Page 5 of The Sun God's Prize
No more pain.
It’s bliss.
I try to draw a sigh, to let it out, enjoy it, but my lungs ache too much, chest on fire, I end up choking.Coughing hurts, tears at my throat, raw and hot.I can’t sit up, not at first.The idea of it alone makes me want to weep from exhaustion.When did I become a quitter?
Mother,I call to her, though I know she’s dead and won’t answer, has forsaken me, and it’s my fault she won’t let me die, too.I’ve forgotten everything you taught me.I don’t deserve to be your daughter.
Please, let me die.
That’s not to be, I guess.A hand descends to my face, offers a cup.I see the sparkling liquid inside, and I’m suddenly thirsty, so very thirsty, weakly grasping for the vessel.Only to be slapped away, the cup forced to my lips, water poured down my throat.
I choke on it, spill much of it, but when it’s taken away, I beg for more, whining like a puppy for more.That can’t be all I get.
The cup is refilled and returned to my lips, only given sips, and when that small amount is also gone, I’m left to pant from the effort of drinking, to lap at the lost puddle on the filthy boards beneath me.
To sleep, at last.Real sleep.
And dreams.
Blood runs from her eye, from her throat, the bolts protruding from her ruined face, her torn neck, doing nothing to soften her fierce grin or her defiance.She’s falling, and I’m falling with her, trying to catch her, my hand reaching for hers, which remains just out of reach.
Is it finally time to join her?Has she forgiven me at last?
But I’ve come so far…
No, Mother.I was wrong.I’m not ready.I’m not done yet.
She falls away as I slow my own descent, disappearing from me into the black.
Sobbing, I turn from her, look up, and swim for the light—
I wake, more myself than I have been, I think, in far too long.It takes some time for me to orient, to gather the strength I need to sit up.I’m a splay-legged fawn freshly birthed, fighting for purchase with hands and feet, pushing up on elbows that give way more than once in the attempt, on muscles drained to the limit of any power.But I make it, if only from sheer stubbornness.
No, Mother, I’m not done yet.
I think she’d approve.
That small task has defeated me, though, and it takes a long time before I can raise my head, look around me.I’m not alone, I think I knew that.There are several people, dressed in rags, filthy and stinking—or is that me making that horrible smell?—crouching against a wooden wall, as far from me as they can get.I see the faint shine of their gazes, the terror there.Just enough light reaches us in this dark, dank space that I catch the whites of their eyes glowing, like spooked horses ready to bolt.
Where am I?I think I try to speak that out loud, but only a faint croak emerges.I clear my throat, wishing I hadn’t, the rawness of it a blazing inferno when I try to swallow spit I don’t have.
“Where…?”I manage to growl that one word, but no one answers me.If anything, they whimper and retreat further.
But there’s nowhere to go.
Why are they so afraid of me?
I close my eyes to rest them, the crusty stickiness revolting suddenly, but I have no energy to clean them, or the means either.I focus instead on my surroundings, on the feelings and smells and sounds.I latch onto the soft rolling beneath me, the familiar sound of water lapping.Is that a snapping sound?And then a deep thrumming that seems to vibrate beneath me.Where do I know it from?It’s distant, my chin tipping upward.Yes, above me.I do know it.
That’s the sound of a sail in the wind.
The scents I’ve already processed, even if I wasn’t fully aware, unwashed bodies, shit and piss and puke and blood.It smells like a battlefield devoid of honor.
I don’t even want to think about what my world tastes like right now.
At least I seem to be intact, both arms and legs with me, all fingers and toes present and accounted for, though I’ve been stripped naked, draped in a rough cloth sack with a hole at the top and one on each side giving me cover but not much comfort.
Details, Remalla.Focus on details.
