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fiery-assassin-arc · 7 years

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Keys to Survival

Chapter 20 (holy shit...) of Of Shadows and Flames. I may end up finishing soon... like at least 30 chapters I hope.

Triggers: broken bones, wounds, blood mention, hallucinations.

Enjoy!

Removing dressings can be a real bitch.

Due to the excruciating pain my back has given me, I am only halfway through with removing the old dressing when my wounds begin to ache. I guess the healing process is taking effect after a week.

The ache is caused by a sinful heat that makes fire blush at the prospect of being so painful and destructive. Muscle and skin do their best to fix themselves, to close and heal the wounds caused by the whip.

I haven't even considered practicing with it since I stole it in my escape. It feels it's a part of me due to it taking ribbons of my flesh and splashing blood. Yet I wonder . . . I wonder if I can add my fire to the metal and leather, make it more lethal than it was originally.

My fingers close around the leather handle, and stare at the tails. The tails that are stained with my blood, the dirt from being dragged on the ground. This once belonged to Kano, but it is mine. My memento of my escape, of my agony.

“Iris!” Jess shouts from downstairs. “Can you come down, please? We need to talk to you.”

My throat feels tight, fearing the absolute worst is yet to come. I can't even feel optimistic that my parents survived and found me. I lost that hope the day the old me died in that building, chained. “Be down in a second!” I call.

I clean up the wound, placing a new wrapping around my abdomen, as slowly as I can. I even bite my tongue to conceal my moans of pain. Within two minutes, I have done an adequate job in replacing the old dressings. And it angers me that I it isn't right. It looks off by an angle, and tape tugs at my skin with every twist.

I descend down the stairs, quickly scanning to see photographs here. None, but paintings and forms of taxidermy. When I reach the final step, I am greeted by Hayley, who sucks her thumb while holding a stuffed animal.

“Iwis.” she says, smiling brightly and hugging my leg. I don't understand why she's been so attached to me, but I have to get used to it. Though, it reminds me of her. Her violet eyes and bright smile. Her way of sticking the tip of her tongue out. Her wrapping her fingers around my wrist, then my hand touching her face—

I give a sharp exhale and try to shake her off. I can't be swept back into that day. “Hi, Hayley. Did you eat lunch?” “Yes.” Her thumb leaves her mouth with a loud pop! as she tugs at my braid. She looks adorable that way. “Kishen.”

“Let's go, shall we?” I offer, letting her lead me towards the kitchen. I wonder if they have a calendar here. I kept track of my time by weeks, but not by the month. Last I recall it was June, now I am unsure on what day it is. What month. Does Outworld have the same year?

Hannah is doing the dishes, hand wrapped around a soaking dish cloth while Jess eats a plate of green vegetables. Cravings, I guess. Lazur and T are going over something in books. I look at what reflects the calendar back home, and see the date. July.

It's now July.

Exactly 6 months since she passed.

“Mommy!” Hayley announces, alerting our presence in the kitchen. Her hand release their grip on my finger, and she goes to wrap her small body around Hannah's leg. I fold my hands in front of me, feeling so, so out of place here.

“Have a seat,” says Lazur, not even looking in my direction.

I do as he says, twisting a loose piece of thread from the new shirt. It was once Jess', so a hand-me-down of sorts. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all, honey.” Hannah says, putting down the wet cloth. “We're just wondering what you wish to do while you recover from your injuries.”

I want to go home and mourn the possible deaths of my family and friends, but I am unsure on how to find a portal here. I can't be a burden to this family, they're so full of life, and I . . . I am a puppet without a master to pull my strings. “I'm not sure.”

“Maybe you can watch Hayley and T.” Jess suggests, hand on her swollen belly. “And watch this little fella. Hayley does love a playmate.”

I glance at Hayley, who pops her thumb in her mouth, grinning brightly. “Okay, I can do that. Anything else?”

“I could teach you some cooking techniques. You know how to cook?” Lazur pipes up.

I give a shake of my head. I only know how to add things in the bowl or lick the spoon. Never on how to create things from scratch.

“Then, I'll give you a hand.” He turns his body in the chair, arms draped along his lap. “I've always needed a helping hand.” He glances towards the children, who aimlessly avoid his look.

“No clue what you're talking about, Papa.” Jess says, braiding her hair to distract her hands. T flips a page in his book while Hayley holds on to my forefinger.

“Mm-hmm.” He tsks, looking up in my direction. “Maybe you can help me make dinner tonight, what do you say to that?”

I can't help but nod, but my throat is sealed shut. I remember vaguely of helping nanny Katrina in making food for Mother and Father on their anniversary. I don't even know if she survived the attack on the palace. My hand circles around my neck, melting the cold lump of ice inside my throat. It's still there, inside me.

I miss my family.

“All right, that's settled.” Hannah claps her hands. “Hungry, love?” Her smile is light, and I can't help but to grin back, confirming my answer. I need food to increase my healing.

When I heal from an injury, it takes a lot out of my body. The cells doing their best to repair the torn skin and muscle. In perspective, scrape takes no longer than a full 1 hour. Enough to scab and turn into bright pink flesh. A broken bone, depending on how large a fracture, can heal in the span of one or two weeks. (My fingers are still crooked; it'd take a while for me to adjust them correctly.) My scars, are another story.

They haven't scabbed over yet. They're still huge, gaping, bleeding on occasion, and I sleep with tight bandages restricting my breathing. I need months or years to heal from this. And every time I look in the three-way mirror of my room, I see the lacerations of my back, shielded by my hair. A shroud to conceal my worst side.

I accept the sandwich Hannah gives me, and lift a whining Hayley on my lap. She calms in my arms, moving her head to look at me, thumb still in her mouth. I see her again.

How I saw her when I was a toddler, her nursing her thumb. How she always held my hand, how she played with my stuffed rabbit. How her brown hair was trapped with mine due to us playing with mud in her papa's backyard.

Her violet eyes shining bright that day at Kelly's sleepover, making me happy. How our roles felt reversed when I was heartbroken after Yvette and I split, and she came to my home, with ice cream and a reasonable explanation why I should still be Yvette's friend. I had cried in her lap, and she smoothed the tresses of my hair, then braided it into a beautiful french twist.

She was my key to survival. She made my day brighter, and now it's a vicious storm cloud, growing darker and building up massive waves of heat so it can be a thunderstorm. My skin starts to flare,

“Iwis!”

Hayley's voice rips me from the memories swarming in my head like bees. Before I can figure out why she snatched me back, I realize my other half of sandwich is missing. I look down to see her, chewing on the crumbs and meat inbetween. “Oh, you little sneak!”

Hayley laughs and continues to eat as I rub my face in her wild curls. Something is tugging at my lips. I haven't felt it in the weeks I've been captured, I've been in a relationship and was engaged.

Whatever it is, I miss it.

* * *

It's been over two weeks since I've made myself at home, and useful here in the Cardons' residence. Hayley and I have bonded greatly, clinging to my leg wherever I go, and she loves bath time. T is almost like what I picture Nick was at the age of ten. But more of the attitude of an asshole; I admire that.

Jess and I have talked about what she thought the gender of her baby is. Since Outworld is so out of date with technology, there are no such things as “sonograms” or “ultrasounds.” Only pure intuition or guessing on genders. Or by how you carry.

Lazur has taught me the basics of cooking: boiling, cutting meat and vegetables, pan searing it until it's well done. (Yet the dragon in me wants it cooked medium well.) I burned breakfast the first two times, and Lazur did not yell or say I failed. He said it happens, and he showed me how to be patient. A virtue when impatience is my vice.

I wake up entangled in my long hair, sweat soaking the front of my shirt. The air in the house is cool from the windows, but it only makes my skin hotter and hotter. Another nightmare? I shift my head to see the night clouded by little stitches of constellations.

I roll out of my bed, bare feet tracking along the wooden floor, while a slight twinge of pain strikes my abdomen. I ignore it, going downstairs, and making my way to the back garden, the cool summer air of Outworld a relief to me.

The grass is lush and green, surrounded by patches of gold sand and grains. Trees are full and blooming of fruit, apples from the color. Moonlight splashes like a glass of white champagne, filling me with light. The wind lifts some of my hair to life, and the smell of blood, trying its best to send me into memory.

I collapse to the dirt, hands digging it in, and I am sucked back inside the building with the Black Dragon.

The outside is replaced with walls color of the sandy dunes of desert, my hands are not free and set loose. They are bound and dirty and bloody with fingers broken beyond my recognition when I see the white of the bones.

I hear nothing but the incessant whirring of the machine, feel nothing but a terrible chill that bites at my orifices, taste nothing but bile and blood, smell nothing but alcohol and cigar smoke, see nothing but black military boots, my clothes from school torn and dirtied.

“Learned your lesson, love?” Kano's voice is anything BUT soothing, in fact; it is a mockery of being someone caring. He doesn't have the capability of caring for someone, only money and the fact that his job is what he is. He feeds on my misery, my pain like it is a delicious supper and can't get enough. “Always listen to what I have to say.”

I am tied in the rope, unable to do anything but stare and breathe. Stare. Breathe. Blink. If looks could kill, I would have only pricked his hand while his say he would spend his sweet time making me die in the most brutal ways possible.

My voice is trapped inside my larynx, a shiver taking over while I bite my tongue. Blood is pooling in my mouth and I cannot do anything but let it sit. I have the urge to gag, to scream. I have screamed for over 3 hours, which is 180 minutes, which is 108,00 seconds.

He stalks towards me and walks in a complete 360 degree circle, hand casually rubbing his beard as he inspects me. He probably thinks my brain is a safe, and through cracking me, the combination will open and the family secrets will be revealed.

But he should know that I have no knowledge. I close my eyes and bow my head, not wanting to look at his face. The image of him is burned into my retinas. The glowing red eye, the calculating, vicious smirk atop his face.

A hand grabs my chin, and a tight pinch forces me to open my mouth, then my eyes with a soft squeak. I'm staring at his face. Wrinkles creased, the salt and pepper of his shortly cropped hair and his beard, the hook of his nose, crooked from possibly one too many breaks. Eye that is not so much brown as it is black, color of fertilizer. The other eye, the cybernetic, is completely a half done trapezoid, blazing a bright red and then back to a soft red, like a stoplight for traffic.

“Look. At. Me.” he says, every breath of the word stained by rancid air, every syllable a threat, a warning, an order to listen and never be insubordinate.

I don't. I don't I don't I don't want to because I hate how he stares at me, and I hate how weak and ded I feel in front of him, I am no more than a puppet and he holds the strings to make me talk with knives and fists and bruised knuckles

“Iris.”

Sweat lines my forehead and continues to soak my shirt, my pants and I feel sick and I am dying, but I look up to see Hannah standing over me, shoes covered in mud and grass, hair piled up in a messy updo. “You're sweating, love. Perhaps a fever?”

I snake my hand through my hair, curly now from the sweat. “I—I don't know—I am sorry for having a flashback—I-I just—I am such a—” My lips tremble, and I let myself break down in front of Hannah for what is the first time since she's seen me.

“Baby? Are you okay?”

No, No I am NOT OKAY. BORN IN THE RIVER AND I DO NOTHING BUT BRING DEATH AND MISERY TO EVERYTHING I TOUCH. Hannah shifts, body distorts into Kano, a smirk capturing his face and the intent to kill me. He twirls his knife in a circle, pinched between his fingertips.

“Miss me, love?”

I scramble on my hands and knees, the muscle inside of my chest pounding and kicking at my ribcage. My vision is blurring, tears are sliding down my cheeks and my stomach lurches with a ache similar to a stab wound. I push against a stand, crashing a flower pot to the floor as everything around me is sending me back. Back to when I lost Remy.

Remington has his back to me, head leaned down, and I see the wound. The blood on his body. He collapses on top of me, breathing much too fast and much too short. I can hear his heartbeat slow.

“Run.” he mouths to me, exhaling one more time.

Back to when my brothers were harmed, back to when I lost HER.

Mia lays there in the water, her body floating still by the creek. Her shirt is bloody on the left side, skin a bluish-pale. Her violet eyes are dim, and her hands are still clenched in fists. A wound is still on her head, and it's covered in dried blood and her brown hair. She almost looks like she's daydreaming.

People part like the Red Sea as I walk towards her body, kneel. I see a bloody knife by her side. I reach over, but someone stops me. “She's gone. Killed herself.”

“Mia,” I say, gently touching her cheek. It is wet and cold. I can almost feel my heart breaking. “Mia, no, Mia!”

The scream is torn from my throat as I fall on her lifeless body, holding it tight. I wish I can bring her back. Margaret is at my side, and I feel her tears on my shoulder.

My heart is hurting me, and I feel the spit in my mouth dry up. I can't think, I can't feel anything due to my body reacting and Kano is walking towards me, and I hear it all over again

SNAP! CRACK! SNAP! CRACK! SNAP! CRACK!

Red and Black bleed through my vision, and I fall to the side, my heart forever racing, trying to escape its captor, it's villain for doing this.

#🔪👑🔥🔪Of Shadows and Flames #🌵🌹She's a Cactus in Bloom; Sharp and Pretty ( young visage )#👳🏻🍂She Nursed Me back to Health ( Mommy Hannah )#tw: blood #tw: broken bones #tw: hallucination

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