Tortured Souls
ch.2
Fire
Everything hurts. The pain is in every cell, every limb. Even my hair feels as if it's sore. Welts and burns coat my arms, legs and torso. There's one large bruise on the side of my face that has chosen to swell instead of fade. My master is cruel to me at times but he tells me of other masters who are far worse, it seems perhaps I'm lucky though I don't often think so.
There's a large burn on my right leg where hot coals were thrown from an angry hand. I can not please my master very often so when I do I am greatly rewarded. When I do well he lets me sleep longer, he'll pet me and sometimes he'll go easier on me in training. I try so hard to win and please him but there are so many things to do wrong and it seems I am capable of all of them.
Suddenly I notice a change in the air, the temperature is rising. I get up leaning against the wall holding back a coo of pain. He tells me it sounds like a dove when I coo and "Doves are nasty little creatures you don't want to be anything like, trust me."
When I open the door I am forced to step back from the heat, flames have consumed the room where there was once a fireplace, a chair, a mat, among other things. Now there is only fire. I cry out for my master but I can not see him. I do not hear him. I can not smell him. I cry out leaning against the wall feeling only broken and weak. I know that if I stay I will die, somethings are too simple for my liking but this is true.
I brace myself pushing the pain to the back of my mind and let my instincts take over so I am numb. I leap, through a wall of fire. I can feel my hair getting singed and the burns and welts on my body flaring with pain and heat. I think I might be screaming or crying or both but I can only keep moving. Through the main room out the entrance but the fire is out there as well.
Flames down to the right a ways a way and off to left not to far now. Even though I can only see orange and flickering there is smoke everywhere. I choke and gag sinking to the floor but it's falling down upon me. A grey blanket to suffocate the last of my air from me. The world spins and I see a myriad of whirling shadows coming through the smoke. Shadows, like ghosts and then I can't think anymore.