If You Feel Better

Chapter 45

Aya found herself being bashed and shoved against the wooden bars of a large cage on wheels. It was clearly made with no regard for who or what would be inside as every pebble, dip, and bump along the trail would shake and shift the cage roughly, bruising Aya's already mangled back as she leaned up against the side as comfortably as she could.

She had woken up to find herself locked inside, arms and legs bandaged up, blood cleaned off, and wrists tightly tied together with a thin cord. The bars only offered thin stripes of shadow, but otherwise she had no shield from the heat of the sun above.

Her saviors, also her captors, were up front, driving the horse from a comfy seat of a carriage, conversing with each other casually as if they didn't have a prisoner just behind them. They paid no attention to her, as if she were just an animal that wouldn't be able to understand them if they tried. They hadn't spoken a word to her or even turned around to look at her, so she had no idea what they looked like. From the back, she could tell that they were extremely tan, no doubt from spending a good majority of their lives underneath the harsh sun. They wore headdresses to offer some protection and cheap, flax clothes over the rest of them. She could tell that they were nothing more than peasants, but by the looks of her situation, she also assumed they weren't good people.

At one point, they stopped to stretch their legs and take a drink. Aya was so incredibly thirsty that watching them chug water could have been classified as torture in itself. She had been sweating the entire time, losing all the water she had drunk from the oasis in a matter of hours. After the two men had drunk their share, they poured a good amount into a basin to then give their horse. After the horse was satisfied, one man came around back with the basin to Aya, not having replaced the water or adding more to it.

He had a full, dark beard and mustache, harsh lines carving his face from years of exposure. A large mole bulged under his right eye, bulbous with two thick, dark hairs protruding outward. "Hey girly," he said with a gruff rasp. "Time for a drink." Without warning, he tossed the water over Aya, drenching her body without actually giving her a sip. He walked away laughing heartily, leaving Aya soaked and still parched.

Anger seeped through her veins, but she did not to lash out. There was no actual way to reach them locked in her cage and she refused to give them the satisfaction of an outburst. Instead, she began sucking the water off of every piece of her skin before it could evaporate to the air. Though it was the horse's secondhand water and not at all fresh, she needed to get as much of it into her body as possible if she was going to survive. There would be plenty of time to deal with these two horrible men later. She needed to focus on getting herself through for now.

They carted her all the way from the oasis, across a seldom traveled trail within the desert, and to a somewhat large city. Once on the outskirts, Aya immediately recognized the voices of other people and struggled to her knees to look out. With her two wrists forced to act as one, she grabbed onto one of the bars and pressed her face out as far as she could between two of them. The rickety cart wreaked havoc on her knees with each obstacle they rode over, but she endured the pain just to observe her surroundings and hopefully have someone notice her.

She was completely visible to the people passing by, but they didn't bother to give her a second glance. Fully used to seeing people brought in by cages, nothing about this one was remarkable in any way. So, while the other civilians saw her bound against her will in a cage, they turned the other cheek and ignored her as it was nothing unusual.

Dismayed and in disbelief from the nonchalant reactions, her hope decreased with every new person she passed. She pleaded with desperate eyes across every denizen, begging silently for help only to be met with indifference and ennui. Even in the heart of the city, bustling with crowds, no one batted an eye.