Time has no meaning anymore. There is only waking, feeding, bondage and sleeping. Jarvis only allows me to wake when I am already quivering with the desperate desire to feed. The first time I awaken the hunger is wracking my body with spasms so forceful that I break my own arm struggling against my bonds. The second time I swim up from the darkness of unconsciousness I find myself freed from my bonds and I try to flee; but I can escape no farther than the edge of the bed before the convulsions take over completely. Every time I try to dip down into true death’s cool embrace powerful arms pull me back and push warm, wet flesh into my mouth; giving me no choice but to pull at the warm river of life once more.

There is waking.

There is feeding.

There is bondage.

There is sleeping.

This is the world, my whole world, and it is a sad and shallow thing. So I do the only thing I can—I retreat into my dreams—and I find them more vivid than ever before. When I finally manage to hold onto an image, I’m haunted by a pair of chocolate eyes with orange-gold bursting from the blackness that both comforts and compels me toward something.

I do not know what that something is, but I desperately desire to discover it.

INTERLUDE

I can’t really tell if I’m awake because I can’t feel anything in particular and everything I do feel, hurts. My head’s lighter than it was I reach up to discover choppy stubble that used to be my knee-length hair.

That’s fine, I think to myself, they can take my hair. I finally feel cold and realize they’ve taken my clothes before dumping me into some frigid, stone cell. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt, throb, sting or ache but I don’t think anything is broken and push myself up into a sitting position.

“Awake already, little girl?” the voice freezes me in place and if I could choose not to breathe I would have stopped entirely. “I know you’re awake, come out,” the slat in the door slams shut before the clanking groan of the lock disengages and firelight tentatively flows in. I stand, not wanting to display any weakness, but it’s a mistake. I only realize my error as a heavy fist cracks against my jaw like a brick.

I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU WORTHLESS BASTARD!!! I scream in my mind as I choke on blood, thrashing helplessly as waves of agony wash through me.

You really think so, Sharama? That chilling voice echoes though my mind and I go numb again. He moves into the room and—sprawled as I am—I can’t look up at him, but I already know what comes next. It’s not good. “I don’t think so, little girl, we’ve found you too soon this time,” he says out loud—most likely so that his henchmen can enjoy the spectacle that will follow—and he hauls me to my feet, pushing me in front of him. Someone throws some kind of covering over my torso, to call it a garment would be like calling a pot on one’s head a hat, and I am shoved through a labyrinth of stone hallways to another door I’ve never seen yet recognize from my worst nightmares. I don’t shudder as he opens that iron-bound span of oak, even though my heart has turned to ice.

Please don’t, I pray to every god I know the name of, please don’t do this to him.

“SYNNOVE!!!” comes his hoarse cry and I can’t stop the flood of tears cascading down my cheeks. My love, he’s been treated just as unkindly as I have, but the terror in his gaze betrays him. He’s terrified for me…and every soul-sucking beast in the room knows it. My eyes light from within; they think they know me. They think they know what I’ll do. I’m shoved into the cell and I stumble, collapsing to the floor and realizing that my previous assessment was wrong. My wrist, at least, is broken.

“Get up!” the one who brought me her kicks me and I scream as at least two ribs snap. A fleeting thought, I wish this part didn’t have to last so long, races through my mind before I can consciously notice it. “Get her up,” he barks and two of the four men restrain my love grab my arms and force me to my knees. They hold my love back from me and though he’s struggling with all his might, he has no idea what he’s up against. “You’ll watch,” my tormenter—the only man allowed to speak—whispers in my ear, “you’ll watch as we steal this man from you, forever.” He circles behind my love and his features distort as he prepares to strike.

“Fear not, my love,” I whisper with both my voice and my mind, willing me to hear past his terror by staring into those wondrous, unique, beautiful eyes. I pull up all the love and rage, fear and joy; every strong emotion I have ever felt, all my ferocity and then he strikes.

My love, he screams my name as his life is stolen from him, but something whispers, not yet. I’m crying and telling him I love him but as his eyes start to go blank, my heart breaks as he stares at me in disbelief.

NOW, whispers through me, now is the moment—just before my darling man is thrown to the ground like so much refuse—and I twist myself violently in the grasp of those who hold me. I feel my ribs pierce my lungs, I feel the jagged tear as my heart is stabbed through and I roar in triumph as my power is unleashed from the mangled bag of meat that used to encompass all of me. I take all the fire of my ferocity and force it into my precious man, screaming,

I’m coming, my love! as I push past the encroaching darkness; toward the weakening light that is already so far away. I WILL NOT FAIL YOU!!! I cry out, and the darkness around me thickens but I will not stop. I burn my way though every obstacle and when I reach what remains of that wondrous spark, I wrap it in all my love, my life, my light. I make my final wish:

I wish to love him again, and forever.