In pitch black darkness, in stark contrast with the surrounding's natural silence, the sounds of shuffling bodies and soft weeping cascaded to the back of the cavern. The noise filled the space like water, drowning me in its nagging persistence. Opening my eyes, the darkness receded from my scrutiny, relinquishing its covered hold on the lost souls that shared my space.
I could read the small forms of young girls and frightened "just-barely" women in perfect definition as they shook and clustered together. They held tightly onto one another in a desperate attempt to replace their lost sense of sight with physical comfort. I bared no such handicap.
I had forgone sleep quite some time ago, even before the simpering started back up again. Though weariness buried itself even into my bones and hunger had turned from a sharp pang to a rugged nausea, sleep offered no relief. Uneven edges of rock and stone made the outline of my bed. The moisture could be felt in the air, the cold on my skin, and the tightened binding of my wrists through my ever straining muscles, in an attempt to separate myself from the herd.
At first the other, older girls had tried to console me, now they avoided me; my silence and my gaze unnerving them. There was nothing to do now, but wait. We all waited, like livestock to the slaughter, in this sealed off cave until our captors started the day's march all over again.
Time passed by slowly. The sounds of rock wrenched from rock finally came from the front of the cave as dawn hued sunlight bathed our surroundings, turning the women literally doe-eyed. I heard the wet thump of leftover food thrown onto the cave floor, accompanied by the jeering of men.
The girls all swarmed over the menial offerings, starvation spurring them forward. I stayed behind, knowing that if I joined them, the drug induced fog would once again settle over my mind. It was not a price I was willing to voluntarily pay.
Before anyone was even finished scooping dirt encrusted slop into their mouths our captors came in and started to haul women to their feet roughly throwing them forward and barking orders for us all to move. Some of the men were thick haired and fully dressed while others were only partially clothed and yellowed at the skin.
As I rose to my own feet, compelled by the tug of my bindings connected to other women, a younger man with a lame arm held by a sling came into the cave and made a beeline for me. "What're you doing!? Get to your feet you useless sow!" He struck at my back with his sheathe and I stumbled forward. I retained my silence yet I froze half bent over. I felt rage bloom from my chest and spread through my body like wild fire. It burrowed into my soul like roots of a plant and found its sustenance from my barely controlled bloodlust.
It took everything I had to not let loose a snarl, to force one foot in front of another, to not turn around and dig my fingers through the man's eye sockets and use them as hand hold to bash his skull into the stone wall behind us!... Instead I bore the pain of both my continuing wounds and my overwhelming fury as he persisted in his torture, like all the days before. And I continued the march across unfamiliar countryside in silence, like all the days before. A cycle to be repeated, like all the days before.
And like all the days before, one thought stayed in my head gaining weight and potency... 'I will kill them all.'
And there is the introduction to our main character. A little dark, but it's supposed to be. Now I'm excited! Let me know what you think R&R -JMichelleW