Heir of Beasts

Ch. 3.2- Sweat and Honey

                   

As soon as the door shuts, my mood darkens. The tears I choked back minutes ago threaten to return, as do the thoughts of last night's nightmares. Memories of blood and bullets beat against a barred door deep inside my mind, trying desperately to break free. I push them back with force.

         It's only a few hours, I tell myself. She'll be back in five hours. You can get through that, easy.

         But five hours isn't always five hours, I've learned. Isolation has a way of playing tricks on you. Time slows down and speeds up at odd intervals, so days might last for months, or nights for years. A second might seem slower and thicker than honey dripping off of a spoon.

         Time might've been moving normally a few minutes ago, but now that Halima's gone, it's all but stopped. Each second hesitates before letting the next have its turn. The present seems to swallow the future. Those five hours, just five hours could contain an eternity.

         I sigh, sitting down in the chair near my bookcase. It's not just the room that's trapped me, I realize, but time itself. I'm both physically and temporally confined, and there's nothing I can do about it.

         I can't break out of this damned room; I've tried, and tried, and each time the guards caught me before I made it halfway down the hall. And I can't make time speed up; I try to distract myself with books, with playing word games, even with counting the cracks in the ceiling, but there's still always too much of it between waking up and sleeping.  Too much time when I'm alone with my memories.

         She's coming back, don't worry, I tell myself, trying to soothe the anxiety swirling inside of me. Only five hours, then you'll see her again.

         I almost laugh at how desperately I cling to Halima's visits each day. Just half an hour of chatter with a child, and I await her like a starving man awaits food, counting down the minutes.

         But I can't help it. Halima might've been just my maid before, but she's become my lifeline. When she's here, I remember how to smile. I feel human again. She brings food, and conversation, and a steadying sliver of normalcy.

         It never lasts, though. Already I feel that sliver slipping away.

         The room is empty, but my mind starts to fill it in. My eyes linger in the shadowed corners, waiting for movement. I see something something flicker in my peripheral vision and turn a bit too sharply, when I know it's just the curtain billowing in the wind.  

         Someone is watching you, my fearful mind tries to convince me. Someone is watching you somehow. They probably have a gun. You should get away from the window so they don't have a clear shot. You should get under the bed, it's safer under there-

         I take a deep breath, trying to stop my panicked thoughts from building more momentum. In through the nose, out through the mouth, like Shira taught me when we were young. Your heart is racing because it's getting ready to fight. But there's nothing here to fight, no danger. Relax now. No one's watching.

         I sink into the chair, relaxing the tension in my muscles. Of course there's nothing there. The stone walls are several feet thick, the door is shut, and I'm far enough from the window that even if someone was able to climb the three stories to look in, they wouldn't see me.

         Yet I can't entirely shake the feeling I'm being observed.

         Maybe it's the Eye of the Goddess, I think sardonically, come to watch over me.