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He reached for the whip at his hip, and my eyes widened. I jumped in front of Thos and Emily and turned as I heard the familiar whistle of it moving through air and the crack as it lashed at my back.
It took a moment for my body to realize it had been hit, and then I groaned with pain and fell to my knees. Thos shouted for me, but the hiss of another lashing cast me into my memories.
The air around me changed as I drifted from my dream with my brother to a nightmare from my past. Suddenly, I found myself in the dark, despite the fact that it had been light only moments ago.
I squinted, my scars only offering minimal light, and then I heard steps.
Steps I had counted with dread and still heard in my nightmares.
Steps from boots that I could identify by the sound of the steel cap clinking heavily.
Boots which caused me damage as a young titan new to slavery.
I shuddered and automatically collapsed into a protective ball as I used to do when my master came to beat me for losing a fight.
"You useless creature!" my master roarer.
It felt so real. I heard his shout echo around the cave that was my home for several years. Spittle landed on my cheek, and I cringed in anticipation, tightening my hold on my legs and protecting my chest.
"Useless." Kick. "Creature." Whip.
I was catatonic with fear, my mind hazy as memories blurred with reality, and I didn't know if anything was true anymore. All the happiness from seeing my brother slipped away with the wind of each drawback of my master's foot and whip.
Despite years of being free, it seemed I was still a broken fighter on the inside as I fell easily into my coping mechanism. My imagination.
I pictured myself snatching the whip from his hand. Fighting him as I used to fight in the ring in his name. Delivering him the same pain he had caused me.
I would bleed him. Tie him down, tear open a wound in his arm, and take the blood from his veins and sell it. Let him watch as his friends tasted his blood in their wine glasses as they wandered around a grand room, in grand clothing, talking about the victories of people they owned.
And then I would kill him … Slowly … Ensure that the blood that flowed from his body never stopped, never healed, just poured and poured until the last drop and he was a shell. A useless, dead, shell of an evil akari.
Blood trickled over my face, and something, someone else, whispered, “Why can't you do that to him? You aren't a slave any longer.”
The voice was deep and firm. I grasped on to it desperately like it was a lifebuoy in a storm.
“Aren’t I?Are slaves ever free? Is the damage to their identity and will something they can ever truly heal from? Was I not too broken to be free of it entirely?”I argued with the voice and waited for its reply.
“You might be healing for a lifetime after your trauma, so you will never be as free as those who have never been captured. But you are as free as you want to be. You can allow your trauma to weigh you down, darken your soul, or you can choose better for yourself. And every new day, you choose again. You have always chosen well in the past. Why has this memory pinned you down so?”
Clawdia, Charlie, Daithi, Savida, the gods, Thos, the witches, the dragon, the protector, and even Alcor flashed across my mind in vivid pictures, and with them, came the powerful, tumultuous emotions attached with each person.
I knew the answer. My master was winning because I felt beaten. I felt more confused than ever, more afraid, more responsibility and shame and sadness and anger.
As a slave, I had lived with very few emotions. I blocked myself off from the happy memories of my childhood and survived by shutting down. Daithi and Savida opened my heart and mind back up to the world, allowing me to meet more people that I cared for, more people that I wanted to protect from the turmoil that followed us.
And it was draining, all this emotion and action. I was conflicted, wanting to embrace the love and joy from the world but also overwhelmed with the knowledge that I could lose everyone I cared for at any time. Again. I was weakened, and I was losing.
I understood how Clawdia felt when she returned to human form, because although I didn't show it, I was quaking on the inside. And I also understood how Daithi felt in his quest to protect Savida, because fear was trying to rule me and shut me down from feeling at all.
“Yes, you have a lot crowding your mind, and your emotions are controlling you. But you are not weak. And you have so much more to lose if you do not fight. Don't be swept under the wave of your feelings. Ride it. Use it to strengthen you. You can conquer him. Fight,”the voice urged.
As I continued to take the repetitive kicks and lashes, a ray of light appeared in my mind, and I was able to think more clearly for the first time since I was transported into my old cage.
My little cat would cry seeing me like this, not because she was ashamed, but because she wouldn't want me hurt. She wouldn't want me to take this just because my body and mind had momentarily regressed. She would want me to fight. She would be hurt, and so would Charlie if I didn't fight back.
And it was for them that I would.
Opening my eyes, I looked up at my master's evil red ones that glowed in the darkness, and when he drew back the whip, I pounced. Rapid and wild, I used my strength and skill to knock him to the ground, punching relentlessly.
