Salvation

Chapter Three

2 weeks later

I sit. Stiff backed. Folded arms, on my bed as I try to think. Just think.

My eyes are blurry, my thoughts so endlessly relentless that my head can hardly take it. It's like my brain sloshes around in my head, pounding and spinning and tilting the room around me.

You took the liberty you know you have never had. You thought you could just leave your team in the field to die? Well, I'm going to make you wish you killed yourself out in that forest child.

I'm being hazed.

When I ran, arrow lodged deeply in my shoulder and mind suddenly overwhelmingly clear, I abandoned an undeserving team and rushed into the 'safety' of the base because I wasn't thinking straight.

My thoughts were racing and my heart was pounding like a hammer to a wall.

My dagger sunk willingly into the flesh of the young, fiery haired woman who looked not much older than me while my hand reached to block her from sending a warning or screaming and I had done the same thing countless times in the field and in training. It was almost second nature, a thoughtless effort that didn't take a second of hesitation to follow through with.

But this was different.

I had felt the muscles pulse and tense in my arm as I plunged the dagger in quickly. It tore through layers of fabric and skin and met its mark. But as I went to thrust the dagger back out of her abdomen and make my planned escape, I looked into those deep confused but furious eyes and something inside me clicked and suddenly I was fully at the wheel again for the first time in my life. I wasn't watching from behind a screen, it was just me and her.

And I froze like a child.

Like a deer caught in the headlights.

I panicked deep inside.

And I ran.

I didn't have the intention to kill tens of the innocent soldiers who followed me onto that battlefield. Tens of children.

I never wanted to kill anyone.

in the blink of an eyes my body went from fight, to freeze to flight and I have never felt so much pure fright and adrenaline run through my veins as when I was running away from that woman.

my ears were perked as I navigated the short distance I had managed to trek. The screaming that came from all around me was absolutely agonising, in that moment I thought I could almost feel the impact of bodies against the ground as they lost their battle and I felt and overwhelming sense of guilt and grief wash over me. But I didn't stop. I didn't save anyone but myself.

As I pulled myself under the sliding door, I was prepared for the worst. I was prepared for torture and pain and suffering at the hands of my master and his men.

I could never have been prepared for this. This hazing ritual that they are preforming on me.

I was hurt, i was tortured, I was degraded and shouted god awful things at and used for things I shouldn't have ever been used for.

But it didn't last long.

They forced scars that would last and then when they had enough of me, they threw my shaking body into this cell as I went between minds and couldn't bring myself to fight back. That door with the creaking hinges slammed closed and while I waited for the sound of those hinges for the last two weeks, it never came.

They locked my door and they have left me completely alone.

They threw a small metal bucket into the corner of my room while I slept after revoking my privilege of free time, wandering time, time with the girl and therefore all of my toilet and shower privileges. I haven't seen some of the only things that keep me sane, glimpses of the outside and stretching halls that make me feel less confined.