My Wee Mate

40 - I Am Nothing

Fraser

I am nothing, nothing at all. I've been reduced to a useless pile of flesh and bone with a bit of blood still in me. I'm not in pain. Shocking, seeing as there's a gaping hole in my side, but there's nothing to feel when you become nothing. There is only lack, lack of what was, lack of what could be.

It's healing rather slowly, but nothing can fix the wound in my heart, too deep to be reached or seen or touched. The outside afflictions are coming together, but I need blood to truly be healed.

After I blacked out, the world swirled into a blur. I didn't wake until the next night. Chained, mouth parched, side aching, head spinning.

My mate. Where is my mate?

My hands are tied with manacles, clamoring and clinking from any movement of my body. I am a true prisoner now, in every sense of the word.

Ailsa is gone. I'm not sure when I'll see her again, or if I will be granted such a gift before my life is taken.

They come for me again. Her father, his men. They rough me up. Spit on me. Lash at my back with a whip. Pour holy water onto my face, hoping it will burn.

None of it shakes me, not even a bit of it. I feel nothing but numbness. The lack of blood flowing through me is enough to strip my physical sensations altogether.

My insides are a different story.

I dream of her, and only her as I drift in and out of dreams and cursed reality.

Ailsa blushing. Ailsa smiling. Ailsa hiding her smile behind her hand. Ailsa squinting in concentration as she reads aloud. Ailsa kissing me. Ailsa tentatively suckling at my vein.

Ailsa in my arms. Ailsa's pained cries as she was grabbed. Ailsa's bruised and broken body.

Even though I'm nothing, I'm drowning, and even though I am drowning, Ailsa keeps me afloat.

My supernatural body goes into survival mode, shutting down systems as the human wreak more and more harsh damage against my skin. I close my eyes, picturing her, and suddenly it feels as if I'm floating above these rapid waters of a river determined to pull me under.

Eventually they leave me, their presence fizzling out and the air clearing.

I'm unaware of anything, even the familiar tick tick tick of the water fades into nothing until I am all that I see and hear and feel.

My breathing is uneven and harsh. My skin is clammy and cold. My clothes are torn and ravaged.

Madness lingers on the edge of my thoughts as I dift into the darkness. I know nothing. I have nothing. I am nothing.

Ailsa

I may very well go insane.

It's all I can think as Gentry follows a step behind me everywhere I walk. Things have been odd in the days following the incident, and I'm growing more desperate with each minute that ticks by. Time wasted.

Somehow, and I'm not sure how, father has kept the thing under wraps. The priest and Gentry were sworn to secrecy. My midnight screams were attributed to a nightmare, the screams the next morning blamed on a health scare.

Everyone in the clan bought it, or some were just too afraid to ask questions.

The worst part wasn't even Gentry becoming my shadow, no, that I could tolerate easily enough. But the guard posted right in front of the door to the dungeons, that was an issue.