Page 3 of Upon Buried Embers
Anger fills me at that thought, an emotion I’m not often familiar with. What’s the point when I can do nothing with it but exhaust myself?
I brought Master the most coin. Many paid him to use my body for their anger.
Weekly they would come and he’d sit there, counting his coin and listening to my screams as they dragged me away. Listening while I begged for it to stop until I couldn’t anymore.
I went through all of that, to be left here to die onhisterms.
Suddenly, I hear a growl somewhere in the distance, bouncing off the walls, making it seem like it’s next to me.
I suck in a sharp breath.
They are hungrier in the winter.
I breathe deeply until it becomes painful, locking my knees to prevent them buckling. My fingers dig into the cave wall as I balance against it, sure my blood has left a trail behind as I press forward toward that sound.
If I’m dying, then so be it. It will be my choice. I won’t stay here and rot.
I’m sorry, Effy.
I try to follow the sound of the growl as best I can in the darkness, leaving the safety of the wall and heading for it, my hands held out in front of me.
I hiss when I connect with even more jagged rocks, the sting from the cuts racing up my palms. My feet scuffle along the floor to make sure I’m standing on something solid as I let my anger guide me. The unfairness of it all.
Thepainof it all.
I can do that now. There’s no one here to beat it out of me, to hang me in the barn for days for disobedience. To take the cane to me, or put me in the bottom of an empty well where my thoughts are my only friend.
I spot an orange glow in the distance, and I lean on the wall as I make my way to it, a slither of warmth washing over me.
I just need to get there and let it all end.
Eventually though, exhaustion wears me down. Pain and starvation gnawing at me. I limp until I find an opposite wall, feeling my way as it curves around into an open space, the glow my only guiding light.
Don’t fail me now, body.
Another growl comes, this one louder, like rumbling thunder. The air seems to vanish, and the glow ahead suddenly disappears, plunging me into darkness.
No, that was my only chance! Master said the lava in these caves burn all year round, they never go out.
Does it even matter how this ends?
No, I guess it doesn’t.
I slowly press on, one small step at a time. But when I lift my foot on the fifth step, my knee gives way and I cry out in alarm, crashing into the wall and sliding to the floor.
Gods, my ribs burn, my ankle throbs and my head spins.
Groaning, I catch my breath and squeeze my eyes shut as a sharp pain goes through my head. Trying not to throw up, I lifta hand, feeling the blood there and a heavy sigh leaves me as I close my eyes.
Still slowly bleeding to death.
Weak.
Useless.
Just like he wanted me to be.
Just like I’vealwaysbeen.
