildling!”
HA!
“It’s only a matter of time until they find out. They are already whispering. Behind all the nice invitation and questions about your health. I know it!”
If my body could move, it would spasm, claw as its bruised throat. But it can’t. So, it’s simply dying. I did not die for this! HAHAHAHAHAHA! FUCK YOU!
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move. you may breathe.
I topple over, gasping for air mid uncontrollable laughter.
Niilan glares at me: “You think this is funny?!”
“It’s not?”
He nods towards to the servant on my left. Something hard hits my face. White hot pain flashes thru my cheek as barely healed wounds reopen. The bandages stain red.
HAHAAHAHAHAAH! “GO ON, HIT ME YOURSELF! Or do you even lack the BALLS for that?!”
Amber eyes glare. I stare back.
“Continue as before”, he says before standing up. He leaves. The door falls shut.
Chains are tightened, and I’m pulled back up. A servant I can’t see puts a blade to my back and continues to peel. I’m laughing.
-
No daylight reaches here, water is given sporadically, food even more so, sleep is short and dinged in red. It’s impossible to tell how many days have passed. Everything burs together after a while; Even pain; Even time.
It had rained that day. Most everything else is hazy, but I remember the rain. Mama and Papa had been gone so long, I started eating the moss which grew on the cave entrance. It did not keep the gnawing hunger in check.
I went to get more and there she stood, so much water dripping from her fur it formed puddles beneath her. Like the moss. I had stormed forward and hugged her, but she did not move. She didn’t for a long time. “Mommy, where’s dad?”, I had asked. Only then she had looked down, as if remembering for the first time she had a daughter. Her eyes were burning with rage.
Pain shoots thru me. I jolt upright in the darkness. Still blindfolded. My toe is burning. Someone is laughing. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!”, I yell, voice discordant and rough. A smack. The laughing stops. Cold metal is placed on my second nail. “I WLL KILL YOU ALL!” A pull as it’s ripped out. I howl and tear at the restraints. “And how will you do that?”, a voice asks. Another smack. “Come on. Look at her. You can stop shitting yourself” “YOU COWARDS. YOU WOULDN’T EVEN DARE TO LOOK ME IN THE EYES IF I WASN’T SHACKLED” “Of course”. Fight back! How? LOOK AT ME! Is this what you wanted, MOTHER?! Another pull. The pain leaves me breathless. IT’S FUNNY! I really did listen to you. TO YOU! I should’ve known this is where I’d end up! Don’t. Like mother like daughter!
They rip out 5 more nails before I pass out.
