Coretta
"Priest," I uttered to my captor, "I- I'll serve you," I heaved a breath, my words repulsing me like never before. "J- Just don't take my eyes out." I craned back my neck a little to look up at his gaze, filled with exhilaration.
"Look at you," he chuckled, "Looking like such a nymph." He weaved a hand through my hair, the action feeling more painful than soothing.
"How can I expect that from a married woman..." My eyes widened when, steadily, he came to kneel before me, and shoved at my shoulders. So hard that my back hit the ground, but my scream couldn't be heard in the chaos of the blind slaves. In a room full of people, he took no time to climb over me.
The situation deported me to some deeper knowledge. I was too familiar with this.
AA: When Assailant is Above.
Defensive interlocking
Word winding
Interlocked leg dismantling
Elbow strike at neck baseline
As he stayed smirking down at me, discreetly I joined my legs, adjusting the kneecap and ankle interlock, and crossed my arms over my chest, gripping at my linen for firmness.
Protect your chest and core. Those are the prime places an assailant goes for.
My legs were joined so tightly, his hands won't be enough if he had the intention of opening them. I remembered the training sessions. Six straight years. During the last stage of my practice, my coaches, even though were gym trainers, couldn't open my legs.
Coretta, it'll need a sword to cut through that interlock you've made. Well done.
And Nael hadn't noticed it yet, which I was grateful for.
"Can you show how will you serve me?" he bent lower, whispering in my face.
"Sacred things like that aren't performed before everyone," I replied as his grin increased. Of course, he understood the innuendo, and that alone was doing him.
"Hah! I wonder if you even are a priestess..." He pushed a thumb at my lip, digging in his nail. "Or just a local prostitute from the Northern Islands. Didn't even hesitate to suggest such actions, huh?"
I really wanted to move to the third and fourth steps. That is to tackle him down and strike right between his collarbones. But I had to prolong step two, noticing the number of eyes that were on me. Given the type of sensitive and easily spooked woman I was, I would've been bawling my eyes out at the position I was in. Even self-defence alone isn't the key to these problems.
It was the aggressive nature of these men that we were familiarised with during our training.
Many girls know self-defence, but reportedly couldn't use these tactics witnessing the heinous aura of their molester. Heart ringing in ears, hands freezing, and mind going blank in utter dread were the key factors prior to an assault. And they trained us on that.
Which meant we didn't have sweet mentors who just used their arms, acting all gentle as we tackled them to the ground. They acted like a real molester: the aggression, hatred in their eyes, and the expression that delivered, the person in front of me wanted to ruin my life. That was the adrenaline rush they created within me and Cheryl before we could attack them.
And it was a reason Nael bending over me, in a room full of people, wasn't making me cry. Because at times, the department would bring in strange men, so vulgar-looking, one would think Nael to be a gentleman compared to them. And we needed to defend ourselves as they executed a true offender's action. Although it was safe and well-planned, I'd forgotten the number of times I cried in my home after those sessions were over. All of it had felt so real. And to know that some girls went through this ordeal, which was presented to me as a mock practice, would leave me sleepless for nights.
"Chryseis..." he tilted his neck to the side. "Should I check if you're a prostitute or a true priestess?"
I just stared into his eyes. All calm and so collected, it seemed he wanted to recoil for a moment. "As a priestess, I complied with your wishes, priest," I said, "And this is what you want of me? Just remember, you're inviting Aphrodite's wrath by even thinking of violating me." Even if I knew how to squish down this pathetic insect, I acted neutral, because I couldn't defeat a swarm of insects if my behaviour triggered anyone here.
A red haze overtook my vision when he laid a hand on my thigh, smirking, but it soon disappeared when he found them closed.
I wanted to laugh as he attempted to open them, from the knees, from the ankles, but he was already huffing and puffing.
"Damn it, you witch! Open your legs!" He howled, digging his nails by the side of my thigh to free them. It hurt. It was going to leave marks and probably had already started bleeding, but I gritted in, bearing everything.
"I don't protect myself, priest. Aphrodite does that." I heaved, my eyes blurry with the way the wound stung now, but I didn't let it fall.
"Nael, we don't have all night for this," One of the cult members interrupted, rather irritated. "If it's the permission you've come for, to have her, get on with it."
He barked a laugh, hauling me upright by the hair. "And that's why, my dear, I want you blind." A searing pain catapulted me back before the senior priest. I looked up to see his face, finding the long scar running from his chin till the neck. He had a strange semblance to Mistress Ionna. With the metal piercing at several parts of his wrinkled face. He looked down at me with a sickening smile.
"What is this for Nael?" he leaned back on his throne. "Her eyes aren't even coloured."
"This one's for me." He knelt beside, my hair still in his fist. But I wasn't able to concentrate on my pain because a woman next to me was crying out so badly, shaking and twisting in the arms of the men that held her hostage as a priest took her eyes out.
"She's a pretty one, Nael. Why'd you want her blind?" Another senior member of the cult asked.
"Oh, old man, you don't know the fun of having blind slaves, do you?" he grinned.
"No, but it's very much fun to make them watch things they don't want to." The old priest's hideous laugh, mixed with the hall of cries, made the place more ghastly. "I've had enough slaves to tell you that, son. And this one," he motioned with his hand to me, "was already trembling and crying, holding onto you when she saw this beautiful place," he chuckled.
"Well, we have different tastes then," Nael guffawed. "Old man..." he placed a palm below my chin, lifting my gaze till my neck hurt, "I believe you don't know how heightened the senses become once a person is blind."
"Priest," I whispered, "I said, I'll serve you... Please don't make me blind."
But Nael turned a deaf ear. "Slave!" He shouted, and I found a young boy at the corner, rubbing something over a piece of rock. "Be quick or else I'll chop your very hands with that knife!" And then I noticed it to be a sharp metal, which the boy was polishing, sharpening its edge.
The most grotesque of Aarmen's possibilities was coming true. That my captor wanted to make me a blind slave.
I struggled to breathe through my weakened self. It burnt everywhere, my back, head, wrists, thighs, lips, even the stomach from the lack of food. It was an impossible situation, which only pointed to my demise. Even if I knew self-defence, I couldn't use it. Facing what was to happen now, instead of being dragged away by a bunch of men for making Nael unconscious, seemed more reasonable. Just like that negative marking on a paper. You can't take a risk and attempt the question.
As the boy delivered the knife to the senior priest, I selected a part of my body, which would lead to a quick death. Cheryl did message, it was for seconds that she felt the pain of water rushing into her lungs when she was transported back. Five seconds of pain honey and 21st cen welcomes you! She had messaged.
And I had two seconds to decide if I would take my life, or the knife would.
Nael eagerly held onto my wrists, behind my back, keeping me in place as the priest studied the knife. I sat so still, planning my demise, that I felt the curious gaze of some cult members. Nael, too, glanced sideways, watching my unmoving self.
He kissed my cheek, and I had a violent urge to throw up as I felt his stubble brush against me. "That's my sweetheart. I promise it'll be over soon. Then you can serve me, however, you want."
I could feel my body trembling from within, as if it was preparing for a near-death situation, for activating the electric compulsion finally. I knew then how the mechanism had shifted its working. Instead of the department's wishes, it had correlated its occurrence to the signals our neurons transferred throughout the body. And right now, every single one of my trillion neurons was preparing for death. The quiet throes of electricity travelled through my body like silent lava bubbling in a volcano, ready to erupt at any moment.
And in the most unexpected moment, that made me smile.
Now I knew, the instant the knife would enter my eye, I'd die from the electric compulsion.
"Seems like my slave's too excited to serve me. Blind." He pulled my hair back, bringing it near his mouth. This time, a drop of tear fell out from my eyes, which I was controlling so hard not to. I didn't know why it fell until I looked lower. "Oh, did I pull too hard?" he snickered. And then I looked down to see him dropping a few broken strands of hair on my lap. I blinked back, finding smears of blood over my dirty white linen along with it.
This would be over. I'd reach home in no time because I'd started feeling the tinge of the electric compulsion.
Quiet electricity bubbled deep over my wounds, prominent at the back of my head. And wherever I bled. Neck hurting, I tried glancing back a little at the door to this horror room.
Didn't in all those stories I'd read... he would come barging in through the door and save her...
I returned my head to the front, releasing it wasn't fiction, but stark reality where they don't have a sixth sense and come rescuing.
The priest leaned in, taking my face in his bony hands. A scalpel in his other one as he brought it near my eyes, positioning it below the socket.
Julian wouldn't come. No, he wouldn't now. I thought about it over and over until I felt the electric compulsion increase around my heart.
I'll never get to give my love to someone who deserved it all...
"Ah!" The metal pierced my skin, and the knife's tip entered my socket, wanting to go deeper when bolts of electric compulsion triggered around my heart, spreading through my lungs. Excruciating pain paralysed my torso as I felt a hot trickle of blood down my cheek.
Nael held onto me, with the priest tapping my cheek, urging me to keep my eyes open. Spasms attacked my body. The feeling of being electrocuted alive multiplied as he placed the tip deeper, blood rushing and rushing until I felt the electric compulsion angrily rushing to my fingers and toes.
"Bijan, wait."
Those two words stopped everything I was preparing for.
As soon as the priest removed the knife from my socket, the electric compulsion retracted back into my heart with such momentum that another muscle spasm left me half-dead in Nael's arms.