The Revealed

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Ether: Willow

I tried not to cry but the tears kept coming. I missed my family, my mom, and my friends, especially Ron. Would they come for me?

I had no idea how long I'd been in here: maybe days, or even weeks. I barely remembered how I'd got there. I vaguely remembered flashes of a bright light, a large room with a booming, echoing sound, stairs and then this cell. Where I was destined to rot.

I couldn't see much. There was a dim light shining through a hole above, giving me about ten inches of red-yellow light. It got brighter at times. Daylight, maybe? It was so hot, reeking of boiled sewage. Once a day someone came to feed me like a mutt, sliding a bowl in between the bars but never any water. I needed water. The food he brought me smelled atrocious and sometimes it moved. I refused to eat it.

The man who handed me the food was disfigured. His face was flushed and had the most hideous scars. I begged him to let me out but he never spoke. I promised to pay him but he shunned me when I touched his arm and yet I was not the disfigured one. Why would he ignore me? Maybe he was put off by my stench but there was no toilet for me to use. There may have been one on the other side, but I wouldn't go; I was too scared. So there I sat, festering in my soiled, wet clothes. I spent my days trying not to venture into the dark side of the cell. I knew I wasn't alone.

There was a creature in there. I couldn't see it, only hear it. It sounded part rattlesnake and part something else. When it bumped one wall, all four shook and cracked, making debris fall. It hissed and rattled every time it moved, dragging itself around. But it wouldn't come into the light, my light, my safe haven. I could hear its breathing as it hovered close to me, watching, waiting for me to fall asleep and lean into the darkness. But in the darkness it would sting me again and again, injecting me with its poison. I fought sleep but exhaustion took over. I only realized I'd fallen asleep when woken by a jolt of pain. I felt the creature's poison inside me, moving up my right leg, up my right arm and the right side of my face. At times I even saw the poison squirming under my skin, eating me alive and slowly killing me. I wished it would hurry up. I wanted to die.

Wait, noise, I hear noise coming from up above. For the second time today someone is coming. That's unusual. Oh, please let me go home.

“Who's there?” I called out. It was two men this time. One was the ugly, disfigured man and the other … the other was Ronin. They were speaking in a foreign tongue before addressing me.

“Do you want out?” Ronin asked.

“Yes, please.” I nodded, holding onto the bars since I could barely stand on my own. I tried to make myself presentable.

“Step back,” he ordered.

I peered back into the darkness, afraid. “I can't, there's something in here.”

He immediately turned and walked off.

“No, wait!” I reached through the bars. “I will. Come back!”

He did not come back; he left with the disfigured man. “I demand that you come back!” I screamed louder, reaching for him through the bars, shaking them out of anger and trying to free myself.

How can he leave me?

“I don't deserve this. I don't deserve any of this!” I screamed.

I yelled for hours for him to come back until my voice was hoarse but no one came that day, the next day or the day after that. No more tears fell. I was too dehydrated, although the disfigured man brought me a pitcher of water. My lips were dry and cracked and my body hurt when it moved.

On the fourth day, I heard noise and it was the same two men.

“Do you want out?” Ronin asked again. He towered over the disfigured man, who had a hump on his back. He seemed reluctant to be there.

I didn't attempt to stand, I could only nod.

“Then step back,” he ordered again.

I peered into the darkness, dreading it. I grabbed the bars, pulled myself up with all my strength and stepped back. I held onto the walls, hoping my legs would not give out. And as I stepped into the dreaded darkness, the creature wrapped itself around me, stinging me so many times I passed out.

* * *

I woke to the sound of strange voices, clinking noises and brightness. I was too groggy to grasp my surroundings but I was alert enough to know that I was strapped down on a flat surface unable to move. A tube was down my throat holding it open, forcing air into me. It was impossible to speak. I felt movement inside my right leg as someone wearing a mask dug into me.

I thought I was already in hell until someone pulled a skinny, brown parasite the size of a baby garden snake out of me, wiggling for freedom. Some odd creature grabbed the parasite and threw it into a glass container housing others like it. Did those come out of me?

This must be a nightmare. This couldn't be happening. I squirmed in alarm but a syringe filled with clear liquid was pushed into a tube running into my arm, forcing me back to unconsciousness.

I woke up in a bed, an actual bed. Mine? Could all of this have been a nightmare? Attempting to get up, I was forced to accept that this was not a nightmare but my new reality. It wasn't a familiar room and for some odd reason, I could only see out of my left eye.

“Don't move. You will make things worse,” said a man to the right of me but I could not see him. He moved to stand next to the bed so I could. It was Ronin.

“I have seen better but you're not too dire.” He examined me as if I were in a glass showcase.

I was still groggy but I wanted to scream at him for doing this to me. Then I remembered who he was. Royalty. I tried to speak but my throat was sore. My eyes watered from the discomfort.

“Is she awake, sir?” a woman asked, walking in from an adjoining room with a small marble bowl.

“Yes, can you make her better than this?” He gestured towards me. “If not we will have to dispose of her.”

Dispose of me?

I struggled to get up but Ronin effortlessly pushed me back down. “She is weak. Put her to sleep and call me when she is stronger.”

“Yes, my Lord.” The woman curtseyed.

Ronin nodded at her then walked out the room. That was the last thing I remembered before falling back to sleep.

* * *

The pain in my right arm woke me. It was the woman I'd seen before.

“How are you feeling today?” She had an accent but hers was faint, unlike the Goth woman's thick dialect. Hers sounded different. Even though she was a pretty woman her face was pursed when she spoke.

“Where am I?” I asked between dry lips.

“Right where you are supposed to be,” she answered. “How are you?”

“I want to go home.” I felt terrible but I just wanted to go. Why were they trying to fix me up?

“You are home,” the woman said, preparing a concoction for me to drink. It looked part mud and part grass.

“No, my home on Earth. Don't be rude,” I said to the woman, who was obviously the help.

“Sit up,” she ordered, handing me the drink; what must be considered medication here.

“No, I want to go home.” I slapped her hand away, knocking the drink to the floor.

She grabbed my right arm and twisted it and I cried out for her to stop. “Then you shouldn't have given in to treachery. I will not ask again, simply send for Ronin and let him decide what's best for you from here on out.” She untwisted my arm, freeing me.

“How could you? I'm sick. I can't get up,” I whined, feeling somewhat humiliated that she knew about me. Who else knew?

“You have done so before with my help but now try on your own.”

I sat up and realized I had sight in both eyes. How many days had I been there? The room was dim but I could make out the outline of a humble bedroom with a night stand, a couch to my left next to a closed curtain and a dresser. A far cry from the comforts of my room.

Pain radiated up my right arm but I didn't care. I was relieved to have full sight. The fact that I could see was enough to make me stand. Although I was still a little weak I was stronger than in the cell; I managed it on my own. “Can I look at myself in a mirror?”

“I would not advise that at this time.”

“Why?”

“Walk to the door then back to me.” She ignored me for the second time.

“Why?” I refused to budge until she answered me. She mumbled something in that same foreign tongue she and Ronin spoke then slapped a mirror in my left hand.

I fell to the floor when the mirror showed me as a monster. There were three jagged scars across the right side of my face. My right arm and leg had several of the same scars. I looked like I was sewn together, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster. I'm the disfigured one now.

“You are so shallow. Be blessed you have life,” the woman said to me, not budging to help me up.

“Why is she on the floor? Can she not walk?” Ronin walked in but I didn't want to get up. I was ugly.

“My Lord, I did not expect you so soon. Yes, she can walk but is upset by my work.” She stood to the side, giving him room to enter as she explained.

Ronin came over, picked me up and placed me back on the bed. “You will learn to live with it. If it were not for Tanikka you would not have sight in your right eye or the use of your right side. Now, you will follow me,” he ordered, then addressed Tanikka. “You will come to my home to continue her healing.”

Tanikka nervously bowed her head. “I can't. Please…” she whispered, clearly afraid. “Don't ask that of me.”

What has he done to her?

“Tanikka, you will be fine and you shall come,” Ronin said, polite but commanding.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Where are you taking me? Maybe I should stay with Tanikka. Yes, that's what I'll do,” I said, managing to move to the opposite side of the bed, placing it between me and them.

“I don't recall giving you an option. You will follow me and do as I say,” Ronin commanded as if I was one of his servants.

“No, I won't go back to your place so you can have your way with me.” I stood firm, refusing to budge. “You will not control me as you do the help.”

Ronin stopped mid-stride, turned back around and stared at me with great intensity. He strolled back over, planting his face so close to mine it was vexing. He spoke as calmly as possible. “I don't do weak. I'm insulted that you would even think I would want you in that manner. I have my choice of women and you would not even be at the bottom of that list.”

“I'm not weak. I survived weeks down there in the dark. No food and hardly any water. Plus that monster poisoning me. Could you have done it?” I stood my ground on weak legs.

He was clearly amused by what I'd said and let out a slight chuckle. “You were only in that cell for seven days and did it ever occur to you to use your abilities on that so-called monster? It is made up of flesh like you and all it wanted was to keep its young warm. It's actually a gentle creature just trying to survive. I took it out of its natural habitat which is usually ninety to a hundred degrees but its young were depleting it of warmth so she used you as an incubator. It would never have overpowered you,” Ronin said eloquently while walking around me with his hands clasped behind his back.

“You must have figured that it doesn't like light so did it ever occur to you to use a bolt of lightning, your own ability, to see if it would die by the sheer sight of light hovering over it? I put you in that cell to see what you would do and you did nothing. Not one damned thing. Had you attempted something, anything, I would have let you out sooner but you gave up and were ready to die. I thought maybe when I walked away that night you would get angry enough to fight but you still did nothing. You were practically dead when I came for you the second time. Then when I told you to step back you still did nothing but let it inject you. Maybe had you tried something you would not look like you do, grotesque. What will it take for you to grow a spine? I guess we shall soon find out, won't we?”

Ronin turned away. I looked at Tanikka for help but she shook her head. “Go, girl, or he will leave you and you are not going to live here.”

I hurried after him, tears blocking part of my vision.

He walked fast, cutting through an adjoining room filled with oddly-shaped furniture. I tried my best to keep up but his legs took long strides. I was out of breath by the time we made it to the hallway where we were greeted by two Bostuge. I leaned against the wall, sweating from exertion. I had forgotten the air was hard to manage and the soreness didn't help the situation. Ronin took note of my weakness and ordered one of the men to assist me from there.

After being placed inside a vehicle behind Ronin's, we took off into the air. I remembered this from before but this time we traveled to a house, a beautiful cream-colored home so close to the sky. It looked like the Taj Mahal but even more grand. It was surrounded by a high stone gate with guards placed around it.

We landed right before the gated doors and drove the rest of the way in. The ride was smooth even though the street was made up of stone. Behind the gate the place was covered with greenery, filled with a pretty assortment of flowers, huge trees and grass of the deepest shade of green I had ever seen. The people there were human-looking and as they walked around they seemed either happy or complacent. Some sat on the grass or walked around to different little shops. This place was a village of its own.

Finally, we drove through huge double doors and parked inside a garage that held more than twelve cars, from sporty to stretched vehicles, fancier than the ones in my garage back home. The car door opened and I was told to follow Ronin inside. We went up the stairs leading from the garage and bore right. We entered his home.

Everyone bowed to Ronin as he passed by. Beautiful women of all ethnicities dressed provocatively in pretty flowing attire flirted with him as he passed but he seemed not to notice their stares.

His home was breathtaking. The walls were polished chestnut brown, almost burgundy, and decorated in yellows and shades of turquoise accenting ivory tiles. The furniture was so lavish it seemed too nice to be used and people were sitting on pillows on the floor, eating and drinking.

Ronin's home, which was actually a palace, had an abundance of space. It had tall windows and double doors that were left open as the sheer curtains flapped in the breeze coming off the sea. I felt like I was in a spa resort in a foreign country.

Walking towards the back, we arrived in a different section of the palace, ending at a sitting area where Ronin ordered the others to leave us. A waft of ocean filled my nose again then it dawned on me that I really could smell the sea. Peering out the window, I saw we were now above the clouds where there was sun and the ocean was right outside. There was white sand and I could see people on the beach. I was confused.

“I favor the water and sun, so my place is able to rise above the clouds to the higher side of Ether. This world is different from yours. Many things are different,” he said, pointing to another adjoining room. “You will find suitable accommodation, fresh clothes and nourishment. You will have a lady with you at all times. Do not try to escape. You will not make it safely nor survive on your own out there. You are not permitted to leave this section of the house and please don't get confused and think this is a vacation. This is my home and if you do not follow my rules, I will have no problem feeding you to the wild animals out back.”

He turned to leave but I called for him to stop. “Wait. Why am I here? Will I live here from now on?”

“I will send for you in the morning. Be ready. Your handler, Mindalous, will be here shortly,” was all Ronin said then walked off.

I could not help but smile at my new accommodation. This may not be a spa but it was a heck of a lot better than that cell. I wondered why he thought that I would escape. This was heaven.

A tiny-framed woman with brown skin and big, brown eyes walked in. She introduced herself as Mindalous. She was very pretty and most likely in her mid-twenties. Thank goodness she was human. She hardly spoke other than to introduce herself and explain my accommodation once again. Basically I was to remain confined to this room and one other to eat unless Ronin specified otherwise.

If this was the way he lived, I didn't want to leave. And if I had it my way, he would request my company sooner than he thought.