9. The Hunt

9. The Hunt

Dessin

My mind is a war ofslaughter and hellfire.

“Tell. Me.” I’m in Helga Bee’s round, red-cheeked face. Holding my temper back with a string.

We’re in the eerie, circus-themed stadium. Ruth is trying to clean the wounds on my chest. Warrose is pacing the length of the stage. Marilynn is helping Ruth get clean cloths and alcohol. Niles hasn’t moved from his seated position, staring blankly at the floor.

“How should I know, Beetle Brain? There are tons of punishments for killing a sentinel!”

Punishments.

Kaspias is going to punish my girl.

Sorry, Kane. I’m going to have to break your brother’s neck.

Kane lingers in the front, swarming my head with guilt and panic. He’s right to feel this way. It was my fucking fault for losing my temper. If I had just kept calm, Skylenna wouldn’t have had that breakdown. What was that about? She was fine one moment…

I’m inclined to agree with you, Kane sighs.

“Kaspias seems to have a soft spot for Skylenna. Maybe he’ll protect her from the punishment?” Ruth asks as she dabs the gashes on my chest. I look down at her wearily. She’s so small, so innocent, and so fucking naïve.

“You bought his little performance, huh?” I grit through my teeth.

She quickly looks away. “I don’t know. He could have a little crush on her.” The light shrugging of her shoulders pisses me off. The thought of Kaspias Fucking Valdawell having eyes for Skylenna, my Skylenna, makes me want to rip the skin off of his bones slowly, with a smile.

“Name the punishments,” I direct back to Helga Bee.

The tall, burly woman purses her thin lips. Thinks with an overexaggerated hmm sound. Thrums her stubby fingers over a chin covered in acne.

“There’s the Black Widow Room, Winter’s Well, Scarecrow Show, and The Hunt.”

I crack my neck, forcing myself to get it under control. The names set me on edge, and this woman talks so damn slow. It’s a recipe to set me on a murderous streak.

“Explain. Each. One.”

Helga Bee snorts. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep your knickers on! I’m getting to it.” She picks something out of her crooked teeth. “Black Widow Room is a place in the prison where a female inmate is given malrose grass to put them in the mood. They’re laid out on a table in front of a group of soldiers. The grass gets them so wet and wrangled that they tickle their fancy just to relieve the crazed horniness!”

My brain stops working. “Excuse me?”

“Not a bad time to scurry your furry! Amiright, Gerta?” She bumps her large grandma elbow into Gerta’s side. Gerta blushes, winking at Niles. He doesn’t even look up.

Warrose stops his pacing to look at me, one eyebrow raised, mouth parting slowly.

“Hell no!” He stomps up to Helga Bee, putting both hands on his head. “Tell me that’s the least likely of scenarios. Something like that happens, and you can pretty much guarantee this man will burn this prison to the ground with all of us inside it.”

“Relax, Donut Boy. The Commander isn’t of the perverted type in the Breed. He likes a good show. Likes a good beating.”

That doesn’t make me feel any better.

“Donut Boy?” Warrose narrows his eyes.

“What punishment would he generally lean toward then?” I ask.

Helga Bee shrugs. “I’d say either Winter’s Well or The Hunt. And if he’s in a real bad mood, maybe both.”

“I really don’t think so!” Ruth chimes in. “He really looked like he wanted to help her.”

I open my mouth to bite her head off for being this stupid; anger burns the pit of my stomach, but Kane stops me.

Not a word to her, man. She’s family. Focus.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Explain Winter’s Well.”

She groans like a child. “Why? It’s going to happen anyway. No use in fussin’!”

“Listen—”

Someone’s shoulder bumps into me, a quick shove. I dart my eyes to the intruder, seeing golden hair and scarred-over skin that has been licked by vicious flames.

Niles gets in Helga Bee’s face, wearing an expression I have never seen before on him.

“Answer the fucking questions. That’s my sister you’re talking about. And we don’t leave family behind.” There is no humor, no playful smirk. Only eternal fire raging behind his unhinged gaze.

Helga Bee takes a small step back, blinking in surprise.

“It’s a well. Cold as shit, with a little bit of nasty old pipe water at the very bottom. Prisoners are left to freeze down there until they’re near frostbite stages.” She cocks her head away from Niles, but he doesn’t move.

“And The Hunt?”

“You see those prisoners with cages on their heads and no ears? Big as ogres?”

I nod, exchanging a look with Warrose. The same one that trudged along at night, curious about Ruth in her cage.

“They’re actually the vile product of generational brother-sister fuckin’! Called Blood Mammoths. Deep in the West Vexello Mountains, they’re bredand taught to hunt, kill, and abduct Vexamen Breed soldiers for sport. They’re bloodthirsty as fuck! When they’re imprisoned by The Commander and his special team of elite, they cut off their ears, put a cage on their heads so they can’t bite anyone. Side note, the bacteria on their teeth is deadly if they take a chomp out of your neck.”

I look up at the high ceilings, covered in cobwebs, stained with black smoke. Could this get any worse?

“The inmate that’s on the chopping block gets thrown into the prison at night, stripped down to their birthday suit, and forced to run from the Blood Mammoths until sunrise. Once those dumb ogres get the scent of their skin, hair, or blood, they become enraged with finding ’em.”

Niles and I don’t breathe. We wait for Helga Bee to tell us the good news.

“The prisoner gets blindfolded and placed somewhere in the prison to find their cage, like a rat in a maze. They don’t ever make it, though. Beaten until they’re bloody and dead.”

I release a slow, poisonous breath.

“Skylenna isn’t like the other prisoners,” Niles says, detached and exhausted. “She’ll make it.”

~

Skylenna

I want to show himmy inner strength, but my teeth deceive me. They chatter endlessly. My muscles rumble under my skin from the biting frost. And I’m tightly hugging my arms to my waist, a feeble attempt to gather any heat at all.

“I bet my brother swoons at this sight of you. All wet and helpless.” Kaspias makes a fake attempt to hold back his laughter. He inspects every inch of me. Not with any sexual intent, but scientifically. Medically. The way an intellectual would study an anomaly.

Suddenly, a pair of rough hands grip my sopping wet uniform, tugging downward until fabric stretches and rips. I flinch at the gust of air sweeping over my nipples. My hands fly to my private parts, shielding them from his eyes.

He’s quiet for several seconds. Just staring at my naked, quivering body.

“You are pretty. And your curves are supple despite the way they starve their women in your country.” Kaspias lifts his chin with a pitying smirk, and it’s so similar to Dessin, I force myself to turn away. “I bet he thinks himself a real king for claiming you, hmm? Yet…you don’t do it for me.”

“Then why are you staring at me like every other man with an erection?” Provoking him is probably the single dumbest thing I can do in the face of a Vexamen Prison punishment. But I’m too cold to care. Too annoyed at his demeaning words to think this through.

Kaspias snatches the back of my head, fingers curling around a wet bunch of hair like he might yank it out by the root. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? I’m the fucking Commander of the Vexamen Breed! I’ve gutted men for less. I’ve beheaded mothers for defending their children. I’ve terrorized small villages on a whim. I could scalp you for the slightest bit of disrespect!”

Perhaps I’ve gone mad. Perhaps I’ve been mad this entire time. But I grin in his face, proud, taunting, and vicious. “So do it, little boy.”

For a single heartbeat, fear hangs over my gut. There’s a twinkle in his eyes made of coal and frost, an impulsive thought that tells him to prove a point. To scalp me right here. To parade my bleeding head around the prison. To make a spectacle, even though he’s supposed to keep me alive.

Instead, reason and logic win that silent debate. And that royally pisses him off. He settles for something less effective. I feel the world explode before I even catch a glimpse of his fist. Bone smashes into my jaw and mouth, and it blasts through my nostrils, eyes, skull, and spine like a shockwave. The quick punch makes me clamp down on my tongue, a slice through thick meat, and blood spills over my chin.

Kaspias laughs.

The void wants to bring me back to the moment Aurick hit me in his bedroom. How I crawled away from him, shielded myself from another beating. Cried and cried and cried. As the blood trickles past my lips, as the splitting headache zaps behind my eyes, I mourn her. I silently hold her in my arms, and tell her she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.

Because unfortunately for Kaspias, that little girl is dead.

I move faster than the magnet in my ear can send me into a whirlpool of distorted gravity. Leaping into his arms, I use my last bit of strength to chomp down on his ear, aiming for that piece of metal, the dull earring. The room spins, piercing through my sense of balance, and as I fall from his shoulders, I yank, clamping down on that earring until I hear a tear.

Kaspias grunts as my back hits the floor and the walls tilt around me. I can’t focus on his movements, can’t even seem to think straight. But the feel of his boot slamming into my ribs is how I know I’ve made him hurt.

“You’ll pay for that!” he bellows as he continues to kick and bruise and knock the air from my lungs.

But through the gnawing pain, I smile up at him. With bloody teeth and tears gushing from my eyes.

I smile.

~

Ruth

Dessin paces the length ofhis small cage, hands flexing at his sides, jaw working as his mind caves in on itself.

“He’s no brother of yours,” he growls to himself—or to someone in his head.

We’ve never seen him talk out loud before. It always seems like he has those conversations silently. Even Warrose watches him with concern pinching his brow.

“We have to do something,” Niles begs from his cage, face pressed between the bars.

Dessin gives him a quick, agitated glance. “No.”

No? Isn’t he the infamous Patient Thirteen? The man who would take down armies just to get to Skylenna? He’d never let anyone hurt her. Especially not Kaspias.

“Are you kidding? Now you decide to be a pacifist?” Niles exclaims.

“My girl has leaned on me like a crutch for too long.” Dessin stops pacing. “She’s so fucking powerful. I must let her grow into that power. I can’t stunt her growth by slaying her monsters again, not when she can so easily do it herself.” Even as he says these words, I can see how much he’s trying to convince himself of them. How much he wants to break through this cage, how much he wants to hold her in his arms and tell her that she’s safe.

“She can handle this.” I nod. “After everything she’s been through, she can handle anything.”

My words hit a nerve because Dessin closes his eyes slowly, hanging his head.

It’s hard to hear, but true, nevertheless. We all watched as she held his dying body in her arms, trying to stop the blood. And when his heart stopped beating, her screams stretched on across the Midnight Sea, breaking us with the agonizing sound of her despair. She died right there with him.

This isn’t the same Skylenna.

She’s something stronger.

Something far more resilient.

I wish I were more like her. Because if the roles were reversed, this family would be risking their lives to save me.

“We’re going to be here for her when she returns,” Warrose says, hazel eyes firmly on Dessin. He steps closer to the bars that separate him from Skylenna’s empty cage, looking down absently at the floor she’s slept on. “We need to figure out a way around this ear magnet thing.”

Dessin blows out a humorless laugh. “That’s Skylenna’s job.”

“It is?”

Dessin nods.

“What’s your job?” He cocks an eyebrow. “What’s my job?”

“To come up with an escape plan. It’s just something we decided to split responsibilities.”

Warrose sighs, lowering himself to the floor. “Did that make her happy?”

Dessin’s chest moves up and down. His jaw tightens. Gaze planted on the rocky ground.

“Yes.”

“Seems like she’s wanted that for a long time.”

“She’s always wanted to be a part of my plans,” Dessin says quietly.

“Yeah? They’re not all butterflies and roses.” A flash of resentment tightens the muscles in Warrose’s back.

Dessin finally looks down at him. “I know we haven’t talked about it yet.”

The plan to fake his death. The plan Warrose had to bear the truth of alone. The plan to pray for Dessin’s revival, to watch Skylenna spiral, to standby unable to give her solace.

“Fine by me.” Warrose crosses his thick arms over his chest. “I thoroughly enjoy staying mad at you.”

Dessin’s mouth tics.

I instantly became aware of heavy breathing beside me. Rotating my head to the left, I see Niles watching the conversation play out with radiant glee. His face pressed between the bars, mouth open in a slight smile, and round eyes bouncing from Warrose to Dessin.

Marilynn keeps her eyes on her lap to at least give the illusion that she isn’t eavesdropping.

“Niles!” I whisper, snickering.

His invasive stare slides to mine. “Best part about prison? No privacy.”

Warrose and Dessin turn to us, ready to insult Niles for being a pest. But something shrill cracks through the hallway. A piercing sound echoing from another wing.

We freeze, waiting through a beat of silence.

The sound grows louder, defining in range and tone. A sound we’ve all heard at least once before. A woeful pitch to our ears that reminds me of sand, sea salt air, and blood.

Skylenna screams.

~

Skylenna

“I didn’t kick you that hard. Get up!” Kaspias looks down at me with genuine confusion. Those mahogany, black-lined eyes follow the string of bloody saliva that hangs from my mouth.

As I struggle to stand, Kaspias groansand hooks his hands under my arms, lifting me with ease to stand upright. I try to control my breathing, but it’s shallow, labored, painful to move my ribs. I make a solid effort not to wince.

Naively, I hope that this was it. This beating from his short fuse temper. Maybe I can go back to my cage now.

“It’s almost midnight. The rules are, there are no rules, other than having your hands—here, like this,” he hooks a rusty chain from the collar around my neck to shackles around my wrists behind my back “and completely without your sight.” He wraps a thick cloth around my head, cloaking my eyes in complete darkness. An object grazes my hair before I hear a click, then a sting knifed into my temples. I whimper at the piercing of a needle in my scalp.

“There. It’s stapled to your scalp. No chance of it falling off.”

I retract two steps, blinking repeatedly to adjust.

I don’t like this. This prison is completely foreign to my knowledge. It’s a maze. And now I’m blind. What will he have me do next? Will I be able to make it back to my family?

“This is the punishment?” I ask cautiously. He wants me to wander around naked? Blindfolded? It’s almost midnight, meaning I’m in no real danger because everyone is already in their cages.

“Have you met the Blood Mammoths yet?” His mouth is close to the side of my head. He’s leaning in to make me uncomfortable.

“The what?”

“The giant, beastly men with cages on their heads? The ones that wander the halls at night? Did you really sleep through it?”

I school my features. He won’t see the fear that is crawling up my gut and into my throat.

“Obviously.” I would have remembered something like that.

I can feel the mocking energy of his smile. “Pity. Well, you’re on the other side of the prison, as far from your cage as you can get. I’m going to set you free. Then, I’ll let the Blood Mammoths get a sniff of the blood you’ve left on the floor. They’ll chase you down like rabid dogs hunting for their last meal.”

Fuck.

“What are my chances?” Do I really want to know? It won’t matter. I’m making it back to my family. I’m making it back to Dessin. If only I could mute the trickle of panic tingling through my limbs.

“I’ve only seen two prisoners make it back out of one hundred.”

So, not impossible then.

“Too bad they were missing major limbs.”

That won’t be me. That won’t be me. That won’t be me.

My stomach twists, and my mouth goes dry. I’m filled with nervous energy yet throbbing everywhere. I’ve been thrown down a cold well, left to freeze, then beaten. How will I make it back? How will I outrun these bloodthirsty men?

A voice sings past my mental walls, weaving itself into my thoughts.

“The woman who once brought compassion to the Emerald Prison will one day bring fire. And with her new reckoning, the enemy is doomed to fail.”

Judas’s recitation of the prophecy given to the Crimson Kres. For once, that damned prophecy gives me a spike of hope, a surge of adrenaline. I’m meant to make a difference. I’m meant to overcome the enemy.

“When do I start?” I ask calmly.

Kaspias grinds his teeth. “Now.”

He shoves me forward until I’m tumbling to my knees, scraping them against the sharp-edged ground. The torn skin stings my kneecaps, forcing a grunt from behind my bared teeth.

But I don’t wait to recover. I’m up, jumping forward as if I have all the energy in the world. My bare feet shoot out in front of me, leaping into the air to break out into a sprint. Immediately, the blindness makes me angry. I can’t throw my hands up with caution, preparing to run into something, someone, a set of metal bars, a stone wall.

But I remember the hallway in front of me is long and wide. I should get a decent amount of distance between Kaspias and me if I just run in a perfectly straight line.

He said I was at the farthest end of the prison. How do I know which way to go? I know I need to take a moment to think, to find a way to map my escape. But my blood is rushing like a waterfall to my ears. My breath is ragged and frantic. And my mind is spiraling, thinking of my last words to Dessin, Ruth’s face, Niles’s hugs.

I have to make it back.

DaiSzek needs me.

Chekiss is all alone.

As I glide down the hall, I’m not sure how much distance I have left to cover before there’s a fork in the road, before I

Stone. Unmovable. Unfazed by my face smacking into its cold, uneven surface. I gasp as the impact shoots up my nose, rattling my brain. Blood spurts from my nostrils. Tears run down my cheeks. And the pain stabs its teeth into every nerve above my collarbone.

“Fuck!” I choke, wincing at the tenderness across my nose, hoping nothing is broken.

The sound of rustling chains, heavy footsteps, and guttural grunting sets my spine pin straight. The Blood Mammoths must be gathering behind me to catch my scent like Kaspias said. I won’t wait around to find out. I’ve never heard of these beasts, never had the chance to learn their strengths. How fast they run. How efficient at tracking they are.

I’m blind.

But my legs still work, so I follow the feel of the hallway, veering right and keeping the side of my foot against the wall to keep myself from slamming into anything else.

I want to call out to Dessin to find out how far I am from my cage. But that might get me caught sooner.

Think, Skylenna.

There’s a frenzy behind me. They sound more like wild animals than actual human beings. Based on the vibrations through the ground, I can tell they’ve started running. Heavy, thumping footsteps. It sends a jolt of fear through my stomach. Another dose of adrenaline.

I have to run faster. I have to figure out where I’m going. But those footsteps grow louder, rumbling the metal cages with each stomp.

Shit, they’re fast.Longer legs, maybe? Longer strides.

The war drums of my demise pound in my ears. Focus, Skylenna!

Only, I can’t. A large, bumpy hand grabs my wrist. A death grip. It tries to heave me backward, followed by a demonic, gurgling snarl. I act on instinct. Every move Kane taught me in the Red Oaks. Every maneuver. They flood my mind with possibilities.

My leg kicks back, bucking out and upward like an angry horse. The bottom of my raw foot makes contact with a groin, I think. The mangled oomph is the only indication that the Blood Mammoth is down.

They’re on my heels, no matter how fast I try to run. My ribs scream with each breath I take. My nostrils are swollen shut. I’m in bad shape.

But the void nudges me, brushing up against my skin the way a cat would rub against its owner. I hesitate. I can’t go in there right now. What if I stop running? What if my body goes limp, and the Blood Mammoths devour me on the spot?

With a sharp breath, I don’t go in, but I do expose myself to it. Allowing that vast openness to find me.

“Take a sharp left…now!”

The voice is bold yet feminine. It’s a whisper so close to my ear, I can practically feel her breath skimming my cheek.

My feet do as they’re told. I pivot to the left, wishing I could reach my hands out to make sure I don’t run into the cages along my side.

“Who are you?”I ask within the safe barriers of my own thoughts.

Something sharp and hard hits my back; the sting is shocking enough to make me trip and stumble. Ugh! Are they throwing rocks?

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she says with wisdom buried deep in her tone.

I cough, fighting to breathe past the pain and the blood running from my nose down my throat. “You’d be surprised!”

“No, actually I would not.”She pauses, as if waiting for something. “Duck!”

I bow my upper body to waist level, keeping my pace in a hunched form. What sounds like stone crashing into stone bangs against the ground in front of me.

“Leap over it now!”

I jump over whatever it is they tried throwing at me.

“How far are we?”I ask her.

“We are almost to the stairs.”

Stairs?! I don’t dare ask how many flights there are. It’ll sicken me to find out. One step at a time. One challenge at a time. I can do this. I have help now. And that notion warms my heart. Behind this blindfold, within this darkness, there’s a woman who is helping me.

And somehow, I trust her more than words can describe.

“Slow your pace. There’s a door coming up directly in front of you. Turn your back to it and reach for a long, metal latch.”

I spin halfway, reaching my shackled hands in a grabby motion, desperate to feel it entering my palm. Coldness touches my skin.

“There!”she exclaims. “Pull upward, and open the door.”

The door scrapes against the floor, creaking on its hinges as I drag it open.

“Good, Skylenna. Now slam it shut, and push the latch down to lock it!”

Relief floods every limb, every organ of my body as I complete her task backward.

She directs me up the stairs, each step one at a time until I’m able to run without tripping. But sprinting uphill is so much harder than running through a long hallway. I’m wheezing, gasping like a fish out of water.

“Fuck!” It’s had to be at least seven flights by now.

“Two more!”

“No.”I shake my head, doubling over to relieve the sharp pain in my sides and the fire in my lungs. “I can’t.”

“Skylenna, you are the Fallen Saint. You burned the Emerald Lake Asylum to the ground. Avenged every death and freed the patients held prisoner. You’ve endured Mind Phantoms and the death of your true love. You. Must. Keep. Going.”

The Blood Mammoths manage to kick the door down several floors below us. But they’re roaring like hungry lions. And I’m filled to the brim with a black flame, a smokeless fire gifted to me by this woman. This being that is guiding me.

I nod my head, brushing my forearms against the serrated railing as I continue to sprint upward. The stairs are pounded by footsteps below. And I can imagine they’re skipping steps, covering more ground.

“One more!”

With bleeding feet and quivering legs, I pivot backward, swinging open the door on the last flight of stairs, and take off.

“Don’t panic.”Her voice is calm, but her words are lethal. “There are more on this floor looking for you. You know how to fight. You must maneuver your body exactly as I say. Understand?”

“Yes,” I whisper out loud.

“Good, now run!”

Her terminology is that of a fighter, because she instructs me effortlessly. I swing my legs in the right direction, making contact with soft underbellies and groins, and sweeping my feet out to knock giant bodies off their feet.

“Wait, Skylenna, no!” The panic in her voice is quickly answered by my body being thrown into a set of bars. My forehead bangs against metal first, then I fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

My coughing fit is interrupted by nails as sharp as claws biting into my arm, grating down my flesh.

“Argh!”

“Fight! You’re surrounded!”

They’ve got me. By the sound of their labored breathing and the smell of their rancid breath, there must be more than four. A pair of fists slam down on my body like a primate beating down on another animal. The air is knocked from my lungs. Another fist is thrown down across my face, hard enough to send blood spraying from my mouth.

The woman’s voice is screaming for me, but as the Blood Mammoths start to yank on my limbs in a violent attempt to pull them from my body, I know what I must do.

The void greets me like an old friend. And I find their minds, collectively, reaching my hands into their collective subconsciousness as one.

“Skylenna, don’t!”

But it’s too late. I graze their minds like I’m stepping into their world. And I know how to pull them into the prison void, but it’s not right. It’s grotesque and insidious. In a repetitive flash, I see who they are. I see what they’ve done.

Organs. Entrails. Cannibalism. Deep in the West Vexello Mountains, they’d hunt something other than animals. They’d hunt children.

I let out a scream that crosses land and water. A scream that I feel connect with one beast, one monster. He can hear me through the howling wind, through the sounds of the forest, through a bond that only we share.

And nothing on this earth can stop DaiSzek from crossing oceans to find me. I feel it in his bones—the determination, the fury, the destruction waiting to be set free.

Please, find me, my boy.

“They’ve let go! Run, Skylenna, Run!”

My brief visit into their minds threw them off of me, if only for a moment. I choke on a sob as I jump over their scrambling bodies, throwing my full weight into a race back to my cage. It’s close. My family is close.

“Skylenna!” Dessin’s voice.

“There she is!” Ruth.

“Run! You’re almost here!”

“Oh, god, what have they done to her?” Warrose.

Their gasps at my appearance are audible. Wetness drips down my neck and nude chest. I must be covered in blood. But all I can feel is relief wash over my entire body like a hot shower.

I want to call out to them. I want to scream their names. But my breath is coming from weak, thin lungs. All I can do is cry as their shouting grows louder. Their words get closer.

I’m here! I’ve come home!

“Throw your leg back. Eleven o’clock!” the voice yells, sounding as urgent and excited as I am to get back to my cage in one piece.

I oblige, stopping my run to twist, jab my leg back, make contact with a kneecap. The beast wails like a baby, yet the sound is deeper than any man’s voice I’ve heard. Two hands wrap around my ankle, tugging me backward.

“You’re facing him now. Block his blows, two o’ clock. Yes, good. Now again.” The blows nearly send me flying, but I hold my ground. “To the knee again! He’s wounded there.”

I kick as hard as I can, using every bit of energy left to make him bleed. My friends scream for me, cheer me on, tell me more are coming, more are here. I have to run, have to make it a few more steps.

I turn, slamming into a hard, sweaty chest.

Multiple hands, fists, and feet begin wailing on me. They beat into my flesh like a slab of dough to be kneaded. My body is jerked side to side until I’m knocked to the ground, the back of my head cracking on the brimstone. Everything goes fuzzy behind my blindfold.

I can’t focus on one area of pain. My nerves light up in red, flashing alarms from head to toe. I’m sobbing, hiccuping, trying to hear that voice, trying to stop screaming.

“Get off her! I’ll rip your fucking heads off!” Dessin is louder, angrier, and more unhinged than I’ve ever heard him. Niles tries to encourage me, Ruth begs for my release, but Warrose’s voice stands out like a shining beacon.

“Find your strength. Go into the darkness, and don’t come back until you find that light.”

Another fist punches the side of my face, swiping the blindfold from my eyes, yanking out those staples puncturing my scalp. I blink in surprise, clearing out the fuzziness, the tears, adjusting to the red and yellow circus bulbs. And as I focus on the Blood Mammoths towering over my beaten, bruised, feeble body, I can’t help but scream.

Their hair is black, hanging down to the floor, and eyes small, like tiny charcoal. Their skin is waxy, shiny, and covered in oozing boils. That rusted metal on their heads is in the shape of a birdcage. They smile down at me with only three or four teeth and large, rotting gums.

Before the next foot comes down on me, I let the void drape over them like a body bag. I follow them into the darkness as their consciousnesses tumbles, ignoring the grotesque images I saw before. We whiz past that.

And now they’re mine. Now they’re in my kingdom, suffering the same fate they’ve just made me suffer. Being chased naked, beaten, scared, screaming.

“This is who you are now.” My voice comes out like that of a god. Laced in echoes, in an otherworldly, thunderous presence. “Scared. Small. Powerless.”

I hover above them, like the devil over his pit of writhing souls. And my words are their gospel, their command, their only way of existence. I can feel their fear set in. A feeling foreign to them, never before felt. My words rewire the essence of their very beings. Because here in this prison void, I am the creator. The god. The devil.

And they are my dolls to play with.

I’ve fixed them.

With the sound of whooshing wind and my stomach dipping, I fall to the ground by the cages of my family. A loud thud. Looking up, the Blood Mammoth’s eyes are leaking tears of blood.

And they scattered like cockroaches.