One More Time to Kill the Pain
Notes: Welcome back. To anyone who reviewed, thanks, you guys rock. To anyone who is actually going to read this to the end, you're great. Anyone who said, "Screw it, I'm not waiting!" and left… Well, I kinda lost respect for you… Anyway… I always have something to say up here but they rarely have anything to do with the story… Sorry… Uh… What else, what else…? I don't know where to end the story so if you have a suggestion, that'd be great 'cause I doubt I could have it go to when she reveals she's a woman in the Tournament… (sadness) On with chapter 2.
-.-.-
Chapter 2 Crescendo
I awoke what I was the next day in the dark. I sat up. As I moved, I heard a strange noise and touched my wrist. I didn't feel anything. I squinted in an attempt to see the source of the noise. Shackles. There were shackles on my wrist. I knew I would become too familiar with them.
I walked around to try to figure out where I was and walked into bars. I was in a cell. Physically imprisoned.
I backed away from the bars of the cell. I sat with my back against the closest wall I came to. I tried to feel my surroundings with my right hand. I realized that I felt no sensation of heat or the stone on the ground. I touched my hand. Metal. So I damaged my arm enough to have to get an implant.
I couldn't scream. I did it to myself… The hell I got from you is over but am I damned to this prison forever?
Apparently not. I heard footsteps coming from down the hall. A light from a man's torch illuminated the cell, almost burning my eyes from its brightness. He grumbled inaudible words under his breath. He stood before me his eyes leaving my gaze once he looked upon my face. He lifted me to my feet by the chains of the shackles and dragged me away to work. He barked his orders but I did nothing to assure him I was listening. He barked the orders again but I still didn't understand.
"Do you not understand me, you stupid bitch?" he screamed. He smacked me and before I could recover, he beat me until I started coughing up blood. Still, I never died. Spared again… And that was when I knew that I would continue to be so painfully alive again... "You're a slave now! Don't you forget it, whore! I own you body and soul!"
As I lay there I wondered what I slave was and what he meant by owning me body and soul. I always thought it was possible to own someone but I never saw a reason why someone would want to do that. I never heard about owning someone's soul. Was it possible that he had owned my soul? I used to think not, using that as a fuel to the flames of rebellion. Once I really thought about it, he did. He got under our skin by repeatedly telling us he owned us all body and soul and began to control our soul. In a way, we were all soulless creatures and we all accepted that.
I remember after that beating another slave told me "There's no use in trying to rebel. We are what we are and there's no way to change that. People like us, we don't belong no place so don't try to go nowhere else."
For a while, I wondered if what he said was true. But then I would still have to prove him wrong.
-.-.-
Every once in a while we would be able to have pieces of a conversation.
"What d'ya mean 'What's a slave?' It's what you are!"
"What do you care anyway? It's not like you'll really need to know! How's it going to help you anyhow?"
"Why do you ask such foolish questions, child?"
"You don't need to know to survive."
But in all conversation I knew that I wasn't really let in. I was an outcast to everyone because of my ideas about escape. Even when I was what people generally called the "outcast of the living" I was still alone.
The only real conversation I ever got from someone was this: "Why you wanna escape?"
"So I can be free."
"So what if you did escape and you're 'free'?"
"I'll think about it when I get there."
"What if you don't?"
"I will."
"Yeah, well, I wanna get out as much as you do but I don't go and yell it at everyone. I got over myself and accepted being a slave. I mean, what if this is what's meant for me?"
"How do you know it is?"
"How do you know it isn't?"
"If there is a god out there that listens to us, why would they let this happen to their people? And why do we have to accept being slaves?"
"Why do you have to question what's chosen for you? Whatever chooses what happens to us doesn't give a shit if you want to be a slave or not. It just makes you do it. And it makes sure that if you turn on it, you'll get bit on the ass for it. If you do leave, you can't get nowhere 'cause you don't belong no place like I told you! And also we'll have these goddamn shackles on us so people could either take us as their slave or take us back to this bastard! And if you somehow get these things off no one would want you around 'cause you scare the living shit out of people with your face! That's why the master isn't sticking his prick in you like he does the other girls! So you know you can't try and go sell your body to someone!"
"I wouldn't even if I didn't do this to myself."
"Then what the hell're you planning to do then?"
"I'll find something. Like I said, I'll think about it when I get there."
"Pssh. You're beside yourself. And how'dy a expect to escape?"
"I learned a long time ago that running away is futile because I would still get caught. There's only one way to escape- the master must die. And if anyone else objects, then they can go with him. If that's what it takes, then having some blood on me will be worth it. You don't need to listen to him when he says there's no way out."
"You're gonna kill him? Who do you think you are? You don't have the strength to kill the asshole yourself. No one else is crazy enough to help you neither! Accept your fate!"
Complete isolation. No one looked at me again. Maybe I was never meant to be around other people…
-.-.-
A few months later another girl was bought by the master. She was probably somewhere in her teens. She was showing early signs of development and that was the only way I could guess her age. That first day she spent crying and everyone around her just tried to shove her along so she would just get some work done. One man who stops an assembly line stops the production- rule one of slavery. She finally spoke when she was weeping on someone's shoulder.
"I don't wanna be here…" she whispered.
"Yeah, well, none of us do neither," the other slave replied, looking around nervously, hoping no one heard her. Rule two of slavery- if you so much as hear a hint of rebellion, the person who says the evil must be killed. No exceptions.
"When're we gonna be let go?"
"Never. Here 'til the master dies or 'til we die. I'd count on the second one."
"But can't we escape?"
"We can't 'cause…"
"We can," I broke into the conversation.
"Not you again!" I heard someone groan. I ignored him and kneeled before the girl.
"I know a way for us to escape. But if you really help me there's no turning back."
Before she could speak someone's threw a rock at me. "Don't you feed her your garbage! Aren't you enough trouble already? Why haven't you been killed yet anyway! That's the definition of injustice right there!"
"I don't cause trouble. I'm fighting for a cause."
"What kinda cause? Didn't I tell you to accept your fate?"
I stood up. "We are all born free, aren't we? We weren't born with these shackles on our wrists. We weren't born to be used like dogs. What right do they have to buy us and sell us like property? They say that even in round creatures there is half a soul. Doesn't that apply to us, too? We shouldn't have to sell our souls because someone thinks they do own us. I'm not doing this because I want to go home where I know I'm not wanted as a person. I'm doing this because I want to be free for once in my life."
Silence. I knew they were too afraid to argue. "Anyone whose judgment of me has been changed by that speech, I fear for your soul."
I turned away from the girl and started to walk away but she stopped me to ask who I was. I answered, "I am not the fool nor am I the wise-man nor am I the coward who fears rebellion. I am only who I believe I am. You will only find out who I am for yourself sooner or later."
As I walked away I heard her ask for my name. I don't know why but I smiled when I heard someone tell her my name like it was a curse.
-.-.-
A few years had passed since that day and I was, once again, alone on my ideas of escape. I already planned how I was going to free myself; I just needed to wait for the right time. I finally gained enough power to be able to kill the master but I doubted I was going to need to use it. I spent those next years pretending I did accept that I was slave. I don't think I convinced many people.
"Hey, you," someone called me. "You been awful quiet lately. What're you plannin'?"
"Do I look like I'm planning something?" I asked.
"You always do. You're born a schemer."
"Maybe I was. If you think so, try and stop me."
"Maybe I will. If I knew what you were scheming about."
"I wonder what it could be…" I turned away from him.
"You're gonna kill the master, aren't you?"
"If it appears that was then let someone know though it may fall on deaf ears. Do what you want about it." I don't think he said anything. I don't know who he feared more- the master or me. Sometimes you could just feel the mixed feelings in people. You can see them turning it over in their heads, and sometimes you see that strain in their faces. Now was one of those times.
I snuck into the master's room late that night. Just when I came into his room, I suddenly became aware of how loud the chains on my shackles were. I froze when I heard him stir. I woke him up!
I ran to his bedside, a knife in my hand. He shot up and stared at me with his eyes wide in fear. I drank in his fear, for once he was the one begging for mercy. For once, I could be the recipient of the begs. And for once, I can deny them the mercy they denied me... He tried to act like he still had the upper-hand.
"What the hell are you doing? Go back to bed, little girls aren't supposed to be up at this hour and they certainly shouldn't be walking around with knives in the dark. What if you get hurt? We can't have that... " He really thought I was stupid. I closed in on the space so I could feel his breath raising up from him. I could see the faint shivers through his body... I was enjoying this more than I should have. "Please... Just put that knife down... What do you want? Put it down, I'll..." I stabbed him through the heart before he could say any more.
He gagged then howled an animal-like scream. I took the knife out of his chest and ran it through his throat. His arms stopping flailing around, stopping trying to get me at my throat and take me with him to hell. Then I heard a group of people running down the hall. My heart started pounding in my ears. Hell, I thought I could be true to my word and just slaughter them all.
"I'm tellin' ya, man! I saw her go! I think she just killed 'im!"
I looked at the door, sensing more than ten people. If I stay, then they'll kill me. So I had only had one option. I had to run. I broke the window and jumped out, ignoring the gashes I might have gotten. I learned from you that I shouldn't hide in the forest and hope nothing happens. There was an ocean nearby so I decided that I would jump off the cliff and go where the current takes me.
Just before I hit the water, I heard someone scream, "Holy hell! I think she jumped!"
And those were the last words I ever heard from them.
"This is the culture from which I sprang. This is the terror from which I fled."-Richard Wright (Black Boy)
end chapter 2
EDITOR'S NOTES: Well, this quote's mildly inappropriate. I tried hard to add more detail... Maybe I should stop talking about my tries and just say what I did improve... Here... It's impossible to really combine the anime and the manga. I mean, you could, it's just not that plausible. Okay, either she was born a slave or she just hit the road. There. Shut up.
