Part 6
Katy screamed into the dark room until her throat was raw, her voice broke, she clawwed at the lock until her nails snapped and fingers were bled. It was hopeless, there was no getting out. With a pitiful moan she sank to the floor and curled up , she drifted in and out of sleep but every tiny noise woke her. Now that Katys ears had stopped ringing she could hear everything. The dry rasp of other people breathing, the scuff of a foot against the floor, the dull ring of metal against metal. The small sounds deafened her in the silence.
Every time Katy opened her eyes she looked over to the windows and every time she did so, the sky was gradually getting lighter. The room, although still quite dim, was illuminated by the natural light coming in through those windows. In a word, it was filthy. Katy crawled to the front of the her prison and grasped the bars, she counted eight other cages, one was empty, the others all had occupants who had clearly been here for a while. They were all still sleeping, seemingly undisturbed by all the noise she had made during the night.
One by one, the others began to wake up as the morning wore on. They barely glanced at her as they sat or stood up and watched the door. Soon, it opened and the two women who had bathed her, Jaida and Nu'm, came in balancing bowls and cups on large trays. "Jaida," Katy called over to the older woman, "Jaida, please let me go." She was ignored, the woman went to each cage and passed a bowl through the bars to eager hands, she was followed on her round by Nu'm who handed over a small cup to each person. When they reached her, Katy tried again. "Please, I just want to go home." Nu'm paid her no attention and went to wait by the door as Jaida lingered. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out, instead she just looked at Katy with sad eyes then left, locking the door behind her.
Katy stared at the door, ignoring the cup of water in one of her hands, but relishing the burning pain caused by the lip of the bowl pressing against the barely scabbed gash in the other. The longer she stared at the door, the harder she pushed the lip of the bowl into the cut. Everything that ever seemed real was slipping away, trapped in this impossible situation, there was nothing she could do. The pain is real. Katy thought to herself.
As the days went by, she clung to that thought while at the same time, quietly accepting there was no getting out of this. No easy way. Katy didn't take comfort in hurting herself, it wasn't something she enjoyed, but it kept her grounded while everything else changed around her. The other people in the cages sometimes spoke quietly to each other, most of the time they were silent, people came and went with no particular regularity.
Jaida and Nu'm came with food and water twice a day, Talal sometimes visited bringing other strange people in, showing off the people in his captivity as if they were animals. Katy had a sudden moment of clarity the first time this happened, she wasn't eaves dropping on the conversation but a few words drifted through the fog of her mind, talk of money and the stranger pointed to a couple of burly looking men, the next morning they were gone. Talal. The slave trader from Jerusalem. Altair's third target in his hunt for the nine.
Katy had stopped being surprised by these new thoughts that had been intruding in her mind, sudden thoughts with no prompting. They seemed a lot more rational than her usual, panicked ones so she listened to them intently and retreated into herself, blocking out the dark and disgusting world around her.
A/N: Another short one, it's better for the flow and feel I want this story to have.
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