Cursed (Meeka, Chaos, closed)

I'm sitting on the curb by the marketplace. I don't have anything to sell, nor do I need to buy anything. I just love to watch the market grow fuller and hear the typical squabble over prices of fox fur. It's nice out, for once. My foot's still bandaged and is hurting quite a bit, but I've recovered somewhat. I haven't seen Tammy in a while but it doesn't bother me because I know that she'll be alright. Three children with bright eyes and dark hai rush over to me. They know me because of Trig.

"Do you have some spare change, Miss?" I never understood why they called me that until I realized that for them, I am an adult. I shrug, I wasn't about to use the two copper coins for anything in particular in any case and grab them, tossing them to the tallest of the lot. He smiles a toothy grin and tugging on the girl's hand, they disappear into the crowd. I know where they're headed. There's a stall that sells large chunks of fudge.

When I was younger that was also the main attraction for myself and most of my school friends. My feet dangle over the curb and hang a little ways over the street. I'm in no danger of course because the street is just filled with shoppers. Plus, no one owns any cars in this district. Mother and I decided that it would be best for her and Trig to move out of the house. It caused a huge fight with my father who tried once again to lunge for me, saying that I was getting my mind infected by the freak. The freak being Flight, naturally.

The clock on the Town Hall strikes four and I sigh, stretching my legs before me. I should head back home and help my mother pack and carry the few sparce boxes that she owns to the new apartment. It's on the even poorer side of town, not that I mind much. It just means that Trig and I will be sharing a room from now on. But I don't think that I'll be spending a lot of time at home anymore.

That's when I notice her. Strange, but magnificent eyes and hair like the midnight sky. She walks quickly, but I recognise her all the same. She's the girl from the signs! I walk past them daily on my way to the hunting grounds, I couldn't mistake that face for someone else's. It's been haunting me for a while because she's very pretty and I find it so difficult to imagine that she would have done something so dreadful, so gruesome. But there, it's her.

I'm up in a flash, packing up my few belongings in the satchel I carried with me. I don't shout at her to stop, she shouldn't know that someone's recognized her.

Instead, I spot two Peacekeepers in the crowd. Usually I don't condone of Peacekeepers. I find them disgusting and despicable. But what she's done is far worse. So, I go. I tell a gruff, rather fat Peacekeeper. I point her out to him. Then, I leave. I don't feel like staying to watch the pretty girl getting dragged off. And if they get violent, well, I don't need to watch that.

----

"Tammy!" I cry, when I spot her in the distance. I was on my way home, naturally picking my way through the brush, but I'm so glad to have found her. I know that she's got a different name now. Flight... but I just can't get used to that name. It's always been Tammy for me, I don't feel like calling her anything different.

My satchel is still slung across my left shoulder blade as I sidle up to her, my face gleaming, though partly because I've been walking for a while than only of happiness. "Guess what? I saw this girl that's been on the signs for a while now, today, at the marketplace. I told the Peacekeepers but didn't stick around for any of that. What she did was horrible, I'm glad that I spotted her. You know? The pretty one with the dark hair and eyes like the sky?"

After about five more slaps to the face, they start to believe me. Almost. At least, I think they do, because they've stopped slapping me. It's a good thing. My cheeks is throbbing, but softer and softer. It's going numb.
"I swear," I say desperately, leaning forward against the strong ropes that's holding me to the chair, "I didn't kill them!"
"Then who did?" the bigger of the two demands.
I wince, readying myself for another hit. "I-I don't know!"
But instead of a hit, I feel something suddenly slicing open my arm. I cry out in pain, opening my eyes to see the warm trickle of crimson running down my arm.
How...?
Then I see it. My stomache curls inward at the sight of it.
In the Peacekeeper's hand is my knife. The one I just bought.
They must of taken it when I was unconscious. They must of taken every single weapon I had on me.
Okay. There goes any chance of escaping.
They give me a moment to take it in. The fact that I'm gonna be stuck here for hours, maybe even days, sinks in. And they watch the transformation on my bruised face with pleasure.
"Well, darling?" one of them says. "How's it feel to know you have absolutely no hope?"
I won't let them have it. Have the pleasure, the glory in my obvious horror.
"Well, isn't it obvious?" I say with a broad grin.
They stare at me in shock.
"It makes me feel sorry for you!" I say, my eyes glinting horrifically.
And then, just as I expected, I feel another cut open on my other arm.

None of it is true. It's not true. It's not true. But no amount of respeating the words in my mind can keep out her voice. I know, somewhere deep down I know that what she is saying is the truth, but why then don't I want to believe her? She paints a picture in my mind, it's brilliantly red and horrible and so gruesome that it makes my stomach clench. Some strangled sounding yelp, alike that of a wounded animal escapes my throat and makes it out and into the open when it suddenly dawns on me.

My whole world just crashes down on me and slowly, I sink to the ground. Or maybe I fell, maybe I fell so fast that everything else seems slow? I don't know. She almost killed me, wait, she wanted to kill me. Just the other day with Malachi. I remember her teeth against the soft skin on my throat. I remember her hot breath signalling to me that maybe, just maybe, my very last minutes on earth have been spent.

But no, I don't want this to be the image I recall everytime I think of her. I remember her helping me, fighting for me... she hugged me when I had that nightmare. But her lips were on my throat... she wasn't trying to? NO. My mind screams so loud that I have to brace my hands on my head in order to stop the ringing. I open my eyes and look at her. She's my friend... or maybe she's more? But it doesn't matter, she saved my life countless of times.

I knew of the monster in side of her, of course I did. Just as a child it had never been this bad, never had it ordered her to kill. So I stand up, shakily and walk up to her. She looks scared and I realize that she's afraid to lose me. Again. So, gently, I hug her. "It's alright, I won't leave you." My voice is shaky nonetheless. I'm still afraid. No, strike that, I'm terrified. My hand brushes through the soft tangles in her hair, somehow trying to calm myself at the same time. "I'll help you find her. It's all my fault after all. I'm so sorry."

In a small, empty cell, I stare at the other wall.
Okay, so I guess I could've seen this coming. I knew the danger I was in, of course. But I did everything I possibly could to not get caught, and here I am, in a cold, dark cell where I can barely see my hand in front of my face. And without a single window for fresh air.
I sigh, putting my face in my hand tiredly. Escape plan? Haven't even began it. And even if I did have one, how am I supposed to get past the Peacekeepers without my knife?
I scold myself silently. You don't have your knife, and even with it, they're bigger and stronger than you. You'd be back in your cell within minutes. Or worse, tied to a chair again. At least here you can move.
It's true, here they didn't tie me up or chain me to a wall or anything. So I'm free to wander about my cell that smells like blood and rotten fish.
Lucky me.
It's only been a few hours, and the darkness is driving me nuts. My stomache growls. When do I get my rotten dinner, anyways?
Suddenly, there are three mechanicle clicks, and the door slides open, yellow light pouring through the open door and blinding me.
I scramble on all floors back into the corner, where the dark shadows calm me at least a little. The Peacekeeper who walks in is an unfarmiliar one, but he looks disgusting, with a horrible stench and a cruel face. Although he is slightly on the fatter side, he is obviously strong. I glare at him.
"I hear you ain't talking," he says, and his voice booms around the entire cell as he walks closer. I try to resist allowing my eyes to wander to the open door, even though a plan is forming. Three locks. They have three locks on the door, most likely each with a different key. I'd never get out with the door closed. But with it open.
He takes another step forward. It takes all I have to not have myself leap in excitement.
"Well, we'll fix that mighty quick," he says. Another step. I think he's trying to scare me.
"I've said as much as I ever will," I say through clenched teeth. My heart pounds, and I have to fight extra hard to keep my voice steady. "A year of staying in this cell wouldn't make me talk."
"Oh, no doubt," he says with a cruel smile. Another step. But this time, he has my attention, if only for a second. "But we don't use confinement to make people talk. We use torture."
He leans forward slightly. "Tell me, Luna. What is it you're most afraid of?"
I snort. "Like you'd ever find out."
He observes my cut arms and bruised face. "Well, pain is out of the question, now isn't it? Hmmmm... too bad you don't have a family we could torture, too."
He doesn't know about my mother. Good.
"Well, Luna, it doesn't matter," he says. "We will find what you're afraid of sooner or later. You'll see. For now..."
But I'll never no what's going to happen for now, because at that moment, I lunge past him, towards the door, towards freedom.
"She's getting away!" he shouts. I hear a few guns click.
"No, don't kill her!" the Peacekeeper shouts. "We need her alive!"
By this time, I through my prison door, looking from left to right. Which way do I go? Which way do I go?
I see a bunch of Peacekeepers coming from my left. Well, I guess I'm going right.
I dash down the long hallway, the Peacekeepers right at me heels. There it is, a turn! Maybe it leads to the door...
As I round the corner, though, it's not a door I find.
The Peacekeeper who cut my arms stands there. He reaches out and grabs me by my arm.
"Well," he says, "look who's out of her cell."
I stomp on his foot and aim a punch at his face with the other hand, but by that time, the others are already on me, forcing me to the ground. I struggle hard against the ones who have me pinned to the ground, screeching and thrashing wildly.
But then something is jabbed into my arm, and I almost immediately black out.

Of course I am still shocked, nothing can prepare me for what I see my friend become. Even though I knew now what she did, seeing her literally rip at the Peacekeepers' throat scares the wits out of me. I decide to hang back, I don't really want to see Midnight because I am still feeling guilty. My knees ache where I scratched them open by the bushes before and I'm exhausted and emotionally at an edge. But then I see some Peacekeepers, well, I hear them. They're talking loudly, nastily. "Yeah, she was talking in her sleep. Now we know what to do with her," says one of them and lets out a cruel sounding laugh.

The skin on my arms tingles with nervous energy as I realize in which direction they are headed. They're going the exact same direction that Tammy went down. I have nothing on me, no bow and arrow and not even my knife. One of the Peacekeepers must have noticed something out of the corner of his eye because he turns around. "Oy! Where did she come from?" I do the next best thing I can and leap at one of the Peacekeeper's back, managing successfully to hang on as I dig my nails into the back of his head.

He shouts and flails, managing to knock out one his comerades in the process. There's blood on my hands now and I don't get much of a chance to consider this because in the next second a thick hand closes in on my throat and yanks me backwards and off of the Peacekeeper with such an astonishing amount of violence that all my airways are cut off immediately. He lets go and I sink to the ground on all fours, coughing and spluttering as the burning sensation in my throat refuses to go away.

The man I just bore my nails into, crouches down in front of me so that I am forced to inhale his musky, fish-scented breath. I gag and double over, but he catches my chin between his fingers, pulling my face upwards again to meet his eyes. "You'll pay for that, girl," he snarls. Gag. I manage to smile, imagining that at least I gave Tammy a few more minutes to do something.

The Peacekeepers are now too preoccupied with me, that they seem to have forgotten what they had initially come down this hallway for. "Right, well, lock her up, we can have a little bit of fun with her after dealing with little miss refuses-to-speak," says the Peacekeeper who had tugged me off of the other one. I panic as I realize that they want to lock me up and do God know what with me. So when one of the four Peacekeepers (I can't even remember which one, they all smell and look the same) tries to grab at my arms, I punch him, struggling as another one presses me hard onto the ground. "Just get something to sedate her with. I can't take any more of these girls making a run for it," one of them says in a bored sounding voice.