Flashback Choices

[Gad]

Continued from "Caught"

Summer 14, 505 AV Road to Zeltiva Now, why? Why was I here? Had I done something- I couldn't remember. The wind licking the lash wounds. That's all that I could feel. And the feet of the flies, they tickled. At least it took my mind off the blisters on my souls. The cracks of the whip were less often than they'd been the day before; I guess Coral was getting tired of it. I had stopped yelping every time it hit. It wasn't that it hurt less, or that I didn't want to give him the satisfaction, but just that I was exhausted, and having enough trouble catching my breath without squealing in pain whenever he decided the slice me with the leather whip again. I didn't much fear the crack anymore though. It was there, that ear splitting sound, as something of a friendly reminder. -crack!- “Don't fall over Gad!” -crack!- “Don't get too tired now Gad!” -crack!- “His horse'll trample you Gad!” Yeah. I remembered what The Captain had said to Coral about not wanting to loose anymore merchandise. That didn't mean I believed it. Or, I guess more importantly, that didn't mean Coral cared. So that's how it went. The sun shining there, the wind blowing, the trees all around. Salty sweat stun at the wounds, mixed with rusty blood and dripped a trail behind me. The Sun that shone heated my burning flesh, the wind licked it with painful kisses. The trees, they watched. Slow mechanical shock waves belted through my brain. Every half bell, the sing of the lash, boom. The sting of the lash, crack. I felt it. And what? Where was that goddess of the Sun? Or the trees? Where was the god of winds? What had I done to offend them? Maybe, I guessed, they hated me. Maybe they didn't like me. I had done something wrong to them. Was it because I let Jeff die? No, I wasn't responsible for that. I could reason that much, at least. That wasn't my fault. I didn't put him in the cage, or twist the knife. And I damn sure didn't make him homeless, or a drunk. I didn't put him there, and I didn't put me there either. I knew who did that. It was Clyde. And Fat Porter, and Porter junior. It was Wreck, and Tom, it was the Captain, and it was Coral. But there hands weren't the only ones. Every one, every God, I thought, they watched. I didn't know their names like I did the slavers. But whatever names they would have would be cursed by me. I was stolen. I was beaten and deceived. And as I was there, on the last of my breath, blisters on my feet popping as I stayed ahead of the lash, but never got away from, I knew I'd have my revenge. I didn't know how, or when. I didn't need too. It wasn't faith that preserved me. It was my hate. I even hated that. That feeling, of hatred, and how it ate at me. I almost confused it with myself, I almost hated myself. But I didn't. I knew where I was, in this machine that ate souls. I was there in the middle of the mill, getting ground to grist for what- I don't know. But I wasn't that machine, I wasn't the mill. Well, fuming in hot anger only get so far along in the Summer sun. I was on my last leg, so to speak. I fell over, heaving, on all fours, knees and elbows. My vision started to blur, and each time I blinked there was a delay, not just in my eyes opening but how long it took the dark to recede after they had. I gripped the soil. Underneath the top layer, it was cooler. I squeezed it until it was a tight dirt clod in my hand. Back behind me, I could hear Coral's horse whinny. Through the creases of my fingers, a dusky brown grasshopper crawled. His leathery body tickled the back of my hand as he crept across it, and then bounded off with the light buzz of fluttering wings. A bird came down, and ate him. That was life, I thought. Crawl out from the hand of some incomprehensible monster, only to get swallowed by the thing you'd avoided every day. Heroism was prolonging the inevitable. I could hear Coral slide off of his saddle, and the shaking, rattling of his spurs as his boots thudded to the ground. I stretched my fingers out now, feeling the compact of the earth where my corpse would lay forever. If it was a place to die, I supposed it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I started to tear up. Honestly, I can say, not on my own account.

[Gad]

It was Jeff, and well, everybody. My father who was gone, the mother I'd never met. Tina, Lefty, Tuck. Coral, the Porters, the Captain, Tom, Wreck, Clyde. Everyone I'd ever met. What was this for? For this? To die here? I felt bad. Like I'd done something wrong. Guilty. Jeff told me not to waste my life, that was yesterday. Today, I was going to die. I could hear Coral getting closer. Things were slow, and quiet, except that thud of his boots, the slow, dull shake of those spurs. Near the tips of the fingers on my left hand, there was something. Cool, cold. A stone. Yeah. A stone. A big one too. Heavy. Bigger than my hand and heavy. That dirt ball in my right hand, I dug more dirt in with my fingertips, making it bigger. I had a plan. Yeah, a real mother fucking plan. That dirt clod was bigger, and that stone was there in my grasp. I heard the leather on leather of Coral's whip sliding to the ground as he unfurled it. Yeah, come closer you snake eyed bastard. Come on, get real close. Not too close. Not close enough for you to want to whip me. There, just that close. Good. Perfect. Right there. And don't move. Something in me welled up. I could test metal in the back of my throat, a sour tinge like I'd been drinking out of a rusty pot. My head thumped. I pushed the weight off of my knees to the balls of my feet, I pivoted around. I was knelt down still, with that one eighty degree twist, I pushed off. Still low to the ground coming at him. Time still slow. He's blinking, he's eyes are closed. He doesn't see me at first. Then, his eyes are open. He sees me. Sees me pulling down on him like death, cold hate in my eyes. Nothing but death. There, his eyes go wide. Good. The dirt clod flies. Soil splashes in his face. He blinks and grinds debris in. Smart Coral didn't think about that too much now did he? His reflex is to flash the whip at me. Fine. I've had practice getting hit with whips. That's fine. I eat it, with my empty right hand, I just grab it, and I don't let go. I keep moving. I lob the stone at his face. It's quartz, I think. Pretty, translucent, sort of, pinkish. Maybe not quartz. I'm not a fucking geologist, who cares? It rolls off the ends of my fingertips. Spins till it meets his nose. Though now, I'm close enough to grab it again as it falls down his face. I do. I take it before it falls away from his chin. Snatch it back up and reintroduce it to his face. Again. I slam into him, and when he falls over, I go with. On the way down, he gets another nostril full of pink stone. The back of his head rebounds off the ground, and bounces up to meet his old friend, Mr. Pink Stone. Who graciously helps him back to the ground. They have another get together. Then Mr. Pink Stone wants to meet his right ear. He meets him twice. There's a knee that slams into Coral's chin. It's mine I think. It stops by his throat on the way out. I stand. The foot is where the knee was. I throw the rock from where I'm standing over him. It pops one of those pretty color changing eyes. Not out, just, off. Like -pop- gone, you have no eye now. I yank that whip out of his hands. I hear the rest of their crew up there, coming my way. That whips is mine though, now. I hit him with it twice, but I don't get carried away, it's not what I wanted. I stick to the plan. I take that water-skin of his. Half empty. No, no. Half-full. It was half full. It's half-full. Good. He gets a bare foot to the balls. More of my blisters pop, and I'm running the other way, the way I've been running, away from Sunberth. Though, now I'm going faster than I'd ever have when that whip was behind me. Now, I got six by my count. Coral ain't dead. So seven, if they got another one for him. Neither am I though. Dead, I mean. I'm chopping, my feet are hitting the ground like a bull stampede.

[Gad]

So, that was that. It turned out about as well as you'd expect. I got far, I think. It wasn't like they were keen to chase me now, it was more hassle than it was worth and they had somewhere to be I thought. I didn't stop to think too hard though. I'd been running when I thought my life depended on it, and now I know it did for sure. I eventually got out of their sight, or they out of mine, and I dove into the tree cover. Prickly tree vines, and rough barks scrapped me but they weren't whips, so the abuse of the tree-goddess was temporarily preferable to that of the whip gods. I stumbled and crunched through the foliage, rabbits and squirrels and crows went away from me. I found a log, and took a sip or two of that water. I tossed some over my shoulder, but when it stung my back I convulsed so bad my spine nearly popped out and I decided I'd just leave whatever was back there back there for now. I just sort of leaned forward then, resting my elbows on my knees. Well, damn. I hadn't really thought about it past then. I entertained some thoughts about stalking behind their wagons as they went, stealing food as I needed it. Maybe even do that thing where I steal the keys, I might be able free some of the other slaves and out number them. Yeah, something like that. Sleep overtook me. I leaned forward, nodded off. Fade to black. And then there was a rustling. I shook the flies off, and I blinked away the dark, and everything was golden hued. Sundown, almost. My body was sluggish and in pain, but I pushed my mind's weariness down. I rose up, got dizzy, and ducked down. I grasped my stolen whip and water-skin. Chopping through the nearby greenery was Tom and cross-eyed Wreck. I heard Tom call out it a strange bird call. The rattling buzz of a crow call shook through my skin to my bones. I looked up to see the crow on a branch above me ruffling it's plumage. I ducked lower. Tom called again, and the bird seemed to respond. It cocked it's head and looked at me with a full, black eye. Tom shouted. “He's over there!” It took me a flash to piece together he'd been conversing with the crow, but it didn't matter much because I was already gone. I was crashing through the thick brush, my feet were stabbed every so often with sharp twigs and rocks but I didn't let it deter me much, I couldn't. Wreck and Tom were close by, they seemed a little less keen to go bounding through the tight brush to which I had already resigned myself. For me, it was a haven. I suppose when the choice was between the semi-uncomfortable leather saddle and the spiny and perhaps poisonous foliage you'd long for the former. But between the latter, and being beaten to death with whips... Of course, I didn't have an overabundance of time to ponder such things. A crossbow bolt slice the air over my shoulder. Nope, can't go that way. I swerved and zigzagged across fallen logs and around broad trees. They were still in pursuit. So much for not damaging the merchandise, because they were clearly shooting to kill. I got good off into that brush though, and was able to gain some ground on them. I came up to another crow on a stump. Somewhere in the back I heard Tom's damn cooing. Before the bird started to ruffle up it's feathers and squawk back to him, I leveled that stolen whip and swung it at him. He fluttered up, just in time, and was about to sing out before I brought the whip around again. It missed and he dodge, but quickly, on the third try I was able to snap him across the wing and breast with the whip. He went down and I crushed his little head with a heavy branch. Damn bird. I scurried off deeper into the woods, deciding to take my chances with the monsters I could imagine over the one's I knew for sure. I was able to make off deeper and deeper until the two of them lost interest and turned back. I waited a few breaths, and then started following them, to see where they were going, but I made sure to do so real softly and stay low, and quiet. They were usually out of sight for me but they did me the good favor of carrying on a conversation and generally just smashing though the foliage without much grass so that it was easy to keep their position by ear. When I started to get close to the treeline, I held off, and just followed from the woods along the path they were taking. Eventually, they got to their horses and rode off down the path. I followed in that direction, but quietly, slowly. It wasn't till half a bell after sun down that I spotted their camp from the glow of the fire. Of course, I didn't get too close, but I decided I'd rather nod off in the general vicinity of other humans than not. I found a tree, and leaned forward against it with my shoulder, facing the direction of their fire almost a hundred yards off. Again, the dark overtook me.

To be concludedCheck out the bloody end of Gad's adventure in slavery in "Catharsis", coming soon! lul