Aamkane First Year

Chapter 1 Mother Part 2

I kept having short bursts consciousness for at least a couple days because the sky kept going from night to day. I don't remember much, except for the dream that I kept on having. I was in a pure white room, it was a whiteness that defied all description. I tried to get out of the room, but no matter what I did I couldn't leave. I tried ramming my head and punching the walls. I tried to dig at the ground with my hands, but nothing would work. I was trapped, imprisoned. After a while I just sat there, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, and then she appeared. 

My mother, she was towering over me like a clifftop. My mother was a black minotaur, and as she just looked down on me sitting on the white floor. It was almost like there was a black smoky shadow surrounding her. Her eyes were a crimson red, and it seemed like they were sunken back into her skull. She was glaring at me, with her piercing red eyes. Her horns curled and twisted, they were a black that could've come from a thousand nightmares. She seemed taller in my dream then she did in person, and I felt small, helpless. 

The first thing she did was raise her fist, and then she smacked me so hard that I could feel my jaw cracking, it all felt so real. I fell to the ground, and I landed hard on my right elbow. She stood over me, looking at me with those horrid red eyes. She kicked me in the same spot where my wound on my leg was, and I screamed. 

That's when I woke up, every single time. I tried to get out, then she came, then she hit me, finally she kicked me. Every single time, I couldn't stop her, I was weak, small. I wanted to do something, to stop her, but I couldn't. I was defenseless.

Each time I woke up my head felt wet and it hurt almost as bad as my leg did, but after a few days, my mouth and hands no longer felt swollen or itchy. Each time that I woke up I was only conscious for a few minutes at a time. I felt like I couldn't move, but I still wonder even now how no animals found me. A defenseless, almost dead minotaur lying on the forest floor, blood gushing out of her head. The only way I can think of how I am still alive is that it was a miracle, or that I still had a purpose in my reasonable life.

I finally woke up after too many days, I couldn't count how many there were. I know I was lying there for a few days, but it couldn't have been more than a week. I was thirsty and hungry, so hungry. 

I bared my teeth and yelled as I sat up. I looked down at my leg and it had scabbed up a little, but it still hurt, just not nearly as bad. I put my hand on where I had landed on my head. My fur was matted and cached with dried blood, dirt, grass, and leaves. It was scabbed, but I still winced when I touched it with my forefingers. I stood up and my head felt groggy and hazy. I rubbed my left hand against my face, trying to remember what had happened, but I couldn't remember. I tried my hardest, I paced back and forth rubbing on my horns, and running my fingers through my hair. I looked down at the sharp rock that I had hit my head-on. It was completely covered in dried blood and dirt. After I saw that I looked down at the base of the tree that I had been climbing on, and there was the fern, gel side completely covered in dirt and leaves. My gaze slowly followed the height of the tree, and then I remembered everything. 

My mom beating me, the walk to the fern, the relief of the fern, the stick, the burning and itching, the tree, the fall, and finally the dream.

Then I started crying, I had never cried before, and I never did afterward. I didn't know why I was crying, it wasn't because I was sad, and it wasn't because I was hurting. Then I figured it out, I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't want to feel the pain of living anymore, but my mother would win, I would let her get control over me, I didn't want to feel helpless or small anymore. I looked down at the rock, and I glared at it.

I screamed as loud as I could at the rock, " I won't let you win! I won't be helpless anymore! I can't let you win!" I picked the rock up and screamed those three sentences once more, tears flooding out of my eyes. I rubbed the dry blood off of the rock, the blood rubbing off onto my left thumb. I stared at it for a few moments before I threw it to the ground, it bounced and landed on my right foot. I could barely even feel it. I wiped the tears away from my eyes, but the fur on my face was still damp from the salty tears.I quickly found another sanitatum fern and re-wrapped it around my leg, to keep it from getting infected. Sanitatum ferns are very common in the woods that surrounded my clan's labyrinth. As I re-wrapped my leg, I knew for certain that my mother was never going to gain power over me. 

Then my stomach growled and I realized how hungry I was, my lips were also dry. I was so thirsty, so hungry, I could barely even think. I didn't know how I was going to find food. Minotaurs only ate meat, usually right off the corpses of the people we had just killed in battle. I never was able to go into the battles, but my siblings were. Brown minotaurs were sent to battle by the age of three, but black minotaurs were sent to battle by the age one, two max. A lot more pressure was put on the black minotaurs, way more than the brown minotaurs. If you were a white minotaur you had until the age of three to show your true color. And if you didn't show your true color by then you would be executed by the chief. Only two out of my eighteen siblings were black minotaurs, they were Arelan and Kila. Arelan was my youngest brother and I looked up to him and to Kela who was the next to be chief if I didn't make the cut. Black minotaurs are an uncommon occurrence only one out of every five minotaurs are black minotaurs. White minotaurs that do not show their true colors are even more uncommon. There are one out of fifty minotaurs do not show their true colors. I wish I could have turned brown like my siblings. I wish I could've been born black and be filled with rage that all the other minotaurs would talk about, but I had a soft spot, a soft spot for life.

I ran through the forest looking for something to eat, I didn't want to test my luck with climbing a tree again. As I ran a rabbit ran out of a bush that I had just trampled over. I tried to charge it, but it was too fast. I decided that running probably wasn't the best option, because I didn't want to spook my prey. I slowly walked hunched over, looking for a squirrel, rabbit, any small game, and then I saw it. A large rabbit about three feet long, standing in the middle of a large field. It was standing on its hind legs and sniffing the air. It was an orange-red color. I hunched over, even more, pawed my hooves at the ground, made my horns face toward the animal, and charged. I ran as fast my body could carry me, I was able to catch it. It squirmed for a little while, its blood ran down my horns and dripped onto my muzzle. I pulled it off of my horns and began viciously eating it. About five minutes later I was done eating the poor creature. The entire time I was eating, I felt like a monster. I didn't want to be a monster like my clan, but I had to eat.

I looked down at the little that was left of the rabbit and said, "Thank you, for your life."

 ----------------------------------------

Hey author here, I'm very sorry for the short chapter this month. I wasn't able to work on it as much as I thought I was going to, but there will be a longer chapter next month, I promise. If you have any constructive criticism, or if you find any spelling/grammatical errors please let me know and I will get them fixed as soon as possible. Thank you for being you :D Keep being you!!