Everything was black.
She could still hear distant voices, but couldn't exactly make out what they said or who they were.
Even unconscious, the same dream seemed to play in her mind.
There were wooden barn doors in front of her. She could hear the voices, and the noises of footsteps. Like every other time, the doors were pushed open to reveal the line of soldiers with their rifles trained at her. A gun she can only presume as hers goes off, emptying six shots into six of the many men standing in front of her. The six all fall, hundreds of shots ringing out seconds afterwards. She could hear the heaved breathes and pained moans. Slowly sliding to her knees, she can finally look at her hands. They're not hers. They're too big, too manly to be her own. She can see blood staining her skin, bright red running over the rocks under her.
She awoke with a start again. Her eyes snapping open and her ears ringing from the nonexistent gunshots. The agony settled back into her bones now. Every bone, every joint...every inch ached and pained her to no end.
For a week she had slipped in and out of consciousness like this. Hogtied, and threw on the floor waiting to receive her next punishment. Her body was littered with cuts, burns and bruises. She was starved and hadn't been able to drink in days. She laid there most of the time, with only the pain keeping her company. Every once in a while, a man would come to hand her another torture or another. At first, she would fight tooth and nail, but as her body weakened, she gave up entirely. Now she barely screamed out in pain.
She thought back to her mother. Callously killed by these men after they had finished ransacking their caravan. All this, for five dollars.
She knew the name of the man behind all this. The men addressing him as their leader. Colm 0'Driscoll.
If she ever made it out of here alive, she vowed to hunt him down and slay that devil of a man.
