The taste of metal was all that kept me alive. As well as the feel of my toes as they tapped on jagged stone, waded through the what felt like rocks or bone with each slow sway of my body, hung like a slave to auction. It told me I was still alive.
What is this place?
There was cloth bound around my eyes. Two loops and thick, like linen. I couldn't, even as I felt the heat of torches around me. It felt like I were a centerpiece, a work of art for someone, or something to muse over.
My father treated me like an object, and who ever is now, will bleed out just as he did.
"Do you feel pain?" A voice drowned the cackle and soft hiss of flames around me. This deep, almost guttural voice slightly echoed, which meant I was not in a small room. "Answer me, girl."
His presence felt strange, but yet all too familiar. I could feel his heat, and it burned my blood, but not with anger, but awe. The room settled in a dark haze that cascaded down my flesh as I could hear big leather boots take slow, long strides toward me, and his breath, fresh with meat and ale hovered at my cheeks.
"I inflict it!" I spat back, my lips chewed on between teeth, but I did not know the position I was truly in. Who was this? Where am I?
I could hear movement over the low cackle of fire, like he had his arms crossed, or tight, or wore something that rubbed against itself as he moved. I couldn't see, I couldn't tell, but I could hear a loud metallic thud as something was dropped, or perhaps hammered down with force. That sound was close, he was close, his breath invaded mine and I could taste him, his air, his flesh, his sweat. He had feasted, he had a woman recently, and now he had me.
"How much do you know of Blood Magic?" He asked.
"Nothing." He didn't believe me, and it sounded like he groaned with deception, but it was truth.
Earlier I had been attacked and dragged through the slums by this creature I could never hope to describe. Invisible, big, and claws like the great talons of the thunderbirds that fly seasonally toward the Sorcerer's Island.
"Do you wish to learn?" He grabbed my chin, his fingers gritty with dirt and slimy with meat still dripped from digit to digit. His hand didn't need answer from me, but they did climb the crevice of my maw and cheekbones to tear away the fabric that blinded me.
With my head aimed downward from my hung position, the first thing I saw was his chest. There was a leather strap from shoulder to underarm that nearly covered a giant gash that crossed from his left nipple to his right shoulder blade. It was nasty, but it had healed. As my eyes traveled upward, his hands saw my cheeks again and positioned me to stare him straight in the eyes. Red with almost bright glow that nearly blinded like the sun when you look into them for the first time.
He wore a mask, but it looked more like a skull. Stained in blood this mask looked like a mortal skull with metal and leather that connected the back and fanned out toward his shoulders, but cut right at the jaw line. This was the no mask, but the helm of a Kahnum.
"Shao Kahn."
"You will learn Blood Magic, you will be my weapon in the tournament." He was so sure of this, but did I have a choice? Do I ever? I loved the idea of learning this magic.
I was born in blood. Bathed in it, my body taken in it, and I've dined on it. Blood is who I am, and if this, the greatest Kahn to ever live will teach me all he knows? Well, why didn't you capture me sooner?
"What is your name, girl?" He let me go, but he was still close, his eyes scrutinized my every breath, every wrinkle, and every bit of eye movement.
"Skarlet."
"Then you will be my first daughter, Skarlet."
As I hung like a slave in a bone littered chamber, I couldn't help but think that this was the moment I had been waiting for. The moment my life may truly begin.