|
CHAPTER 6
It’s raining ~ 雨が降っている
The next day, I woke up before Kato. The sun was barely rising. Kato was still sleeping while in an embrace. I got up and carefully left the tent slowly and silently. That's when I saw a dog that looked similar to a wolf. The top half was ebony, and the bottom half was snowy white. This was the same dog that I remembered from years ago. He was leaving the area. I quietly followed him, wanting to know where he hid, and where he came from.
When the sun was completely risen, I had followed the dog so far away from the camp. Who knows how far we went. Then I felt something, like a gust of wind. Before I knew it, I felt sharp teeth caught onto my foot. I was ready to scream, but resisted. When I looked, it appeared to be metal teeth. I tried to kick it off, but the only thing it did was make more noise and dig deeper into my skin. I reached down and tried with all my might to remove it from my foot. That was a painful experience, and I lost the dog, too. As I started to walk, trailing blood, I began to feel woozy, and fell over, falling sleepy.
When I awoke, I had a rope around my neck and my wrists were tied together. A man with a gun, as I know now, was holding it, pointing it to me. I remembered the other times I got shot, and I didn’t want that to happen again.
“Well, well, well. Look what we’ve got,” the strange man said with a low voice. “I didn’t think she would wander this far from home.” The rope around my neck was tugged. “Stand!” Another guy was on horseback. He held the end of the rope. I didn’t know exactly what happened, but when I tried to stand, I fell over, my left leg and foot hurt too badly. That’s when I knew I should have let Kato treat my thigh, since my arm seemed to be feeling a bit better. The other man went onto the back of another horse. Their horses reminded me of the herd I remembered from when I was with my brother. A Clydesdale, a gentle giant, is what Talc told me they were called. He told me they were just about the biggest horses on the planet.
“If you won’t stand, we’ll drag you. They don’t care if you’re alive.” They? Someone was after me? The horses began to move, and I was dragged by my neck. I tried desperately to stand. Why does it seem like everybody wants me? Why am I so special? Why do people have to die because of me? I finally stood, but refused to move. When the rope was in front of me instead of behind me, I bit it as hard as I could. I tore the rope, while the man on the other end fell off the Clydesdale. The rope snapped, and I attempted to run away, when I fell again, screaming in pain.
I heard a bang and apparently my knee was hit. That hurt worse than anything else in the world. The man walked up to me, holding the gun down. “Don’t toy with me.” He put his rough hand on my cheek. “You are too pretty to kill.” I snapped at him, anger filling my eyes. “Oh-ho-ho! We’ve got ourselves a cobra here!”
It began to shower when I was forced to stand again. The rope was now tied onto my wrists, and this was their second option of leading me. I sighed, pain shocking through my entire body at every step. He warned me not to try to bite the rope again. I wished I had kept the scabbard. My bare feet, with one cut wide open, had to wade through the mud now. The men stopped at a big building after an hour of quiet walking. The ground was now hard as rock, thankfully. They walked me up to the building’s entrance. One man stayed with me while another went inside.
When the one guy returned with a third person, I began to worry. This new person was dressed classier than these two. The rain kept my hair dripping wet, and my feet and ankles were muddy. “She’s dirty,” the new man said with a heavy accent. “Why didn’t you take better care of her? She is worth more than that.” The mud from my feet began to wash off in the rain, leaving the cut to burn. I finally fell to my knees, growing light-headed again. I was so tired from this journey and from all the pain that I passed out right there.
When I opened my eyes, I was laying on a hard cold floor. I had a concrete wall surrounding me, and iron bars, much like a prison. My hands were untied, and the rope from my neck was gone. I lied there, idle and still. I didn’t see any point in moving, plus, nothing could come from it except more pain. Someone walked by the room, glancing to me, and then moving on. Later, a woman brought a tray of food and left it inside the room I was stuck in. I didn’t have any desire to touch it. I stayed there on the floor. My hands began to go numb. I rolled over onto my back from my side and stared at the ceiling, arms and legs sprawled out on the floor. I fell asleep thinking of Kato. He promised to protect me. Why wasn’t he there when the metal teeth bit me? What about when the men tied me up and forced me to walk or be dragged? Where was Kato when I was shot again?
I opened my eyes to the sound of screeching. I turned to face the bars, and noticed there was a gate opening. Another man was standing by the door watching me, and even though he was hiding it, I could tell he had a gun too. By now, I could smell it. I faced the ceiling once more. “Zerie… Phoenix. You have been granted a trial. You have been granted due process. You are due to be here today. Come.” He waited, but I didn’t move. “Get up.” I closed my eyes, hearing his footsteps near me. “Do you understand…” “Kill me now and get it over with,” I said, interrupting him. “No. Get up.” “I can’t!” I finally told him sternly. He was confused. “Have you yet noticed that I’ve been lying here the entire time of my visit? I can not get up.” I could feel that he calmed down. The atmosphere was stiff before, since he was being cautious of me. He sighed in relief. The man walked away, leaving the door open. I stayed where I was, honestly not being able to move.
The man returned with a woman who was holding a box. I opened my eyes and looked at her as she stood above me. “Please promise not to hurt me before I do anything,” was her only request. I smiled. “I’m not after you. There is no need to worry.” She looked nice, too. The man left, closing the iron bars. She looked to my foot, opening the box. I would dare not watch her, for I knew, sometime, the burning liquid would touch me. Sure enough, I was right. I howled out as it touched the wound. “Let it air out,” she said. My eyes welled with tears. “Oh! Your thigh. It’s infected.” I looked to her. “That does infected mean?” She grinned. “It means that if you don’t treat it, it will get worse and worse. Then one day you won’t be able to use your leg.”
“There… there is something in there. In my leg and in my knee. It hurts,” I said, hoping this would make her leave sooner, but being truthful at the same time. “I know you got shot in the knee-” “And same thing for there,” I finished.
She bandaged up my foot, treated my thigh, and bandaged up my knee after using something sharp to get something shiny out of the bloody hole. She showed it to me. “This is what hit you,” she told me. “You are very lucky it didn’t cause major damage.” “That is the same thing for my thigh. I can’t get it out.” Her eyes widened a bit. “You tried?” I blushed, ashamed of myself. “Well, yes, but without success,” I told her. “Well, at least your thigh will not be fatal to you now. And the bandage on your upper arm needs to be changed.” She took it off my arm and examined the deep scrape. “It’s scared. How long ago did you bandage this?” I thought for a moment. “Two days ago.” She packed up her things and asked me to try to stand. I sat up okay, though my spine cracked in several places. I went to stand on the soles of my feet. “So this is the infamous phoenix.” I placed my hand against the wall, getting balance back before it was lost. “You should be okay for today, but your clothes are a mess. Let me take them and wash them.” I glared at her. She thought she would take my clothes from me? The last thing I had left? She was out of her mind! “No,” I told her firmly. She stood, noticing my reaction. “Ok. I will be leaving now. Be sure you don’t hurt anyone today.”
I sat down on the floor, cross-legged. My knee still hurt, but not as bad. The other man returned. “So you can get up now?” I nodded slowly, even though I was still in pain. He opened the door again and asked me to come as he did before. I stood and began to walk. I followed the man to a fancy room. I felt as if I didn’t belong. There were many people dressed up so nicely, while I was here, filthy. I sat down in the front, and then a man put metal rings around my wrists, much as the rope before. They said it was for their protection, as if I was about to go rabid and bite all their head off. This was rather annoying, their assumptions. I didn’t bother it; I didn’t care anymore. A man dressed in black walked in and everyone stood as if on cue. I remained as I was. When everyone sat back down, I was asked to sit next to the man in the black robe. I believe someone was asking me to tell the truth because he said that word, ‘truth’, about a dozen times. I wasn’t sure because he spoke so quickly, but I replied with, “I’ve never lied before, so why start now?”
Somebody asked me my name, which I replied, “Zerie Aurora Suna.” He had now asked me questions, such as if I did things. I nodded, because they were right most of the time. On occasion, I would ask them to repeat what they said or explain some things to me. They mentioned the villages being burned to the ground. I told the people the same story I told James. About how they were taking food from me and how fire will regenerate the land, but mostly, how those men were in the way. There was a long silence just before the man above me in black said firmly, “Zerie Suna…” he shuffled through papers. After a long, long silence, and many whispers, he continued. “You are sentenced to execution at sunset tomorrow.”
When I left the room, the escort asked me, “Did you see all those people?” I nodded. “They all came to see you. You are well known, but people wanted to know what you really looked like.” He brought me to another room. Concrete like the last one, iron bars like before, and a window with bars. He took off the metal and left, closing the gate. I rubbed my wrists as I sat on the cold floor.
“They're all insane,” I whispered to myself.
 Amazing Q · Tue Jul 28, 2009 @ 10:37pm · 0 Comments |
