Deep in her slumber, she abruptly emerged in the surface of reality as the loud noise of the closing of a wooden door penetrated her consciousness. Fuzzy with sleep, she recognized her Master's reddish hair and she smiled carelessly. She was surprised that he was back early. She thought that he would be gone for weeks, but then, she never knew what went inside her Master's head. He was very unpredictable.
"It was my fault."
She heard him whisper those words over and over again while pacing to and fro in front of her. She looked at him, puzzled by his actions.
What was your fault, Master?
He was restless and it was making her worried and scared. He was never like this. He was always composed and so sure of himself. Hardly a time that she remembered him had that troubled look.
"I made the deed."
Her body stilled when he stopped short and met her gaze. There was something wrong and unusual behind his stare, and her heart thundered when he quickly made his way to her dingy corner where she was coiling at.
What was wrong, Master?
She felt it. She knew it from the way his clammy hands shook when he suddenly snatched her slender body, that something was greatly bothering him. She could see it on how his eyes would nervously dart between the closed door and at her. She could hear it on how loud his heart thumped as he anxiously brought her to his chest like a priced treasure.
"I betrayed my Master."
Master? She was puzzled at that. She only knew one person that he considered as Teacher, but unlike the other eleven that he was with, he never called that person as Master. She knew all of that because she was always the one who secured her Master's belongings every time they journeyed. She knew that with the eleven men, he adored and respected that gentleman who once brought back a dead man back to life. He never considered that gentleman as Master, yet it seemed like she was wrong.
You betrayed Rabbi?
Suddenly, tears gushed out of his miserable eyes and her heart broke into million shards.
What did you do, Master?
She felt his pain and agony as it reverberated throughout her body. The amount of sob that racked him crushed her whole being as she hung limply in his grasp. She felt useless at that very moment. She wanted to loop her arms around him, to comfort him and to make him feel that someone was there for him, but she could not do those things. She could only wait anxiously for what he was planning to do while he was involuntarily twisting her body. She wanted to cry out of pain but she was thankful that although she was thin, she was not a fragile one or else her limbs would have already snapped from his strength.
"I should have been the one who died."
She froze at the words that he uttered as his knuckles clenched painfully around her. Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at his glassy yet emotionless eyes. Her anxiety swiftly turned into fear as she saw what those empty eyes expressed, for she could not see her Master anymore but a seemingly grief-stricken lunatic.
No! Don't say that!
"I should die for what I did."
No!
He pivoted sharply towards the door and carried her outside the house. She wanted to wail her refusal when she saw the large oak tree in front of them. Her cries of "No" were spilled from her mouth over and over again as he hastily climbed the tree and hurriedly untangled her body to make a noose. She kept pleading at him to stop but he could not hear her. He just kept muttering incomprehensible words at himself like a crazy man while he awkwardly tied the other end of her around the large branch that he was sitting on.
The tree was an enormous one and the branch that they were situated was positioned at a higher section of the tree. Her heart thundered at the inevitable. Petrified, she could only watch her Master as he slowly slid his head inside her noose. She felt the warm, smooth skin of his neck against her coarse ones, the pounding of his pulse against her throbbing ones, his hopelessness, his defeat...
No, Master! Don't do this!
She kept pleading and pleading but she remained unheard. Her sorrow overflowed as she saw him tagged at her body securing the knot that he made. She closed her eyes from fear - fear of having to witness her Master's very end.
Master... I beg you...
"I am so sorry, my Master!" His voice rang out in the open as he turned his wet face up in the afternoon sky of Jerusalem.
"Forgive me. Forgive Your betrayer." She felt hot liquid dampen her fibre skin as his tears flowed freely from his eyes down to his neck. Remorse and anguish underlined every word and teardrops that came out of him.
"No amount of silver pieces could pay for Your life, my Master. Forgive me, my Master, my God, for what I have done to You and for what I'm about to do... for You." With his strangled cry, she felt the rush of air around her and a second later, there was gravity pulling at her body.
Hanged down from the branch of the old oak tree, she desperately clung to her beloved Master's body. She gave a heartbreaking cry, not because of his dead weight that stretched her to her body's limit, but because of the breaking sorrow that engulfed her whole being. She wept uncontrollably for she knew that this was the last time - the last time that she will be needed to tie something, and as ironic as it may seem, the last one would just have to be to hang her very own Master...
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A/N: Royal Rumble 2 Round 2 entry. Personification Challenge
