23rd Spring, 503AV
The Yasi squeezed herself tightly into a ball on her bed, her eyes closed tightly as if that would keep the tears in. The pain had been threatening to escape all day but she had gone about her bendi without showing the slightest sign of how distraught she was. Nobody could see the way her insides were being shredded, the way her heart twisted and squeezed in her chest. Nobody had thought that anything unusual was going on inside her. She was not very talkative normally so nobody noticed that she hadn’t said one word all day. There was nobody who cared either that she was suffering in silence. She was just “that weird girl” so who would care about her.
Azira couldn’t believe that it had been exactly a year since her life had changed forever yet the pain was still as raw a year later. The healers had told her that time would dull the pain, would make life bearable again. She was young after all so she would recover from the ordeal but in fact she’d say that the pain had only grown worse over time. Her nights were haunted with memories of sightless eyes, of bloody lips and she always woke up screaming. Nobody came to check anymore if she was being murdered in her bed and she’d gotten better at muffling her screams now anyway.
The other Yasi thought that she was weird. She couldn’t take a joke, didn’t laugh, didn’t smile. When she’d arrived in the Yasi quarters, she’d been so withdrawn that nobody knew what to make of her. When other children tried to be friendly towards her, she had just stared at them with eyes older than her years until they came to the conclusion that she was a freak. After that the children had begun to torment her instead, goad her to the point where she would snap, where she would throw their vicious words and worse ones right back at them. They only seemed to decide that she was even stranger and so took their revenge by continuing their torments.
A year of enduring, that’s what she’d done. Pain and weakness was something that she’d quickly learned to hide and so nobody knew how she felt now. It meant that she couldn’t weep openly, couldn’t show how much agony because it was the first anniversary of her mother’s death. None of them knew that her mother was dead, some wouldn’t understand such an alien concept as “mother”, a number of the Yasi having been raised in the nurseries so they couldn’t possibly understand.
The girl stretched out again, gasping at the effort to try to remain sane. She had had to run before dinner, unable to hold herself together anymore in the company of the others so she had made her escape while she could. She knew that if she didn’t return soon that they would know there was something wrong with her and her peers would delight at the chance to inflict more pain. Azira had to appear normal so she rose from her bed, took a few deep breaths and made her way to the Kitchens.
The Yasi squeezed herself tightly into a ball on her bed, her eyes closed tightly as if that would keep the tears in. The pain had been threatening to escape all day but she had gone about her bendi without showing the slightest sign of how distraught she was. Nobody could see the way her insides were being shredded, the way her heart twisted and squeezed in her chest. Nobody had thought that anything unusual was going on inside her. She was not very talkative normally so nobody noticed that she hadn’t said one word all day. There was nobody who cared either that she was suffering in silence. She was just “that weird girl” so who would care about her.
Azira couldn’t believe that it had been exactly a year since her life had changed forever yet the pain was still as raw a year later. The healers had told her that time would dull the pain, would make life bearable again. She was young after all so she would recover from the ordeal but in fact she’d say that the pain had only grown worse over time. Her nights were haunted with memories of sightless eyes, of bloody lips and she always woke up screaming. Nobody came to check anymore if she was being murdered in her bed and she’d gotten better at muffling her screams now anyway.
The other Yasi thought that she was weird. She couldn’t take a joke, didn’t laugh, didn’t smile. When she’d arrived in the Yasi quarters, she’d been so withdrawn that nobody knew what to make of her. When other children tried to be friendly towards her, she had just stared at them with eyes older than her years until they came to the conclusion that she was a freak. After that the children had begun to torment her instead, goad her to the point where she would snap, where she would throw their vicious words and worse ones right back at them. They only seemed to decide that she was even stranger and so took their revenge by continuing their torments.
A year of enduring, that’s what she’d done. Pain and weakness was something that she’d quickly learned to hide and so nobody knew how she felt now. It meant that she couldn’t weep openly, couldn’t show how much agony because it was the first anniversary of her mother’s death. None of them knew that her mother was dead, some wouldn’t understand such an alien concept as “mother”, a number of the Yasi having been raised in the nurseries so they couldn’t possibly understand.
The girl stretched out again, gasping at the effort to try to remain sane. She had had to run before dinner, unable to hold herself together anymore in the company of the others so she had made her escape while she could. She knew that if she didn’t return soon that they would know there was something wrong with her and her peers would delight at the chance to inflict more pain. Azira had to appear normal so she rose from her bed, took a few deep breaths and made her way to the Kitchens.
x
