Inner Discord

Chapter 3

Slowly I opened my eyes again. Huh, was I still alive? I looked around me and saw that I was nowhere near the lake. On the contrary, I was lying on a bed in a bright, warm room. The walls were made of wood. They had a few cracks, like some bugs had started eating them. I wanted to get up to be able to take a better look around, but as soon as I moved a muscle, a burning pain spread throughout my body. It was so bad I could not even see what was wrong with it.

After lying there for a while I heard footsteps coming this way. The door opened and a girl came in. She had beautiful, long, black hair, blue eyes that were as pretty as a deep, blue sea, and a kind smile that made her look a bit childish. When she saw my eyes were open, she whispered: 'Are you awake?' I wanted to talk back, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I could only moan. She told me not to say anything and presented herself: 'My name is Psyche. I saw you practically drowning and came to save you. You were not terribly wounded, you only had some weird shape burnt over your body that is probably causing all that pain. I tried to cure it, but as it was already nothing more than a scar, I couldn't really do anything. I made you some food, 'cause I thought you might be hungry.'

I looked at the scale Psyche held in front of my eyes and began drooling just by the sight of it. It seemed like this girl was pretty well-off, judging by the goods that lay on the scale. Those were not something average Anthropoi could buy. I tried to pick a piece of a delicious looking pie, but I could not quite reach it without groaning from pain. So she decided to feed me. I shamefully opened my mouth, and as she put the spoon in it, I felt a little bit of a spark between us. I tried to chew it but due to the pain it did not quite go as it should, so I swallowed it in one piece and almost choked in it. Therefore, Psyche cut the piece into tiny pieces and fed me them one by one. She kindly smiled while doing so. The moment I had finished eating, she told me to rest and assured me she would come by later to see how it is going. I would probably be able to leave in a week or something. I did not worry about telling my family, for they died ages ago.

The following day was probably one of the best of my life. I was taken care of really well, and in the evening the pain had lightened enough for me to be able to speak. So as soon as she came inside again, I told her: 'Thank you for all your effort. My name is Phoneus. I want to do something in return as soon as I can.' Psyche looked at me and said kind of relieved: 'Oh, you can talk again. All I did was done with pleasure. And also because I kinda had to.' I thought I had not understood it well. 'You had to? What do you mean by that?'

Psyche replied: 'All will become clear later. Because you feel a little better now, we should find a safe place to hide. We will depart tomorrow morning. Go to sleep, because you will need your energy then.' When I heard the door close, I was certain that she would not come back before morning. 

I woke up in the middle of the night because of a strange sound I heard downstairs. I thought at first that maybe it was Psyche getting something to eat or going to the toilet, but the sound grew louder, and it resembled metal scratching on metal. Suddenly I heard the door clashing against the walls and a few voices that were screaming: 'Get her, she can't be far!' Strangely enough, I was not scared at all, only curious to see what this was all about. As I heard them running up the stairs, I saw that my door opened up a bit, and someone came in. I wanted to yell, but the person held her hand to my mouth and said: 'Shht... They're here for me. I will escape with you.'

Psyche grabbed me and put me in her back. Right when she was ready to jump out of the window, the burglars came in, and when they saw Psyche wanted to escape, one of them made a strange movement and not even a hundredth of a second later he stood before us. Psyche threw me in the bed and kicked the man's cross. He collapsed and the other ones came to help him. I could only watch, not able to do anything.

Psyche seemed like a great fighter when I saw her, but she could not cope with so many of them. Ultimately the men succeeded in capturing her and she began to scream. The prettiest of the man yelled: 'Shut up, you stupid hag!', and hit her head, after which it just hung. I was scared to death now, thinking that Psyche had died, and at this moment the men turned their attention to me.

One of them said: 'Should we take that little brat over there with us, too?' 'Why?', replied another one. The prettiest, who was apparently also their leader, came forward and said: 'Maybe he is the one besides Psyche who we were supposed to catch. Why would she otherwise take someone in?' The men looked at me like I was nothing more than a rat, something they could trample on to one heart's content, and when the leader grabbed me, a warmth suddenly began to fill me.

I started getting more energy, and all of my pain faded away. Something under my clothes started to glow. The leader must have been so astonished that he let me go. Psyche started laughing villainous, and because she had not died, I got more courage. Their leader yelled desperately: 'Grab him before he can do any harm to us!' They were apparently so scared that they would put all their power into capturing me. I wondered why.

I got up. With the power I now had I felt like I could overcome any difficulty. I grinned, wanting to kill them all.