The Wolf and the Natural ✔️

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CONSTANCE
Constance couldn't scream any more. She lost her voice. She had other means of making noise though.

She slammed her chains on the floor, angrily running at the door and banging on it.

Eventually Becker came and sat in the room with her. He had an invisible shield around him that Constance was trying to take down.

He wouldn't.

Here dead voice mangled out cusses and threats, pleads and cries. Becker just sat there. Every once in a while he would say, "you're not alone."

Constance was beginning to think he was stuck on autopilot while listening to her.

She finally sat down criss cross applesauce in front of him and cried, laying on the concrete floor.

She looked at her cut up arms. "You let this happen to me." She cried.

Konrad didn't give her chains at first. She didn't have that pleasure. It started with strong thorny vines holding her back that dug and cut, scratching and tearing.

She had never been tortured by Konrad but she remembered what it did to Arlis. How he turned out.

She remembered one night that she checked on him

"Arlis?" She knocked on the door and walked into his room. She shook him awake from his screaming dream. "Arlis." She said softly.

He widened his eyes, breathing heavily as he shot out of bed, his dark hair glistening with sweat. He had soaked his sheets with it too.

"It's just a dream." She whispered, crawling into the bed with him and cradling his head in her lap. "It was just a nightmare."

He took a deep breath. "But that's the thing Constance."

She tilted her head at him.

"That wasn't a nightmare. That was a memory. A memory filled with only ghosts of pain." He shuddered and wiped his face. "You can't feel pain in dreams. So I didn't feel that pain but I remembered it." He cried.

Becker came into the room and sat on the other side of Arlis. "I can help you forget, Arlis.

Arlis shook his head. "I don't want to forget. I want to remember. I want to remember and deal with my pain because otherwise my scars mean nothing and I've let him win."

Constance shook her head. "Arlis it's okay to take the Dream potion. You're not sleeping like this."

He sat up from Constance's lap. "You guys don't understand. I buried my parent's death in me except for one day of the year. I will not hide from this. This is who I am. If I bury this... if I run from it... I'm hiding from myself."

Constance felt the scars on her stomach, the ones Konrad gave her when he... Constance shook it from her mind. "Okay." She said. "Okay." She laid down on the bed and Becker followed suit.

"Promise me something, guys." Arlis asked.

Constance turned up to look at him. "What?"

"If any of us get taken again, we won't blame each other if we... if we give up." Arlis cried. "I was so close to giving up. And I don't think I'd blame you guys if you did."

Constance moved her hand over her stomach thinking about the memory. "Becker. I love you. And I'm sorry."

Becker nodded back to her. "I'm sorry to Connie." He muttered. "I know... it's hard to be here. I know what memory you're thinking of because the same one is running through my head. But Arlis was wrong. We don't need to give up."