The Thieves of Otar

The Escape

The pain was excruciating. Zia felt like her whole body was on fire. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the pain, but it didn't work. The blows from her father just kept coming. She wished she would just black out from the pain, but no such luck.

Finally, her father seemed to grow tired of beating his daughter, and the blows stopped coming. Zia dared to open one of her swollen eyes and lifted her head off of the ground where she had been curled up to protect herself. Her drunken father was stumbling away, every once in a while taking a drink out of a dusty glass bottle he carried in his right hand.

Zia slowly pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet. It was a painful process, but Zia was used to it. Her body was covered with purple and blue bruises and a few cuts here and there. Though she was only six, she was strong and was able to bear the pain.

Zia slowly crept to her room and silently closed the door. She knew that if she were to attract her father's attention again, she'd receive another beating.

Zia had learned much in her six years and most things she had learned the hard way. She had learned that her father was an abusive drunk and that her mother had died when she was very young. She knew that she would receive a beating for asking about her mother, her father's past-life, dropping something while cleaning, or not cleaning something well enough. She knew that everyone in the kingdom of Otar hated the King and Queen for putting such high taxes on the kingdom. She knew that her father hated her, and loved fire whiskey and beer in her place.

Zia knew all this, but the people of Otar didn't. If anyone did know, her father would have long ago been arrested and tried for his crimes. As far as anyone was concerned, the cries of pain that came from the small, shabby house she where dwelt came from Zia waking from horrible nightmares- at least, that was what she had heard her father telling anyone who inquired about it.

Zia slowly walked over the stack of straw that was her bed and lay down, trying not to move so she wouldn't upset her new scars. She felt like crying, but she couldn't. Her eyes had long ago dried up of their tears, and it would take too much energy to cry. She knew she had many chores she needed to get done if she were to avoid another encounter with her father's feet and fists, but she was too tired.

She laid there, alone in the dark of her closet of a room on her hay bed, a moth-eaten blanket over her bruised and beaten body. She stared out the tiny window that showed the late evening sun as it gently kissed the horizon.

Zia knew that it was her job to make herself and her father dinner- it always was. But she had learned a long time ago from many sleepless and hungry nights that there would be no food for her unless she secretly set it aside.  She also knew that if supper wasn't ready before dark, she would receive another beating.

Slowly, grunting as she did, Zia rose from her bed and let the hole-decorated blanket fall off her small frame. She stiffly walked over to her door and gently pulled it open. She gazed around the room, making sure her father wasn't there. Seeing that he was not, she slipped between the crack in the door and found herself in the kitchen.

She plunged her hands into the basin full of cold water and washed the layers of dirt and grime off of her all the way up to her elbows. She cupped some water in her hands and splashed it in her face and proceeded to scrub it clean.

She felt better after washing. It was as if all the cuts and bruises went away when they were wet. She thought unhappily of how they would ache once they had dried.

She dug around in the pantry to look for food and pulled out four dirty, rotting potatoes. It wasn't much, but it was all that she had. She would have to get her father in a good mood to get him to go buy something more to eat at the market tomorrow- her father never let her out of the house for more than a few minutes at a time.