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SCREAMING is what I awoke to.
Rather unsurprisingly, it was my own, and the sun's cruel beating didn't help, each lash filled with a wave of nauseating heat. The last fleeting, haunting images that lingered in my mind dragged me from my slumber scurrying away and hiding till the following night, when they come out and bite with fangs of fire, burning any peace I clung to and replacing it with a merciless hell. Those fangs of fire never extinguished in my slumber nor my waking moments. The masterless swordsman by my cage shoots a venomous glare from the shade of his bamboo kasa*, the fabric of his white haori shifting as he fully faced me, silver hues illuminated under the man-made shadows. I continue to resign to silence, resting my hands in my lap and digging out the sand that clumped beneath my overgrown nails before flicking it away, trying to distract myself from the frantic beating of my heart; the physical residue of arduous sleep.
It doesn't work, it never really does.
I'm still terrified all the same.
Another ronin approached my rotting wooden containment. I dug my nails into my palm, leaving red crescents on the areas. The cage was so weak, but even if I wasn't confined to the small space, the idea of escape only left dread in my heart. Perhaps being able to free roam would've been more agonising, seeing the world behind an invisible barrier, a barrier dyed red with threats and decorated with caustic grins. They'd mock me for never truly adventuring, never travelling, never running; that was a fate worse than death.
The man wore a navy hakama and white nagagi brought together by a white obi. He flung a bucket filled with water at me, drenching the old, dirt-ridden clothing I wore and the area around me. The cage groaned in warning as I recoiled from the splash. The sheer state of my clothes protected me from their prying hands and uncurbed eyes exploring my body on occasion, some parts of me were simply too disgusting even to sate their lust. A few fleas in my hair drowned upon finding contact with the water their corpses littering the sand beneath me. The man sardonically cackled at my desperate disposition as I scrambled to catch some in my hands, greedily gulping down any water that met my lips and even resorting to licking it off my arms which were mired in grime, both gave me a half-disgusted and amused expression. The more they viewed me as a parasite-infested, useless burden, the less interested they'd be in me, right?
