Daydreammer

Chapter 16

Shelly woke up with a start, not knowing where she was at first. The dim light from the dying fire made flickering shadows around the small hut.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw the husband and wife sleeping a respectful distance away. She felt relieved to have made it through the night unharmed.

Shelly tried to sit up...and felt something holding her wrists and ankles. Looking down with a frown, her breath caught in her throat. Thick ropes tightly tied her arms and legs to the pallet!

"What's going on?" she gasped out loud. "Hey! I demand to know why I've been tied up!"

There was a rustling sound from across the room. The wife woke up, blinking groggily before seeing Shelly's panicked struggling.

"Ah, finally awake I see," the woman said in a chillingly emotionless voice, so different from her earlier warmth. "Good, we can begin then."

"Begin what?" Shelly's voice was tight with fear and confusion. She turned her head as the sounds of movement also woke up the woman's husband.

"You have to let me go!" She pulled uselessly at her restraints as he rose and crossed the room, his expression darkly severe. "Please, I haven't done anything wrong! Whatever you think you need to---"

Pain exploded across Shelly's face as the back of the man's hand struck her hard. She cried out, the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth.

"You'll stay quiet unless we ask you to speak, outsider," the man growled, though his tone remained eerily controlled as he hit her again.

Shelly pulled back from the stinging blows, realizing with sickening clarity that she'd been utterly tricked by these villagers' earlier kindness. Their humble act of charity had been planned from the start with evil intentions.

The wife took over from her husband, grabbing a fistful of Shelly's hair to yank her head back painfully. "Don't pretend innocence with us, girl. We saw through those shameless clothes the moment you came begging at our door."

She spat in Shelly's face as the young woman cried out in pain and embarrassment. "Thought you could lure us in with your strange ways and bring bad behavior into our godly home, did you?"

"N-No!" Shelly pleaded desperately through her swollen lips. "I told you, I'm just a traveler needing shelter! I'd never defile your home, I swear it!"

The wife's eyes glinted with self-righteous passion equally chilling as her husband's impassive severity. "Silence your diseased tongue's pious lies. because of your bad influence, our home has already been ruined by corruption."

"Shelly felt a terrible fear as she realized what they were implying - these fanatics saw her very existence as a threat to their twisted beliefs. To them, she was the symbol of the corruption they hated so much."

The man looked disgusted as he took out a nasty-looking blade. "We'll get rid of this impurity from our village's purity, one way or another. Starting by forcing every shameful secret out of the wicked woman."

He traced the flat of the blade thoughtfully against Shelly's tear-stained cheek, his voice becoming dark and practical. "Perhaps sending you to the brothels would be a more fitting punishment for harboring such an immoral temptress, even for a few hours..."

The wife's eyes narrowed in consideration at that. "Yes, a hefty sum could help restore the holiness we've risked by keeping her here. Probably enough to pay off what we owe Master Brommel and save our home."

The terrible reality set in and made Shelly's blood turn cold. She was only an asset to be used and sold off to whatever horrible fate these monsters thought was appropriate as punishment.

As the blade slid lower, touching the soft exposed skin of her neck and collarbone, Shelly felt actual fear clutch her heart like ice. Whatever horrors awaited her in Vale's Cross's nasty brothels, she was certain they would be far worse than anything these holy hypocrites could dish out.

Renewing her struggles with every bit of strength, begging any benevolent person to listen for a miraculous escape. Otherwise, her own purity and soul itself may well be the price paid for her recent naivete and stumbling into this unforgiving, godless community's shocking immorality.

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