Fury and Flame | 3

3 | 1

D E L P H I N I U M

      I didn't leave my room the entire next day. I was afraid to leave the safety of the four walls, the now-familiar space. If I went out, I'd have to face too much. My grandmother. Benton. My friends. The horrors I'd seen in this house—and I couldn't relive those things. I wondered if I'd ever have the courage to. Once, I did.

   But now...

      For hours, all I did was stare at the window, cross legged and leaning against the headboard with a blade grasped in each hand. The same window Imperium agents had broken through when I was fourteen. I could still feel the way their fingers dig into the soft skin of my arms, how I'd thrashed and fought even then—despite not knowing how to properly fight. Yet. The overwhelming fear, my lungs filled with it. And one question: why me?

     Almost every day, I wondered what would have happened if those agents hadn't burst through my window. If I had never known enslavement, if I would never be subjected to abuse and a dark cell for a room. What would it be like if I never had to learn to fight for my life, to be forced into becoming something horrible and unearthly and monstrous?

      Before Benny dragged me back, I'd truly been turning to the person I'd always wanted to be. I had started to learn how to put the past behind me. Occasionally, I'd realize I hadn't thought about my past life in weeks. And I was proud of myself for it. I was finally undoing the damage my master had caused in me.

      Then this. I didn't just have a fall from grace, I was thrown. And I didn't know how to get back up.

      So I sat on my bed the entire day, staring out the window and expecting to see an Imperium soldier climbing through. Outside, the sun began to set. I watched the cloud-peppered sky turn from cerulean to a deep golden pink when the sun sent out its last rays before dipping below the horizon. Ever since I could remember, I'd always loved finding beauty around me. It gave me hope that although creatures like myself terrorized the earth, not everything was touched by evil.

      I leaned my head back against the headboard of my bed, still not taking my eyes away from the window. In my head, I conjured up the images of the forty one people I'd murdered. Policemen. ONNT soldiers. Civilians. Rebels. I didn't even know their names. But they'd known mine.

      When I did die, I wondered what would be waiting for me. If I didn't pay for my crimes in this world, I certainly would in the next.

      Some dark part of me wanted it. I wanted retribution for what I'd done. My dead pressed down on me wherever I went, begging to not be forgotten, wishing for their names to be remembered. No one could touch my old master, not really. So it was better for me to suffer than no one at all. I'd take all their blows. Someone had to pay. Blood demanded blood.

      I looked down at the knives in my hands and remembered the day I'd wanted to drag them across my throat. It would be easy. But I wouldn't. There would be retribution if I took the easy way out rather than live out the rest my life. It was punishment enough. And if I didn't live, who would carry the dead? Who would remember the faces of those victims?

     I didn't want my eyes to droop. I didn't want to sleep, didn't want to hear the screams. To fight my seemingly permanent exhaustion off, I conjured up images of each of my victims and remembered what they'd looked like, how my knives had felt against their necks. There were too many to count.

     But sleep still found me in the end. I ended up wishing it hadn't.

     I was in my bed, still holding my knives. The feeling of the cool handles between my fingers was a small comfort. I'd been watching the window diligently for hours. It felt like it had been days. But I couldn't tear my eyes away. It was all I could do now to protect myself.