Amorette's Offenses

Out of the Darkness

Out of the Darkness

Amorette tried to run. She tried to get away. Her broken and beaten body wasn't able to take more than a couple steps before the world came crashing down around her, pummeling her into the ground, and burying her under the weight of her own failure.

As she fell, as she was crushed, the last few hours replayed in her mind with horrific clarity and detail, as if to remind her of her own powerlessness.

Knees broken, shoulder broken, arm ripped through by a ruthless blade, she had been forcibly shackled to the largest, central pillar that carried the bulk of the weight of the massive Gold District plate that, for the entirety of her life, she had only known to be over her head. The metal chains combined with her own broken body meant that summoning her great strength to try to break free had been out of her capabilities.

Once, Amorette had broken the pillars herself in an attempt to get the attention of the uppers who lived their ignorant lives up there, upon the district plates, always within the sunlight, always safe and happy. Completely oblivious to the dark stirrings going on beneath their feet. Amorette had hoped that breaking the pillars would get their attention and force them to come down and investigate.

She had been only partially right. They came, but they had the turned their eyes onto her instead. They hadn't listened. And because of their own refusal to see past her actions to get their attention, the entire Gold District was falling down around their heads, hurting both the uppers that she hated and the unders, the people whom she called family and friend.

That was how she had gone from breaking the pillars to holding one up.

Amorette was strong, but she wasn't quite that strong. Even at full strength with a perfectly formed body, she didn't think she would have been capable of holding up that pillar for very long.

It was so easy to think about giving up. Just letting it fall. Once it crushed her, at least, she would be free of the agony of her tortured body being further abused both by the uncomfortable position she was in – her broken arms stretched backwards by the chains that kept her back pressed against the large pillar – and by her own attempts at remaining upright – her broken knees trying to remain strong and unmoving, digging into the dusty dirt of the subplate space that saw light for the first time in generations as the first half of the plate crumbled down.

Her own people would have evacuated, she had no reason to hurt herself further.

But she remembered the unknown young man that had been brought down here to be buried in the rubble along with her. And she thought of the people, the uppers, that lived on the plate that would be falling and dying with it as the district crashed down. Sure, they were arrogant uppers, but even Amorette didn't think they deserved to die like this.

So, fighting through the pain, she held on.

Half of the District had already collapsed, and it was laying practically at her feet. The thick dust cloud that had rushed into her lungs, choking her, had finally settled somewhat. However, that still left her coated in a thick layer of it, coughing up what she had inhaled, and struggling to keep the massive pillar held upwards despite the choking air.

What followed had been the longest couple of hours of her life.

Tears burned down her face as she summoned a strength she didn't think it possible to possess as she struggled against the impending inevitability of her own failure. Each second tempted her further to just give in, to end the pain, but she still fought on.

A woman came down, trailing a man she spoke to with suspicion. They looked at her with pity. They knew they couldn't help her.

But, at least, they could take the other man away. The one Amorette didn't know but whose groans of pain were oddly encouraging. If she could just see that one life sparred, then she would think that maybe the pain might have been worth it.