Page 67 of Anorthic Anarchy

“It’s okay, Bert. We’ll get some more water soon.” Not sure if it helps, but I speak softly to her for reassurance.

She keeps me company over the next several hours. I sing her songs that my mother used to sing to me when I was a child. At some point, I doze off.

Light flashes underneath the blindfold, and I sit up at the shuffling approaching me.

A voice calls through the room.

“Give us the child and you can go free.”

My brow furrows. “No.” Of course, insayingthe word, I am concerned they’ll just suck her right out of me. Perhaps force me to take a pill and abort? I’m not sure. Hopefully not slice into my insides with a scalpel.

From my studies, though, I know they don’t want my blood spilled until one of the ritual days. The next being on Winter Solstice. So perhaps they want to keep me until then?

Two sets of feet hurry to my sides and lift me off the ground. I’m carried into the hallway we’d arrived from, then through a door that leads onto grass. A brown lawn. The light has changed so much that it appears to be either late evening or early the following morning. How long was I asleep?

I don’t feel rested, so it must be dusk.

My bindings are ripped off my arms, and I revel in the relief of being able to hold my arms in front of me. Someone’s fingers dig into my hair and pull off my blindfold until I’m staring down at a deep pit. But hovering over it…

Is a coffin.

My heart stops for a moment, but I grit my teeth to keep them from chattering. Some of my hair gets caught under the guard’s grasp, forcing my neck up, and I grunt but keep my mouth shut. Several men stand around me, dressed in suits, with black ski masks covering their faces.

In the front of the stack is a person cloaked in billowy red fabric, wearing a metallic-looking owl mask. She seems to be overseeing the festivities. Through an odd, modulated voice, she speaks in a distorted tone.

“Astrid Lynx, daughter of Barrington. You have betrayed your family name and mated with the bull. As we cannot spill the blood of the ancient snake on an unholy day, you will be buried, only to be resurfaced when the abomination is dead inside of your body. On the day of reckoning, we will take it out of you and replace it with one of our own.”

One of the men opens the coffin and my handlers swing me toward it, then stuff me inside. My pulse skyrockets as I try to fight them off.

“No!” I scream and claw at their skin with my nails, breaking one clear off and screeching at the pain. My head is shoved down as they lower the lid, and I’m once again in the pitch black.

Curling up, I push with my feet against the lid, but the sound of a lock clicks just to my right. My breath pants out in shaking huffs as I fully digest the situation.

I need to conserve energy. There’s only going to be a finite amount of air, so I can’t use it struggling against something formidable.

Lying still, I steady my heart rate and breath calmly through my nose, letting it out just as delicately through my lips.

“It’s okay, Bert. Theywantus alive. Well, me… But you’re with me. And you’re not going anywhere.” I try to comfort her.

Mainly, I comfort myself.

Panic threatens to take control of my chest, however, when the hum of a machine fills the small area and my new home lurches as it’s lowered into the ground.

That isn’t the worst part… No.

The worst is when I stop. Then the sounds of dirt being shoveled on top pelt through the cracks in the lid.

A single tear travels down my cheek, into my hairline. That is all I will afford them. And nothing more.

I could play the awful game ofwhat if. But I won’t. It’s useless. I should have taken a gun with me when I walked outside. And a bottle of water, some bombs, and a tank. Silly to think of this now. I was ambushed. They were justwaitingfor one of us to slip up. I ventured too close to the driveway, and I was taken. I made it so easy for them.

But here’s me and Bert. Waiting.

Alone in this casket, in the silence, I have to think. And the worst part of all of it is knowing that those feelings for the consort weren’t even real. He was just using me all along. Everyone has alwaystakenfrom me. Stolen and roped me intothings I never wanted to be a part of as I sat by. That rage settles within my veins, so palpable that it’s more crushing than the weight of the dirt on my grave.

Turning my head, I try to get as comfortable as possible, and my nose hits a tiny plastic tube. When I feel it with my finger, a whisper of air escapes. Is this the air they afford me? My mouth suctions over it and inhales lightly. It could be carbon monoxide or something worse, but it seems like it helps a bit.

I think about the Crystal Maiden in an attempt to keep my mind positive. The path I want to take to reach it. What the cavern will smell like and what the temperature there will feel like on my skin.

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