Darkness carved in bone

Chapter 15

Ten

Ten felt the alcohol buzzing in his blood, as he gushed down another sip of the liquor. He was not that intoxicated, but the alcohol had made him perhaps just a bit less inhibited. The alcohol gave a strange inner warmth that he had not felt in a long time, especially not in this cursed storm.

He looked at Helen again, still half expecting her to give him an answer to his question, how could he ever be free? But she gave no reply. And that strangely enough stirred something inside him. He expected it at first to be anger, his heart was racing in his chest, and that familiar surge of energy started buzzing inside him. But he did not feel that familiar instinct of anger and lashing out that he had become so adept at choking down. Instead that energy just buzzed freely inside him, and whenever he looked at Helen, he noticed that his heart somehow seemed to flutter in his chest.

Bu why was he not angry with her? She kept on asking him stupid questions that made him question everything in his life and gave him no help in solving any of those questions. He should be furious.

He looked at her again, really studying her this time. He saw a mixture of sorrow and uncertainty in her face, as if she wanted to help him but couldn't. Ten bit his lip as a shudder came over him; was he was beyond helping? His shoulders caved in at the thought, his vision going just a bit blurred as a sense of hopelessness hit him.

Helen's eyes met his, and her expression became just a bit frightened when she looked at him, as if she could see right through him and read his mind.

And then determination came over her face, as if she had decided that she would indeed help him somehow. She raised an eyebrow and spoke; "There are two birds in a cage. One sings his song with tones of happiness and light, the other mopes and sings songs of depression and sorrow. Why is that?"

Ten furrowed his brows, "Are we doing riddles now?" His voice contained a hint of almost irritation, which he could feel starting to bloom inside him. He was not really in the mood for another one of her thought experiments.

"Oh, just indulge me!" She replied, with the same hint of irritation in her voice.

He rolled his eyes at her but couldn't stop himself from thinking about her little riddle. Why would one be happy and the other not?

"Perhaps the sad bird lost a loved one."

She gave him an encouraging smile for trying, but immediately shut down on his reply. "No, don't think like that. They are both caged, but one his happy and the other is not, why?" She rephrased the riddle and put emphasis on the word caged.

Oh, the riddle was not a riddle at all. She was trying to really help him figuring out a way to be free of all control. "Are you asking me how you can be free of your shackles, but still be caged?"

"Maybe. Is that what you are asking yourself about?" Her face became serious as she replied.

His heart made that strange fluttering again as he looked at her, and the energy that he associated with anger again flooded him, but it was not quite the same as anger still.

"I don't know. Can I be free and still live in her cage? I am not sure if that is a compatible concept to what you think you and I have here." He gave her a slight smile as he tried to convey that he was teasing her a bit. She had tried to make it clear that she was not his prisoner any longer, but he wasn't entirely sure if she was free to decide that.

She squinted her eyes in mock anger at him. "I am not saying that what we have is the same, as the situation you are in. You are the one who has to define your situation and figure out what you want to do about it."