"Why?" I've repeated the question so many times over the last few months. Screaming it, sobbing it. An mantra repeated emotionlessly as i tried to take my life. Thers no one around to answer me though. The gods abandoned us. I think even the demons had fallen to this last plague. I am the last of a dead world. I touched my swollen belly with a small smile. "Well, not the last one"
***
He rolled off of me sated and reached for his watch. "I must leave," he said. "My wife will be expecting me." He stood and pulled on his pants. I wondered why this time he didn't wash me from him, like he normally did. I pulled the cover over me, barely suppressing a wince at the pain even that lightness caused.
"Why? Why can't yo-" He turned and slapped me hard across the face, I lost my precarious balance and fell to the floor.
"Sevannah, I told you that if you brought it up again you would regret it. I don't love you. I won't stay with you. You are nothing but a whore to me." He started towards the door. "And becoming a burdensome one at that." The door slammed behind him.
"Why?" I whispered. My face stung but I barely felt it. I wondered what i did to make him hate me so. "Why?" I repeated curling in a ball beside the bed.
***
I've looked back to that moment several times and wondered if thats where everything started. I don't think it is. I'm not even sure if thats really an important moment to anything or just a lost memory floating around. So many of those now.
***
"Audress?" I wondered then if I should jump out or not, if they knew who I was maybe they weren't here to hurt me.
"Where could she have hidden?" A second voice said. "Shes not the most brilliant of this bunch she couldn't have hidden to well." I might have come out if it hadn't been for that voice. It wasn't what he said, he was right I wasn't the brightest. It was the tone of it, I recognized that voice.
"Shut it" The first man said again. "I might have been able to get her if you hadn't spoken. I almost felt her. Come on, I kn-" The last part faded as they turned the corner. My head swam as I finally took a breath.
"Oh god," I murmured, I wasn't sure how long I could keep this up. I'd been hiding for days it seemed. I knew now though that I was this groups last hope. If they were looking for me by name then everyone else was accounted for. "Please Gods above and below please aid-"
"There you are!" I tried to scream but a hand was already covering my mouth. "Don't scream lovey, and don't fight." He whispered. "You wouldn't want _them_ to hear you." The man giggled softly, pulling me back farther down the tunnel I'd been hiding in. He finally moved his hand from my mouth and I took a gulp of air. I wanted so badly to scream, but if i escaped this man, i ran into the arms of the guards. I'd lived in this place for seventeen years. They called it a sanitorium. They told me i was crazy. I wasn't though, I knew what had happened.
"I've come to save you." The man said. He said it in a sing songy voice. I wondered if he was one of the ones I'd helped release to cover my exit, or if he was hidden from some time ago, on someone elses escape attempt. "I'm neither," he whispered lips close to my ear. "I'm a failed experiment"
I clapped my hand to my mouth to supress a scream. "Please don't hurt me." I whispered. I felt his breath on my cheek and could hear him giggling softly again.
"I would never hurt you lovey" He whispered and the world went black.
What seemed like moments later, though it turned out to have been two days, I woke. My arms and legs where stiff and my mouth felt full of cotton.
"Hi lovey." I jumped up and started to scream. "Stop screaming. I told you I'm not going to hurt you." I don't know what surprised me more, that I stopped screaming or that I believed him. He wasn't the horrible monster I'd pictured in the tunnel. He was tall with long white hair and purple-black eyes. His skin was milky pale, and I wondered if it had ever seen the sun.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Michael. I've been watching you for a while, Audress. I knew when you caused the revolt that you were the one to destroy this place. I've been here for so long, waiting for someone." His eyes grew hungry and I knew he was waiting for some response from me.
"I'm sorry Michael, I don't want to destroy this place. I just want to go home." His eyes flashed and I tried to back away from him. Only now realizing how small the room we were in was. He stepped forward.
"You will destroy this place." He grabbed my chin, pulling my face close to his. "You have no choice." The last was said in a growl, his nails digging into my cheeks. I felt blood drip onto my neck and again the world vanished.
This time it was not so quick, nor dreamless. I didn't remember much when i woke, only dark shapes and torture.
"Hello again." It seemed in some part of me that i missed the 'lovey' on the end of it. I think i'd angered him much with my refusal to destroy the place. "Are you more cooperative now?"
I nodded quickly, wondering how much I couldn't remeber of those dreams, and how much i just refused to acknowledge. |
Submission Name: Not the last
