Phoenix of Dawn

Remember This

The shadows moved like the second hand on a clock, each tick a new memory, a new nightmarish mark on my past I'd put high on a shelf. They toppled out of their carefully sealed boxes like fluttering tapestry, twisting in the air above me and playing tricks in the light. They flickered and dimmed before giving way to another then another... then another. 

One moment I was seated on the bench outside the sleeping quarters waiting for someone to explain what would happen to me next. They discussed me as though I weren't there, as if I were an animal in a cage they were looking to sell. 

Another twitch of the hand and I was small, smaller than I could remember and trembling at the sound of his voice spilled across the marble floor. It rattled and shook, painting me in the purple and black shades of pain and fear. The title of father caught on my larynx and threatening to tear out every shred of myself if I said it out loud. 

A second more and I was kissing a man in a hallway feeling safe yet so vulnerable. His golden existence splashed across my soul like tiny freckles in the silvery snow. My ice caps melting in the heat of his desire and pooling at my core to makeup mine. A sensation so devoid of hate or mistakes that it seemed too pure to grasp in the snarled fingers of my heart, consuming me, threatening to pour out of  my throat and onto him. 

Tick, tick.

The door slams shut effectively stealing the light from my eyes and placing the panic wrapped so tightly in my chest. Like a gift I didn't ask for it rest in my rib cage, heavy and frozen. 

Down, down, down.

I beat my fists against the solid wood and scream for salvation but it never comes. She would be hiding somewhere safer than the places she knew he took me. 

No, no, no, no.

Go back. Turn back the clock, take me to that hallway. Take me back! Take me--

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

"You stupid mutt!"

His feet kick hard against my side, my tiny ribs bending till they break. Wide blue eyes were no help with him, not even set in the small face of his daughter. 

Time was impossible to rewind and even more impossible to freeze but a memory could last a life time. I could hold onto a memory and I would. The hallway. 

Paraded before a room of warriors, their whispers too loud about what a conquest I would make. Every word dripped over me like poison seeping into my skin and coursing through my veins. Except one on the far left, his brows knit in murderous frustration at the display before him. 

The hallway... think of nothing but the hallway.

Blood. Rushing over grass, rushing over silver, rushing over crumpled bones and bodies. The anguish thick in the air as if oxygen had turned to tar, caking in my lungs and choking the light out of me. In one instant everything is lost. 

Hallway... we still have the hallway...

Except the hallway is empty now. The lights slowly shut down until it's only me. Just a hall with no way. 

No way...

My eyes feel like they're stapled shut and I expect to feel pain, instead I feel panic. The sound of feet scuffing over dirt has my instincts on overdrive. I'm ready to fight but my wrists are not, the heavy chains burning against my flesh. Even the slightest of moves has my skin sizzling.

The tale about silver isn't real so what the hell is this? 

There wasn't any time to consider it before the ungodly pressure of a knee between my shoulders as me hissing with pain.