And it's finally here! To be honest, the reason why I didn't want to put it up was because I thought it sounded like crap and that it needed to undergo serious editing. Now that I read back, it's pretty okay. And I really like the way it turned out. Because this is a character that goes through blood, sweat, and tears and has been through nothing but that his whole life.
He has no name. Yet. Well, at least a name you know. *cackles evilly* Enjoy and review!
Disclaimer: Though set in Bryke's beyond amazing ATLA universe, I don't own the canon characters or canon places (but own the way characters are portrayed, OCs, and new locations).
Chapter Four
Sick, twisted jokes. That's all they got. They think it's funny that we're being tortured. It's totally hilarious to them that they've shipped me against my will to this cemetery of bad memories—memories that are just waiting to resurrect and haunt me.
It's twisted. It's unfair. And I can't do a thing about it.
I don't talk to anyone. I keep my head down and stay at the back of the line. Our group of twenty is headed by one of the chiefs, Ke Pa. His face is ugly and vicious, marked forever with five scars from a saber-tooth moose-lion attack. His eyes are a deep soulless black that gleam whenever he hears screams of agony.
I hate that face. I hate those eyes. And I hate him. But he's the leader for this mission, so we're supposed follow him without complaints.
But we do complain. Just not out loud.
I keep my head down and focus on the dusty ground. Ke Pa leads us through the eerie and quiet lower ring. It's close to midnight and if anyone is smart enough, they won't be loitering around the city's streets. If they're smart, they won't cross our path. If they do, there'll be unnecessary blood to shed.
And I don't feel like shedding anyone's blood right now.
I sigh out loud. "What was that?" calls Ke Pa from the front of the line. My head snaps up. He stops and whirls to stare us down.
The guys at the front cower and bow their heads, avoiding his eyes. They didn't do anything wrong, but Ke Pa doesn't know that. He'll take any excuse to hurt anyone for pleasure.
No one answers him. He doesn't need an answer, anyway. "I told all of you to shut it. If you can't do that, I'll gladly do it for you. And your silence will be permanent." He threatens with a malicious smile forming on his thin pale lips. I want to run up to him and permanently slap that smile off his face. But that will only get me killed.
Except, since when did I care about living?
I'm ready to run up to him and strike, but Ke Pa turns around and motions for us to keep moving. I ball up my fists and start walking again. Maybe this won't be the night where I kill him. But I'll be looking out for that perfect moment when I will.
I huff silently and return my gaze to the ground. There's no point in looking up when all it'll do is bring to life those memories that have already died. And I'd rather leave them dead. I feel better that way. That way, I feel numb. Numb with only anger filling the black emptiness that rules inside me.
Ke Pa keeps us moving until we reach a group of abandoned houses crammed next to each other. We find two groups already here. One group is Ban Lian's and the other is Hai Dao's. Both are hideous and ruthless chiefs. Ban Lian waves his sledgehammer in the air, signaling to Ke Pa, who chuckles.
What the hell does that mean?
When we're within a few feet of Ban Lian and Hai Dao, Ke Pa raises his hand in the air and balls it into a fist, giving us the signal to break away. As much as I want to run, I follow Ke Pa and stand by his side with my fists clenched tighter. It takes all my will power not to swing at the bastard.
I stand beside him, staring straight forward, and awaiting orders.
Just give me the freaking command you bastard. I mentally scream at him.
As if that's actually going to make a difference.
The seconds tick by quickly and I can hear Ban Lian and Hai Dao chuckle towards my direction. My muscles tense when I realize that the stupid bastard is making me stand there, looking like a fool.
Ke Pa snickers and from the corner of my eye, I see him turn slightly towards me. Finally, he speaks in that annoying deep voice of his. "Well, what are you waiting for, Urchin?"
For your damn command, bastard.
"Get to it."
I nod stiffly, cross my arms, and take three steps away from the chiefs. As my eyes carefully sweep over the abandoned houses where our men are huddled together in groups of identical black clothing, I wonder how long it will take for the seven other groups to arrive at this meeting point.
When my eyes reach the last broken down house to my right, I draw my eyes back to the first wrecked house to my left. Analyzing and registering everything, my eyes never miss a thing. I can see a young boy struggle to shift his weight on his right leg as he stands, due to a recent injury on his left leg. Four houses to the left from where I stand, I can see another boy cradling a limp right hand as he talks to another boy in their huddle.
But as my eyes jump from group to group, I feel the temperature in the air drop. The air suddenly becomes bitingly cold, making the hairs on my arms stand. I narrow my eyes.
Something's going on. I don't know what, but sooner or later, I'm going to find an answer.
Apparently, sooner happened within seconds.
Uncrossing my arms, my eyes take a while for me to understand that I'm looking right at a ghastly wavering figure of a woman. The light that she's made up of is a sickly and bright yellow hue, making it look rotten and cold. It definitely looks like she doesn't belong here.
The woman wears a ragged and worn dress that reaches her ankles. When my eyes zero in on her feet, I notice that they're not touching the ground. From afar, she looks like her feet are planted on the ground, but really, they hover just inches above. Until now, I hadn't noticed that I've broken into a cold sweat. I shudder as the freezing air blows a bead sweat down my back.
My eyes go right up to her head. I note that her hair is dark, jagged, and uneven like they were badly cut. The wind tousles and sweeps her hair around, covering her face as she sobs into her frail looking hands.
"My baby." She cries. I catch the layered echo of her voice. "My boy. My baby."
Somewhere at the back of my head, an alarm sets off. That voice—it's so familiar. It's been imprinted on to my head since my beginning. Then I realize, for so long, I've tried to push that voice away, I tried to forget the way the voice pronounced certain letters that turned into syllables and found it's way into forming words. I've tired to forget everything.
But like the cruelest nightmare, I'm staring right at the one person I've tried to forget.
"M-mom?" I whisper.
I feel my heartbeat pick up its pace and speed up. I'm having trouble breathing and an even harder time trying to wake up from this dream. Because I'm convinced that this is a dream.
When I look to the other men, they're carrying on with whatever they're doing, not noticing the dead woman by the fountain.
Over the thudding of my heart against my chest, I faintly hear Ke Pa say, "What's that?" I can't find it in me to answer him. I can't tell him that it's nothing. I can't be sure that this is only a dream.
My heart squeezes as I wish that this were just a nightmare.
Please let this only be a nightmare.
My mother's ghost snaps her head up to stare right at me. A gasp escapes my lips and I stumble back as if her gaze itself pushed me backward. I dare to blink and…
She's gone.
I try to catch my breath and slow my heartbeat down. At the same time, I pick up where I left off. My eyes travel past the fountain and the groups to my right. And then I stop. My heartbeat picks up again.
Now she's there, standing twenty steps away from me.
Through the curtain of black hair, my mother's ghost continues to stare at me. I recognize the familiar features—her full lips, her tired eyes, and her high, caved in cheekbones. But this version of her looks exactly like what she is—pale and dead.
Against my will, my body starts to shake.
"What have you become?" She asks me. The echo in her voice tells of hurt and anguish. They tell of betrayal. Bile rises up my throat as it finally hits me that I'm the one who betrayed her. I've betrayed a lot of people, lately. And it's about time I betrayed her.
Only, I never planned on it.
"What do you mean?" I ask in a shaky voice. I don't want to know what she means. I don't want to know what she thinks I've become.
I blink and she's gone again.
I search frantically for her. Partly desperate to see her again—dead or alive—partly afraid of where she'd gone and what she'd do. But the cold still stings my face, so I know that she hasn't left yet. That way, I know she's still here, floating somewhere, and keeping her dead eyes locked on me like I'm her prey.
I blink again and this time, she's just a few inches away from my face. I stumble back some more. I hear a murmur, someone shouting at me. But I don't care because I'm face to face with the ghost of my mother.
My breath becomes uneven and I feel my lungs struggle to find air. I can't move or break away from the ghost's icy gaze. What's unnerving is that my mother's ghost still has the same eyes that my mother used to have when she was alive. They were a shade of gold and brown. I'm surprised I could even see the color of her eyes in her state. They would've been beautiful if not for the deep sadness in them. The only thing different with her eyes this time, is that they point out that she's really dead.
"MONSTER!" She snarls at my face. Tears spring into my eyes and I fight to stop the tears from escaping. The shaking worsens now, making my teeth shatter and the earth tremble underneath my feet.
She's accusing me. She's calling me out. "YOU'VE BECOME A MONSTER LIKE THE REST OF THEM!"
I shake my head, mute. I'm unable to defend myself, already broken by the fact that my own mother thinks I'm a monster.
My mother's known many monsters in her life. And I've become one of them.
Her eyes are wild and blaze with rage. When I blink, her expression changes from that of barely-contained anger to a look of pure crazed hate. I cringe like I've been slapped in the face. I hear shouting in the background but they sound too far away to comprehend.
In her eyes, a flash of anger goes by and the next thing I know is that she lunges for me. My arms shoot up and cross over my face, shielding myself from her. A shameful scream escapes my lips.
Though only a ghost, her freezing translucent body passes right through me but manages to knock me to the ground. Coming in contact with her sends a shooting chill up my arms, spreading through my chest, down my legs. I'm trembling uncontrollably now, choking on my tears.
"ROT!" is the last thing she tells me before she disappears into nothing and the darkness swallows the rest of her. Her words echo in my ears, leaving a ringing, loud enough to deafen me. Struggling to fill my lungs with air, my breath comes out in fast uneven wheezes. I feel like a fish out of water, so exposed and so far away from home.
And yet, this wretched place was my home. I buried the memories of this place deep down in the graveyard inside of me. But as I feared, they came back to life.
I feared the memories.
Suddenly, I'm furious at myself. Fear is not supposed to exist. Fear is weakness and weakness will only get me killed.
When the ringing in my ears has faded away, I hear men whispering frantically and I feel firm hands on my shoulders, trying to pin me to the ground. Kicking, flailing, and screaming, I try to get out of their grip. The struggling does me no good. They only press down harder and someone clamps a hand over my mouth. I try to bite it.
"Quit it, Urchin!" a harsh voice snaps at me. I open my eyes to stare up at the dark sky. White stars fill my vision and I blink to make them go away. My heart still hammers fiercely against my chest like it wants to break out and run.
Footsteps to my left come closer and Ke Pa's clawed face comes into view. He scowls down at me. If looks could kill, I'd be dead in a minute. His lip is curled and he bears his razor-like teeth. Ke Pa looks as if he wants to murder me on the spot.
"Go ahead!" I want to shout at him but I can't find my voice.
"Get yourself together." He commands down at me. "You could've—"
Ke Pa's interrupted by the howl of a strange animal that sounds like it's close by. Everyone freezes and Ke Pa looks to his right, listening for anything that would give away the animal's position.
He swears. "You bastard. You've given away our position!" He spits at me. Oh he definitely wants to kill me now. He would if only there wasn't an animal running around the city that could find us and give away our hiding spot to the officials of the city.
"Hide!" He orders the other men. I can hear Ban Lian and Hai Dao do the same with the others farther back. "You." Ke Pa snaps at some boy. "Take him with you."
No, let them find me. I plead silently. Let them kill me.
The boy grabs at the cloth at he back of my neck and drags me to a near broken down house. He throws me into a corner blocked by fallen wood, perfectly concealing the spot. I hit my head on the wall and let out an embarrassing whimper.
I don't look at him, but I hear his footsteps retreat. He probably went to hide somewhere else in the house with the others in here.
I'm finally alone.
I curl up against the wall and for the first time in years, I cry. As the tears fall down my face, I curse the day I was born, silently wishing I wasn't. What a weak bastard I am for crying. Weakness should not—and doesn't—exist inside of me. I know I used to want to survive. But now, I can't remember a time when I cared about living or dying.
And I still don't. Right now, I just want to get the job done and get the hell away from here.
I swear. I love him. And I hope you do, too. Next chapter is up...soon.
#soon guys.