Chapter 5

I was sat outside the kitchen, listening as my mother cried and my father comforted her. I knew that something big was happening, that something disastrous was coming our way, but they never told me what, and when it happened, they never told me why. All she'd done the last couple of weeks break down.

There was a knock on the front door and I stood up. The crying stopped when I got to the door and reached for the handle. I could hear my mum screaming at me to run, but it was too late. I opened the door to Vaas.

I jerked awake, my heart racing and my hold body going in to a sweat, I looked around the room I was in and found it empty. It was just a dream. Instead of my old house, I was lying on a mattress in a middle of a room. I didn't have any idea where I was, but then I heard the screaming, the shouting of pirates and I knew where I was. I pushed myself up in to a sitting position.

I looked down at my leg and found that I was wearing different trousers. They were green kaki pants. The pain in my leg was almost non-exisistent. I pulled the trousers down slightly and found a clean bandage wrapped around my thigh and instead of blood everywhere, there was just a trickle of blood where the wound was. I pulled them up and then looked around the room.

The walls were made of a dark wood, and the roof was made of some sort of tin. There was a bed in the corner, a cupboard, a big map which hung on the wall, a desk, that had my steel container on it, a chair and a window that looked off in to the jungle. It also had two doors. One that went off to the side and another that must of went outside, with a small window on it that I could see the sky through.

I could hardly even feel the pain in my leg, but I wasn't looking forward to standing up. My shoulder felt as if it had been put back in to place, but my head hurt like a bitch, and as I went to stand up, I felt a bout of dizziness over come me.

I pushed myself to my feet, feeling a searing pain go through my leg as I finally put weight on to it. I stood there for a second, trying to adjust to the pain and when I thought I could take it, I stepped forward. It hurt like hell, but the stitches felt like they were holding up so I carried on.

I sat on the chair and I froze. It suddenly hit me that the screaming had stopped. That meant that anyone could walk right through that door and just devour me, and by anyone, I mean Vaas. The whole thought of him terrified me, but then I heard his voice,

"Maybe we should play a little game",

Fuck, he's right outside!

All sorts of things ran through my mind. Would he make me run, like they had Murphy? Would they throw me in a cage with a bear? Would they pass me round like a piece of meat? Every thought terrified me, and then I heard the lock in the door click and silence. He'd locked it. I took a deep breath and sat back in the chair, my heart stopped racing and I looked at the container.

Whilst the door was locked, that meant I was safe. Away from the pirates, the death, the torture, away from him. Now I just had to think about anything, but him.

Whoever had opened the container had tried to burn the lock off, and had eventually just undone the hinges, so I pushed the top and it fell straight to the floor. I tried to catch it, to deafen the blow, but it slipped past my fingers and I shut my eyes, awaiting for the door to unlock itself and bracing myself for thw tower of shit to rain down on me, but nothing came. The silence slowly turned back in to the laughing and the shouting I'd heard before and I looked back at the container. I was still safe.

The container had two rounds of ammo, without a gun, a map and a photo of my mum. It was a younger version, but it was the only one I had where she was properly happy. I tucked it in to my top. My mother had beautiful blue eyes and dark red hair. Her and my father had fallen in love whilst she'd been on an a cruise, and they'd docked at the island for a couple of days.

Her parents weren't happy that their young, full-of-life, straight A's daughter had fallen in love with one of the natives, and from that day on the beach, when they'd left, she'd never seen them again. Three years after I was born.

There was also one other thing I'd brought with me, a green gem stone necklace that I'd put in there for safe keeping, years before I'd even considered coming back, but it was gone. I told myself that I must of left it, that it wasn't important and I turned my head towards the map that hung on the wall.

It was a map of the rook islands, similar to the one I had, but much bigger. I limped over to it and noticed that it was hand drawn, and beneath the black marker pen that now named the outposts, were the names of the villages the island once had. There were still some, unscathed by the marker, and I felt some sort of hope, but I didn't count on them having a better chance than anyone else. I mentally noted the closest village 'Badtown'.

It also had names of the smaller places on Rook Island. The places I'd explored as a child. My favorite was Herons Perch, and I have no idea why. Some of the rakyat ruins also had little stars next to them, indicating places that we could go to and not be found...

Only one other person would have a map like this other than me. Vaas...

We'd grown up together, we'd dealt with life together, but then I'd left, and then, whilst I was gone, it all seemed to fall apart. I couldn't blame myself, it wasn't my fault I'd had to leave. My mother still never told me why. After nine years! I'd even asked her on her death bed, "Why did we have to leave?" and as usual, she never gave me an answer and told me never to go back. She wanted me to live without a reason, but despite the fact that I had everything I should ever want, I couldn't live with the question rotting away in my mind. I loved her, but it wasn't fair.

I regretted it now. I really didn't want to die at the hands of pirates, at the hands of Vaas, but even though my heart kept on telling me things were looking up, I had a niggling feeling that they weren't going to stay that way. My life was literally falling apart in front of me. Everything I believed in was slowly crumbling away, but if I wanted to survive, I had to just get on with it. I didn't have any other choice.

I tried to stop thinking about him. I didn't want to remember him as he was now, I wanted to remember him as he was before. He wasn't Vaas anymore, he was a monster, a torturous monster that had the hand of god on this island. Volker, you could call him scary, and deluded, and he'd thrown Murphy to a tiger, but atleast with him, there was this twisted sort of humanity left. He was cocky and ignorant, and some would have been afraid, but everything about Vaas screamed 'Run' to me, as if he didn't even know what he was capable of.

Murphy had always said to me, people aren't born evil, and everyone can be pulled back from the devils grasp, but when your so far gone, when your pushed to your absolute limit, can you ever be brought back, not completely, but even just a little bit? Can you want to change? Can you ever hold on to a little piece of humanity that makes you human?

I decided no. Not Vaas. It was like every bit of it was gone and this fake humanity had took it's place.

My heart stopped when I realised that again, everything had gone quiet. No one was screaming, no one was shouting and I couldn't hear the pirates laugh anymore. The door unlocked and I braced myself. The last thing I want to do is turn round and see him there.

He wasn't, but Volker was determined to make me fear him.

He grabbed on to me and put me in to some sort of headlock,

"I'd love to finish you off" he whispered in to my ear, "But the pirates quite like you as a camp pet"

My brain decided that there and then, the open door was my only way of escape. If I didn't leave now, they'd break me and I'd never get out of here. I even contemplated staying, but everything I remembered about this island, everything good, it would just all go away. It's be replaced with death, torture and rape, and I wasn't about to let that happen. I'd never be able to fix it, but I wasn't going to let it go.

I somehow managed to kick backwards and get him right in the balls. He screamed as he let go off me and fell to the floor, holding his groin and groining. I ran out. The jungle was right in front of me. Right there and I jumped. I went over the balcony and in to the shrubbery, hitting the floor with an almighty thud before I pulled myself up and scrambled forward, trying not to crumble to the floor as the pain in my leg got almost unbearable.

I heard the alarm go off and someone shout, but I had no idea what they were saying, and they were deluded if they think I would stop to listen.

I wasn't even running, I was just sort of fast walking, trying to deal with the horrible pain in my leg and the uneven jungle floor. I fell and hit the ground about three times before I came to a clearing. A dirt road.

The night was coming and I could see a bridge in the distance. A bridge meant water, and from the sound of those dogs, if I could get them off the scent, I might actually have a chance.

I kept to the shrubbery, ducking down as a convoy full of pirates went passed, searching for me. I ended up on my hands and knee's when the convoy stopped and the pirates got out. There were no dogs, thank god, but I could hear them in the distance.

A pirate walked inches away from me and he looked straight down. I have no idea how he didn't see me. I crawled towards the bridge, the pirates from the convoy walking the other way, giving me the chance to reach the bridge completely unseen.

I decided to follow the river and as night descended, there was no way the pirates would see me. Instead of crouching, I stood up. I could feel a warm liquid running down my leg and I knew I'd popped the stitches, but I kept going. I had to get somewhere safe, somewhere that had shelter.

The cold rook air breezed past and I could hear the thunder in the distance. The storm would drive the pirates home and it'd give me some time to find something, or someone that would help me.

It could also give you pneumonia...

I saw a light flashing in the distance and after a burst of lightning tore through the sky, I saw that it was a radio tower. I decided to start going towards it. If anything, it'd give me some sort of shelter from the rain I knew was on it's way.

The night went quiet as I got farer away from the slave camp, the pirates leaving the elements to kill me off.

The dogs barking disappeared in to the distance and the roads got quiet. The pirates seemed to have all gone home, and I didn't blame them. No one wanted to be caught out in a rook island storm. Especially one like this.

The rain got heavier as I started to trek my way up the small hill to the radio tower. I was soaked to the bone, but fortunately, there was a little iron shelter sitting idly next to the tower, probably once a maintenance hut, but it'd been long abandoned. I went in and sat down. The door was no where to be seen and I cutched myself in to the corner, away from the brutality of the weather.

My teeth started to chatter and my leg ached, but I couldn't do anything, especially when it was like this. I closed my eyes and was actually able to fall asleep after listening to the rain hit the roof. It sounded like some sort of melody I'd heard before.

I woke up the next morning and the rain was still there, but the air was humid and the sun was out. I stretched out my injured leg and inspected the damage I'd put upon it the day before. I pulled down my trousers slightly, finding dried and gooey blood running down my leg. I undone the bandage. The edges of my skin was still being held together by pieces of thread, but some of the stitches had popped out, and the blood had seeped through, coating my leg in blood. Even the sight of it made me feel sick, and the wave of dizziness that came with it almost made me spew. I knew the loss of blood was going against me, but I had to keep going.

I could feel the stitches pulling again, but I had to move. The longer I stayed, the more chance the pirates would find me. The more chance he would find me. I have no idea what kept me going. Maybe Murphy was sitting in the back of my mind, urging me on, or maybe, I didn't want my memories to be completely wiped out and replaced with violence, manipulation, drugs and him.

I stuck to the road, making sure to duck whenever a convoy went passed. Eventually, I started seeing cars filled with natives and even two or three convoys with Rakyat warriors. I knew I could of flagged them down, but I kept to the jungle. The less people who knew I was here, the better, but I had to find someone I knew. They couldn't all be gone.

I followed the Rakyat warriors trucks and by mid-day, the rain had gone and I could hear people laughing and joking, but it was more hearty, and no one was screaming. I'd actually found a village. Bad town.

I sat on the bank that looked over it. I watched as villagers went about their business. They laughed and joked with each other, and I even saw children run around playing and a man standing next to his dart board, enticing people to play his game. It was sort of how I remembered it, people, happiness, but there was a certain dullness to it all, as if everyone was putting on a face, even the children.

I was a bit wary when I walked past the front gate, but people took no notice of me as they got ready to do what they did everyday.

The houses were made of jungle wood and the roofs were made of iron. Only when I walked through did I notice the wild flowers that blossomed all over the place, trying to bring some life back in to a town plagued by life itself.

I fainted..