For some reason, I thought of family. I had a family. Then I’d remember they gave me away to Julius—a monster in disguise of a man, but they made me equally bitter. Still, I missed them. I wanted to go home. Did I say this to Julius?
The room I was in was so hot I could hardly bear it. I sucked in a breath and the reality came tumbling down. My vision had been nothing but a mirage. I was surrounded by flames. For some reason, my mind was crystal clear as my childhood home came into focus.
I heard someone scream and recognized one of my sister’s voices right before it was cut short.
“Isabella, please.” I turned my head to see Mom crawling on her belly toward me. I blinked, tears stinging my eyes.
What was going on?
“Mom?”
“Please,” she begged. “Make him stop.”
Julius stepped through the flames in front of us with the lifeless form of my sister dangling in his grip. I stood and anger consumed me.
“Julius? How did we get here? What’s happening?”
“Aren’t you happy?” he asked as he dropped my sister. “I’m hurting the ones that gave you away.”
“You’re the one that wanted me!” I screamed.
“Why do you keep waking?” He stepped forward. “Why does a part of you continue to resist me after all these years together?”
I’d been with him that long already? Why could I not remember things?
“We had no choice. He’s known of your birth long before you were born,” Mom coughed. “He formed a blood oath long ago in our family ancestry so that he’d have you.”
“No matter,” Julius said, placing his boot on her skull and crushing it.
“NOOOOOO!”
I called to the fire, and it came to me. My body absorbed it all. He looked at me in awe while I was in tears for the family that I lost and all the things that were happening to my body and mind that he controlled.
“You have no idea what your existence means, my little harvester.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Oh, but look, the darkness is begging me to.” Julius pointed toward my skin and while the change in my skin mesmerized me, he reached up and touched me. The darkness moved for him, making it so that I arched into his touch as well.
Just like that, I was a blank slate again. But I recalled my last thought, and I told myself to remember it well when I could again.
Escape.
???
Who I was or who I could be flickered in and out with whom Julius tried to turn me into. He came for me when I was ten, but that didn’t mean I didn’t realize what he did. The way he thought, was all wrong, yet I couldn’t escape the hold he had over me. The darkness grew inside me, but sometimes I’d make sense of myself and my thoughts and…
I became Isabella Wen again, now lone survivor of the Wen clan. When I became aware of what was happening around me, an imp was holding my hand and leading me forth. He flew and made weird flapping noises with his wings. When I tried to tug my hand free, more imps flew around me encouraging me forward.
“Where are you taking me?”
Of course, they didn’t answer. Their language was vastly different from any human language. It sounded more like clanking, followed by guttural squeaks.
Touch, take. Touch, take.
My fingers twitched as we came into a huge open room. The darkness in me was begging and crawling all through me for something as we grew closer.
I had a terrible unease in my chest. Flashes of dead demons and animals, merged and mutated bodies of Julius’s creations haunted me, and I tugged at my hand again.
