Survival
Disclaimer: I don't own Koudelka; that honor goes to Sacnoth, now called Nautilus. All characters in this work are fictional, and those that were living I hope I have treated gently. According to Koudelka's creator, she studied with Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society. You can find it on the Web. And a change of rating because of content.
My teacher accepted me. That was an endearing thing, as she was more than my teacher. Over the months and years, she became more than teacher: friend, confidant, mother. She taught me, guided me, and in her own cold way, loved me. Helena was a very reserved woman, but compared to the cold horrors I had known before, she was warmth personified.
I had fled Wales, leaving behind a dead father, a mother who hated and feared me, and a village bent on my destruction. I wasn't even ten summers old when I fled, working my way across the fields and hills of Wales and into the interior of England. I crossed at Cardiff on the local ferry, sleeping most of the way from sheer exhaustion, and once I made the Cotswold, I did no better.
Slinking into a battered hay barn, I took shelter from a autumn squall, cold rain and wind forcing man and beast to take shelter and the drafty barn, with its smells of sour hay and old manure, was inviting. I slipped inside, climbing to the dusty loft, burying myself in the old straw. If no one came, if the storm did not blow over too soon, then I could sleep here safe for a while. And, wrapped in my thin clothing, the hay pulled up like a scratchy blanket, I went to sleep and dreamed bloody dreams.
Nightmares flooded my eyes with rivers of blood and screams like hell-beasts. I saw corpses lining roadways, their blackened bodies putrid with rot and their eye-sockets empty, the nearby crows flapping happily, the flutter of their wings like the bubble and boil of a cauldron, with great writhing limbs climbing from it to reach up to the black heavens. I shivered in my dream, seeing bodies upon bodies ripped and torn, maimed and destroyed bit by bit, and babies, children hanging from chained cages, their skeletons picked clean. I heard myself moan in my agony of horror and the sound was of the sea, deep, mournful, and full of pain. I wanted to run, to escape this horror but my feet were mired in blood, the ground thick and oozing black with it. I doubled over in pain, my body wracked with the tortures of the rack, whips slicing my flesh into ribbons and pinchers tearing my skin, peeling me back like a ripe melon. And I cried, tears of blood flowing down my face to join the river at my feet and my cries of despair were echoed in the alleys and back streets of a great city.
I suddenly stood on a street, the moonlight ripped with clouds and rain and I could hear the distant clopping of horses as they moved along. Laughter, throaty and deep followed by high and raspy echoed in the night and were quickly hushed. I looked around, the night preternaturally clear to my eyes, each building sharp and angular, the streets straight like razors and I looked to see the hunched form ahead in the back street. And I watched as movement caught my eyes, holding me like a snake, charmed and horrified and despairing, as the man rose up, knife in hand, entrails sliding through his bloody fingers. He reached down and took up something and I saw it was a heart, torn still beating from the woman's chest and my eyes grew wide, my mouth opened and I screamed and screamed and...
I thank whatever gods there may be that my screams were lost in the midnight winds. I shuddered, realized I was wet with sweat and piss and I rolled free of the sodden hay, climbing back to the barn floor. That night I did not sleep again, and when the storm had passed I once more took to the road, catching a ride with a drayman on his way to London, and I paid my way with my body, each time wondering if the screams I heard in my ears were mine or some distant dream. Almost two weeks later, I arrived in London, beaten, battered, raped and beyond caring.
The September rains had left the streets cold, slick and running with the usual amount of refuse, some more noisome than others. The man that brought me here, to the big city, had his fill of me one night and I slipped out the bedroom window, climbing down the drain spout from the roof. I had little, what I was wearing when my people had run me from home... threatening to burn me, hang me, kill me a hundred ways for something I didn't do. For killing my father, for fixing the time and date and method of his death. As if I myself had picked up the scythe and killed him. No matter, I have learned the hard way that what is and what isn't, is of little concern for those that are quick to accuse.
Once on the ground I ran splashing through the gutters, turning left and right and left through dingy grey and brown streets not knowing where I was nor where I was going until finally I fell to my knees, shaking with exhaustion. I looked around and saw the street sign over my head at the top of the building. I was on Commercial Street in the East End of London. Well, at least I knew a name, of not what it meant. But East End - now that I knew. From reports, rumors, and papers of the day, who had not heard that the infamous East End of London was rife with crime of every sort? I snorted, wrapping my arms around myself in the chill air. How much crime there was here little bothered me if I could not find shelter. I looked further down the street and spotted an alley off the main road and ran for it, seeking shelter from the wind, rain and cold of that last night in September, 1888.
I found a grate close to the ground and, kneeling, I saw it lead into a cellar beneath an old building. I could not make out the signs, but I knew it wasn't a home, probably some business. Good, I thought. It's Saturday so no one will be there for at least two days. I pulled on the grating, already lose from years of neglect, and slipped inside.
The cellar was a cold, dark hole in the ground, no light coming in from window or gas. I stumbled a few feet in and then fell hard against a crate, banging my legs and arms as I fell. I crawled along the crate to an open space and slipped between two more crates, turning to face the opening like a rat in its hole and huddled shivering, taking an acute inventory of what I had: second hand boots with worn soles, torn and ripped stockings; a ratty skirt that was more rag than cloth and a blouse, a sweater and thread-bare jacket. Not even two coins to rub together! I should have stolen the purse from that bastard, as price for letting him abuse me, but I was more interested in getting away... So there I was, shivering in the dark, swallowing my pride to drown the hunger inside.
Some time around midnight, I heard sounds on the street above - not the usual scrabbling sounds of rats or other vermin, but the sounds of struggle. I slipped out of my hiding spot and, with one hand on the box to guide me, made my way back to the grate. I climbed up and peered into the alleyway. The rain had stopped and a fog had rolled in, dropping clouds low onto the rooftops. It was cold but I could hear movement out on the streets, horses clopping along the sogging gutters and the crack of occasional whips. Already the drayers were making their stops at warehouses along the street and I remembered that this was near the busy warehouses which would be taking in their final loads before closing for Sunday.
I climbed a crate to peer into the dark alley, and movement in the shadows caught my eye. Squinting, my face pressed to the grating, I saw a man and woman leaning against the opposite wall, his body pressed close to hers in a drunken embrace. I turned back and the darkness of the warehouse exploded around me. A carriage full of harlots, bumping its way through the countryside, a crazed man at the reigns... Rioting workmen, their voices raised in panic and anger, surging like a black tide through the streets of a city, a corpse with guts pulled out and face hacked away... a sea of blood washing over me and the cry of seagulls. The screams continued and I blinked, dizzy, turning once more to the grate, seeing the man across the alley pushing the woman to the ground, his arm rising again and again with a flash of steel.
I opened my mouth to scream, fear filling my heart and mind, but no sound came out, only a need to move, overwhelming me and I climbed out through the grate, scraping my knees on the stones of the alley. It was dark, the man did not see me in his concentrated destruction. I rose to my feet, knees wobbly, hands shaking, my mind spinning out of control with sight and sound of things happening and things not happening. I was within a few feet of him when he heard me, spinning around. Face to face with death. His handsome visage, his eyes wide with madness, hands red with blood and the knife... He leapt toward me and I screamed, a shout of sheer terror and raised my hand to ward off the blow I could see coming. And my hand burned. A sudden flare of red fire searing the flesh, flashing with a hellish light and the man's screams joined my own before he fled down the alley, leaving me shaking in terror. The corpse lay in the dark of the alley, her face mutilated, her jaw broken, her neck sliced and blood flowed in a dark stream from her cooling body.
"Elizabeth?" I spoke her name as if I knew her, then turned and fled down the street. Where I went I could not say, my mind and heart were filled with fear and visions of fear, a living nightmare washed through me and I could not, even after much work with my teacher, recall any of it. I came to myself outside Saint Paul's, leaning on a stone bench, my body soaked to the skin, my mind a ripped, torn and bleeding thing, and hungry.
Shaking, I pushed to my feet and saw the carriage at the curb, the people coming and going from the church, their well-fed bodies swathed in layers of warm cloth. I could hear the clink of harness... or was it coins? and I staggered my way toward the crowd, one lone urchin... Looks of horror greeted me, words of ire and condemnation surrounded me... How dare you? Go away! She's filthy! Damned strumpet, whore! I bumped into warm coats, was pushed away only to slide into silken dresses; boots struck me, heavy hands battered me and I stumbled into a warm coat, voluminous in its darkness. And the small leather bag suspended from the belt that touched my hand, my fingers grasping it as I fell and taking it.
And in the moment I held the gold, in the moment I fell to the hard stones, a heavy boot struck me near senseless. Blackness filled my eyes, then moved away with a silken caress and I knew it was the lady's dress that I saw, and her face, hard and stern, looked down at me a moment before speaking to someone. Then strong hands lifted me up and put me in the carriage.
The woman with intense eyes, and a voice of steel, took me to her home and became my teacher, my guardian, my... mother. When I think back on her, I remember our arguments and our harsh words, but I also remember the time she sewed my dress with her own hands, dressed my hair with combs and ribbons, her eyes laughing and happy and me giddy with joy over some trivial thing. And I remember her cold, cold face, closed down in silence and peace the day we buried her and how I kept my tears in silence, for on that day I lost my mother a second time.
Reviewers & Comments:
Looks like only one brave soul commented here. There IS Canon in this story, but You'd really have to be familiar with Koudelka the game to spot it. I've done a bit of blending here and there, mixing up both research materials I found at a Japanese Koudelka site (the developer's), historical stuffs with Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society, and of course, Jack. And no, we're not talking about white-coated Jack from London. This guy was real and well, a nasty bugger.