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.
She washed the potatoes in the basin and cut away the rotting parts with a dull carving knife. She then sliced the four potatoes- now significantly smaller after cutting away the rotten parts- and threw them in a big pot over a roaring fire with some boiling water and some precious few herbs and spices. She was delighted when she found that they had two small carrots and a small package of some unidentified meat. As she made a grab for the food, her hand bumped against one of her father's hidden bottles of mead. She set the mead aside on the counter and washed the carrots clean.
She sliced the carrots like she had the potatoes and threw the slices into the stew. She then chopped up the mystery meat and threw chunks of it in the pot as well. Hopefully the meat, whatever it was, hadn't spoiled.
She looked in the pot and was disappointed to see that the stew she had created was hardly enough for one bowl. Looked as though she'd go hungry again tonight. She sighed as her stomach growled angrily at her.
As her stew cooked, she found herself reflecting on her short life. She had been beaten nearly every day for the past six years. She had had hardly anything to eat, and had been treated like vermin by her only living relative. She had been punished for as long as she could remember for a crime she could not remember committing. All she knew was that her father often cried, "Give it to me!" during her beatings. She had tried to explain time and time again that she didn't have anything to give him, but he'd just hit her all the harder.
Hate boiled so hot in Zia's veins she almost thought she would catch on fire. She had felt this feeling before, but never this strongly. Didn't her father realize that she was innocent? Didn't he realize that she had committed no crime against him for her to treat her in such a way? Of course he realizes, Zia thought. He just doesn't care. In her short, six years she had experienced more pain and suffering than most men did in their whole lives.
Enough was enough, she decided. She couldn't take much more of it. Her body was bruised in places she didn't even know she had, and spirit was just as injured. She decided, then and there, that she would escape from her father and her prison. She didn't care if her father went hungry without her there to cook for him. He could use a diet, the fat lump!
She thought of how great it would be to be free of her father forever. With that luxurious thought in mind, she devised a plan, and once she had the minor details set, she put her plan into action.
After checking that the stew was ready, Zia quietly entered her father's room. He was sitting on his bed, staring uncomprehendingly at the wall, his bottle still in his hand. Zia had seen him in this state before, and she knew he must be close to passing out from alcohol overload. He just needed a little bit more.
Zia gently poked him into awareness. "Father," she whispered.
The drunken man muttered and continued to stare ahead.
After what seemed like hours from the adrenaline rushing through her, Zia was finally able to coax her father off the bed and to the kitchen table, where he sat down so hard on the wooden chair that it squeaked like thousands of mice being squished to death. In his drunken state, Zia's father looked around for them. "We have mice," he announced. "Fix it. If you're to live under this roof, you're to pull your own weight."
Zia wanted to point out that she not only carried her own weight, but most of his enormous load as well, but tactfully she kept quiet. Instead, she said sweetly, "Yes, Father. Would you like some stew?" She walked over to the pot and lifted it off the hook that it was hanging from, covering her hand with the skirt of her filthy dress to protect herself from the searing heat that radiated from it.
She scooped every precious drop of food into a small, dusty bowl for her father and pushed it towards him. She handed him a wooden spoon and said, "Dig in. I made it special."
He dipped his spoon in his small meal and brought out a few carrots and potatoes. He gave them a half-hearted blow and shoved the food down his throat.
"Father," Zia said quietly, "would you like some mead in your food?"
He piped up at the sound of alcohol. "Mead?"
"Yes," Zia said. "I know you prefer wine, but we don't have any. And I believe I found some mead in the pantry by the carrots."
"Well, what are you waiting for, you useless vermin? Go fetch it!" the drunk man growled.
Zia smiled sweetly and said, "As you wish." She fetched the dusty bottle she had left on the counter and returned with it in her hands. She uncorked the bottle and added a generous amount of the foul-smelling drink into her father's stew, which he ate without a thought.
Soon after the last bit of meat had passed her father's mouth, Zia scooped up his bowl and spoon and began to wash them, trying to behave like her father always wanted her to: like a slave.
From the combination of what he had been drinking earlier and the mead with his food, her father was very wobbly, and almost fell flat on his face his first steps from the table.
Zia grabbed his arm and led him to his room, where he finally passed out, sprawled on his bed, just as she had predicted.
It was now or never.
Zia quickly went to work. She took what little money she could find from her own forbidden savings and around the house. She then hid away her moth-eaten blanket in a bag along with her money. She walked quietly to the kitchen and also added a dull knife to her collection and slipped quietly out the front door, sure to leave all as she found it.
She shivered as the cold autumn brushed gently at her skin, but she didn't mind the cold. The cold meant that she was outside, out of the reach of her father. She was free.