Games of a Different Kind-{sequel to Toys of a Dangerous Mind}

Chapter 16

Life was getting tiring. The baby was killing me, making my movements limited and restricted. Each step was weighing me down and I felt that one step, I might just lie down and sleep forever right there on the cold floor.

Everything seemed to remind me of him. My father. A kind loving man. A husband. A father. I couldn't seem to fully understand his death. I would open my mouth and ask my mother where he was, but right when it was on the tip of my tongue, I would remember. I would close my mouth. And I would fight the urge to cry.

How do you deal with such crushing sadness? I didn't know. There was nothing could help me get through this, nothing I could hold onto, to help me stay anchored. My mind drifted instead and it was a struggle to go through ordinary motions of the day.

Breathing was harsh and ragged, like I was running. My mind was running. I wanted to run. Run far away from this mess that my life had become and hide from all the people that were expecting of me and all the other people that weren't here. It was confusing and it was agonising and it felt like death.

It was a twisted time I was having. My Scripture teacher had once told me that I would learn to live with grief at the loss of loved ones, because we would get to see them in Heaven. But, I couldn't see my father in Heaven. I was destined for the Games of Pain and it killed me that I wouldn't ever be able to see him again.

An eternity of pain. I stared blankly at the wall. Once again, I was nestled inside of my alcove. I couldn't deal with people right now, their pitiful looks, my mother's lost gaze. She was a shell of herself. I would say one thing to her and she would look emptily back at me without even hearing me.

It was like she wasn't even there anymore. Like my mother had died the same time that my father had.

So here I was, hiding away in the alcove, just wanting to go to sleep and hide in darkness, comforting darkness that would be the reassuring same for an eternity.

But I couldn't. My baby was here and I had to be there for it. But... but what could I do? I would be such a horrible mother; I was so cracked and broken with all the mistakes I had made and the constant trouble I was in.

I held onto the hope that I would kill Raxis and that my baby and I would be safe from his pernicious grasp forever. But, that nagging fear kept on pinching me, whispering doubt into my mind. Maybe I wouldn't be able to. Maybe, he would Turn me and this baby would have a she-demon for a mother.

Maybe he would kill me. Then this baby would have no mother. He or she would grow up blackened and twisted just like the only parent figure they had in my life.

I once would have hoped that my mother could be this child's saviour, but as she couldn't even sense that I was speaking to her, I didn't think she was going to be playing the grandmother anytime soon.

I played out the scene of Raxis's death in my mind a thousand times. Pictured me sliding Zalia's dagger into him, felt a wave of pleasure at the dream. I thought that his eyes would widen. That he would sink to his knees, clutching at the dagger piercing his heart. That he would rip it out with a look of utter surprise, dripping blood onto the floor. That he would collapse face-forward and one last wicked breath would go through his body, before he died, a little shiver rippling through him.

It was morbid that I was thinking such thoughts, but no queasiness greeted these daydreams of mine. Only savage satisfaction and hope that I could accomplish the impossible. Kill the demon that was terroizing the country.

It was a wonder of mine, what would happen afterwards. The country would be in utter shock, but after the message had been firmly implanted in their minds, they would scramble to action. The politicians would polish their speeches and would begin a campaign to reach the peoples' hearts.