Chapter III

"Your God commands you to rise," the voice murmured at her, as if the softness of his voice were enough to convince her to trust him. She spoke, "Actually, I'm agnostic, and you're doing nothing to persuade me." She smiled, trying not to show her panic, her fear. That's all I need to do. That's all, act stupid or arrogant, or stubborn, or something, anything. Not easily molded and they will go away. Make them go away. Please go away.

At her response, the man cocked his head a little, glared, and grabbed something from one of his assistants. The girl was shaking now, trembling, with fear, with cold, with hysterical laughter at the sheer ridiculous nature of her situation; but all these thoughts and feelings vanished in an instant, as the man thrust the stick-thing at her chains which carried a horrible current of orange light to her, slicing through every inch of her body as she screamed. The orange light fled as quickly as it came, but the pain remained. She lay on the straw, gasping, it hurt to breath, it hurt so much she couldn't even scream. Ok, she thought to herself, definitely time for a new plan.

The voice spoke again,"Apophis, your god, commands you to get up." She got up. Flexing her arms, she walked to the bars of her cell, took a hold of the bars, and raised her head as far up as her small frame could take her, looking into the eyes of her captor. Strange eyes, harsh and cold, but with some remnant of suppressed sadness and horror. The eyes flashed at her. "So... Who's Apophis?" She knew who Apophis was, at least the myths. But obviously someone here was insane, and she wasn't entirely sure that it was her. "We are Apophis," the response came. She surveyed the montage of strange people in front of her, peering in at her cage. "All of you?" The man frowned, "Only I am Apophis, your god. And you will acknowledge it before the end." This was getting absurd. "Oh. Well…Um. Listen, I'll acknowledge that now if you really think it'll make you feel better, but other than that, I really don't think I can help you, so if there's anything else…" His arm darted up to her throat, and threw her backwards onto the ground, "KALSHECK! CREE!" Apophis' booming command sent the formerly tranquil group into a rush of commotion, two guards yanked open the door to her cell, still more seized her roughly and pulled her to her feet, shoving her out into the main hall of the cave, and forcing her to her knees before Apophis.

She looked down at her knees: she had landed in something extremely unpleasant, and wet. "That's disgusting," she couldn't help but comment. Apophis raised her chin to look at him. "I will enjoy seeing you be broken, your spirits crushed until all that's left is an empty husk. No doubt you will resist, no doubt you feel that you will be able to get away, to leave – and no doubt, after many attempts, you will come to realize the futility of your situation, and accept that, until the day you are too old to be of any use, you are a slave." He smiled again, sickeningly, and turned away, marching out of the cave with his people following. Someone pulled her to her feet. She looked around, but no point in even contemplating escape here, there were too many of them, all bigger than her, and armed, not to mention the fact that they were in a cave with no where to run.

Now they were out, walking through the streets of the village. Still no chance of escaping. Maybe once they reached the forest. She was lucky, the others who had been taken as slaves were probably chosen for heavy labor, as they were all huge, hulking men. There were only about five of them. Plus the 20-something members of Apophis' original group, but most of them were intent on slavishly hanging on to their master. Was anyone paying attention to her? They hadn't even shackled her as they had the men. Were they expecting her to just resign herself to her fate? After that huge corny speech made by Apophis? Well, even if they were baiting her to try to run, she would accept it. She had no intention of just going with them. They were now entering the forest where she had first woken up, it was dark and shadowy now, and the group pulled together. There was no chance of her fighting her way through the people who surrounded her, but perhaps they wouldn't notice if her small shadow simply slipped away. She made her way to the edge of the group, head down, no eye contact. She walked. And ducked down into a bush, waiting for the group to pass, and miraculously, they did. She knew it was too easy, they were probably waiting for her to try something, but what else could she do?