The heart of a beast

He was sure that it was her...almost. He walked briskly down the pavement, overtaking several fellow pedestrians. She wore a white top and a flowing blue skirt. Her hair flew tantalizingly behind her as it used to all those years ago.

...

It had been years since she had last seen him, and even from the corner of her eye she could tell that he was watching her. The memories began to spring back to life in her mind as vivid as they were the first time around. Her surroundings began to take a different mould. What was a pavement occupied by bustling people just seconds ago, became a cobblestoned walkway surrounded by walls of jagged stone. Hushed whispers and the agonizing clang of chains against uneven, spiked rocks were all she heard for months, and all she heard months after she was free. She walked the path she remembered so well, following the strained and pained voices. Each stride over the smooth, rounded stone sent tremors like an earthquake shooting up from the balls of her feet to the entirety of her body. It took all her will power to move forward, to remind herself that it was over, that she had made it out and would never be sent back Into that abyss again.

In all her years living in her poor village never did she think she would one day be labeled as a slave. There was nothing her village had to show for other than the sea port that though, had little business, was enough to keep the village people alive and well until the next week came around with more goods. The villagers were kind hearted people who shared everything they owned with one another despite their poor living conditions. Houses were run down and poorly made, always needing to be patched up from one side or the other. But she could have sworn up and down that they were the happiest people alive. But the second the gates to the village were brought down she knew her life would never be the same again. Fire and smoke engulfed the small houses. Villagers were killed in the crossfire. Even the sea was littered with bodies, the blood spreading across the water. What was her home and only refuge, gone.

She was dragged along with whoever was left from the village into a dark hollowed mine that existed just north of the small town she lived in. According to her captors the mine had enough riches to build an entire city out of nothing. Enough to have kept them all in a far more better condition than the way they were living. She was forced to work in the mines alongside, children and adults capable and incapable. Even the elderly were required to work unless the guards were in a merciful mood, which was hardly ever the case. For months she endured cold sleepless nights, blistered and bleeding fingers, and deep rumbling growls of hunger. She had no hope of leaving the mines. She had seen what happened to those who attempted to flee, and she was in no mood to be

beheaded or skinned and later left for the hell hounds that they had chained up in the deeper parts of the mines to be chewed up.

Her biggest mistake and her best was made the day she witnessed the guards beating up an elderly man. His face contorted with pain. Blood spilling out of every gash, old and new. His cries for help rang out but, no one dared to step a foot out of line. Everything happened in a haze. Her fingers were locked around the handle of an axe she didn't remember picking up, what used to be dirt and sweat coating the front of her dress turned to blood, and the horror on the faces of the men surrounding her became even more evident the moment she decided to give the axe a new home, in the back of one of the attackers. All she remembered after that was loud, angry voices shouting things she couldn't make out, and a strong blow to the head that left her vision blurry, seeing everything sideways. Then it went dark.

She woke up in a gray stoned cell, with numb wrists bound together by thick, scratchy rope, and beady-eyes watching her every breath from a small opening in the stone doorway. Eventually, they removed her binds and gave her one meal each day. The so called meal consisted of stale bread and murky water that was passed off as soup.

For days she plotted her escape. When the guards came in with her meal the next night is when she decided it was time she executed it. She lay down on the cold ground, unmoving, pretending to be on the brink of death. the second guard was foolish enough to bend down next to her. And then she got up quick, and landed a punch to the side of his face. He staggered back slightly and she lunged for his sword. The first guard was a bit off. He just stared at her. His eyes hardly visible under his hood, not bothering to lend a hand to his companion. When she emerged with the sword shakily In her hands she prepared herself to deliver the blow, to get ready for the spray of blood but, when she opened her eyes her hands were still in place, and the second guard had killed her target for her. She backed up against the wall. The sword raised between her and the hooded figure. His appearance took another form. The form of a monster. The form of a bat-like creature with talons at the ends of what used to be human fingers. In one swift movement he had her tucked under his wings, and had thrown his body with brute force into the glass window. She felt glass splinters against what was exposed of her body, and saw the ground beneath her. The ground he was headed straight towards. The moment they had hit solid ground her first instinct was to stab the beast but, even now when blood trickled from his chest between his talons she saw no malice or hatred in his deep blue slit eyes. That look never left her. She'd always remember the day she was saved by a monster. A monster who had helped free her and her people. The day the beauty had met the beast. The beast that wasn't a beast at all.