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Rage sparked through me, engulfing me in a sea of red. Red eyes, red hair, red him-

I became blinded by pure hatred.

Right as my hatchet almost split his skill into fragments small pieces that would resemble broken glass and spill every ounce of his his silver blood, power slammed through my body, almost throwing me to the ground.  The magnitude of it could have crumbled any mountain in its wake.  My hatchet rocketed out of my hands, pain splitting through my own skull.  Not a word but death entered my mind.  I felt the world split in two around me.

A shrill scream mixed with the stench of magic fills the air.

I drop to my knees clutching my head, that by now feels like every nerve is being plucked out with a knife. Tears freely fall.  Another shock wave of pain zaps me, rattles me, making another scream ripple out.  An invisible knife was twisting, splitting, and scrambling my brain. I taste blood in my mouth. Red crimson runs down my lips, mixing with my saliva in my mouth. I'm sure there is more coming from my ears. His invisible claws sink further into my brain, melting it. Boiling it. The knife grows hot, but it never stopped plunging.

"Stop! Stop!" A girl screams. "Please!" Another deep thrust of the knife.  The whispers of magic grow louder.

The pain doesn't seize. Not one bit.

"Show mercy, please!" Another wails.

My sisters.  My loving sisters are trying to save me.

"She was going to kill me," I hear him snarl above me. "Do you think that you rats can get away with that kind of crime?"

"Please!" who I presumed to be Mare cried again. Who would have thought that when the time came my sisters would be begging for my life?

I glance up through the shock waves and belligerent attacks long enough to see the smirking Elite. He is the definition of evil and purgatory.  I wish that he could feel the pain of the Gather Folk.  I wish that he knew the feeling of defeat and despair.  I wish that he, of all people, is forced to watch loved ones die for a cause they do not believe in.  

I wish he would burst into flames and suffer a long, agonizing death.

He chuckles again, his throat bobbing with the sound. He stares at me, a crying bleeding mess on the slop of ground, clearly pleased.  With every shriek and tense movement he grins wider. A snake disguised as a gentlemen, he appears. A viper whose poison ran deep. His essence alone reeks of nothing but power and wealth.   Arms slip around me, soft and shaking but still managing to holding me. Tears that do not belong to me slowly drip on my face.

I am dying.  I know it.  I can feel the magic drinking in my life essence, taking every drop of who I am, and captivating it in his field of power.  Before long, I will be nothing more but a casing of what I once was.  The body of Sora Edwards will be buried, and cherished, but my soul will be living within his hands.  

All I have known for a hundred years is pain. 

Nesta starts praying, reciting one that my mother used to ingrain in our minds.  She is hiccuping, panic ringing in her musical voice. 

"May the gods bless me when I die. May they walk me through every painful step of this journey that is coming to an end-"

She didn't get to finish stumbling through my prayer.

Magic becomes a thick wool blanket over me, and soon suffocates me.  Pain is replaced by choking.  An invisible force keeps it in hold over my face until I am coughing up spit and the blood that ran down my throat. Unbearable pressure. I forget what it feels like to breathe.

An arrow splits my brain in two, finally dislodging the torturous knife. Imaginary and invisible, but all too real.

"Don't forget what we are capable of Red," the man spat. I felt the bonds loosen, ever so slightly. Please, I beg, please don't kill me in front of them.  My sisters don't need to witness the harshness of this world just yet.  Not any more than they already have.

"She won't! Just please!" Mare had fallen to her knees, hands clasped together and shaking.  Pleading, begging, crying- all for me.  Why me?  I've done nothing but nag at them.  Accomplished nothing but keeping what scraps I could find on the table and selling all of my parent's things to keep us alive for whatever reason it was worth.  I've nagged her about Gael, and told her to stay away from him because of my worry about her actually having a husband.  I didn't provide much clothes on their back, and scavenged from the gutters.   My sisters deserved so much better than what I could ever possibly give.

Why me?

Mare continued pleading.  He continued to smirk, like a snake in the flesh. Sick son of a bitch. One day I will make you regret this. One day I will rip you, tear into your flesh and feed them to the dogs.

"Alright. But only because I like seeing you on your knees." He eyed Mare in a way that made me want to gag. Her innocence showed, and her quizzically confused expression only showed that she had yet so much to learn. And the thought of him with Mare made anger flare. Elite pig, I wanted to spit.

The pain evaporated just as fast as it had come. Relief flooded through me along with exhaustion. I didn't have to pray to the gods, for they had given me a verdict.

Mercy. He, an elite class man of all people, had shown mercy to someone like me. What a sick joke. Maybe one day when I wanted to die, I would show him what it is like to beg for mercy at the hands of a killer.

"Thank you," Mare sobbed, head bowing. She is broken and defeated, just like the rest of us. "We are forever in debt to you."

"That you are. Not that rats like you have anything to offer for me. Except a piece of ass, but maybe not even then." He eyed Mare like she was a meal rather than a girl, and he was quite famished. She still didn't understand. My face contorted with rage, and before I could subdue another outburst of courage that sparked within me I spat on his shoe. His eyes snapped to me once more.

Fire flickered through the glassy black ball. I could see myself in them, a mangled bloody mess laying in the mud sodden snow.

"Do not underestimate me Girl," he growled. "I will crush you like a bug without thinking twice about it."

Nesta's arms shook around me. A sign that she isn't as strong as she pretended to be.  I shot a glare towards him. 

 Defy. Defy. Defy.

My mind shrieked, spewing profanity and rebellious actions, but I didn't make a sound.  I imagined that I too had a magic of my own.  Fire, orange flames running its fingers through the corners and corridors of my mind. Burning, pressing, wanting-

My hands grew hot and itched to touch his face. I felt a strong pull originating from my gut; the cause I didn't know.   Is it possible to be so hateful that you start to feel paranormal things?  To feel as powerful as them?

My hands pulsed with the flame that I imagined.  Dark, unfiltered, unnameable power is what I craved.

Surprise flickered in the beast's yellow glowing eyes, before quickly returning to hate. What was that all about?

I imagined my flame being thrown on him.  I want to set him on fire and watch him burn, like they do to us every moment of our lives. I want to spoon feed his ashes to whoever he loved. I want to snap every bone in his body until he was begging for mercy too. A monster like him didn't deserve to be fed off a silver platter.

Above him, the first streaks of lightning race across the sky.

"I assume you are Sora Edwards," he said, snapping me out of my trance. He pushes past Mare, knocking her into the snow mixed muck. She is shivering from the bite of the snow and from the fright of his presence.  My fingers tighten into a fist; so badly do I want to connect it to his face.  I want silver blood spilled, taking place of every drop of red that he took from me. 

I am unable to respond, too engrossed in my loathing.

"She is," Nesta weeps.

A boot connects with my ribs. "Get up and talk to me Bitch."

The breath whooshed from my lungs. Pain, a different more natural kind, blooms. The ache didn't compare to the sharp magic, not even in the slightest. I could deal with it.

I pry Nesta's arms from me, not even aware of my choppy movements. The world spun on its side when I rose, but I didn't topple over.  My worn boots crunched and sloshed on the icy mud.  I stood tall and proud, for what I wasn't sure.  I have never felt proud, not even when I have done the greatest of deeds for people.

I looked him dead in the piss yellow eyes.

He smiles, grin stretching over his unnaturally sharp teeth. "Sora Edwards, as a part of the Elite Kingdom and peasant under His Majesty's rein, you are summoned to the battle field where you are to serve until the war is over." His grin widens. "Or until death."

The world unexpectedly swerves to the left and I was leaning to the right.

Mare screams. Nesta begs. I am a numb statue.

I am the first woman to be summoned to war.

Reality slams into me at full force; My soul like a crumpled piece of cloth floating in the wind.  Elites have only ever called upon men to serve in the war.  I am the first.  People at the Gather presumed that it would be another fifty years before they resulted to calling women to fight for their side.  I will be joining other human slaves to fight against the rebels; I will be killing humans with whom I share the same values, same ideas.  I too want the Elite class dead.  the sick aftermath of the first battle of Galderae, resulted to me having to give up my freedom.  My parents died so I could be shipped off to a war.  What a sick joke this all is.  What a sick, cruel world.  Is it too much to ask to only want to provide for my family?  To only want to survive?

Why me?  Why couldn't it be another? 

Who will take care of the girls ? Who will provide food? Who will keep the merchants from demanding money?

Denae hasn't come home. Who will go find her?   The image of Mare walking through the woods scared and alone searching for Denae haunts me.  Swollen bellies and cries from hunger pains flood through my mind.  My family starving, being left in this godforsaken place.

"Of course you will be treated as an equal," he chuckles. I nearly spat on him again. Sending me to a death camp to fight against my fellow humans, and they have the decency to say we will be equals.  I am the only woman who will be at the camp.  I will be like fresh meat in the slaughter house.  I will have to fight off the sick, deranged men who live in the barracks.

"Right," I snap.  "Because we will be eating the turkey and seafood off of silver platters with red wine, just like you guys?"  Because you too will have to worry about rape and murder.  I am going to die from the men, if not from the battle.

"Something of the sort," he laughs. 

Bitterness. I feel nothing but bitter. No doubt about it we will be eating scraps and muck; food similar to a pig's feast while they eat their fill of luxury items. We will always be the ones to suffer for them. They will never know loss or starvation.  What makes them have the authority to try and tell me that I must pay the price of my ancestors?  

Their magic, that's what.

"Leave," I simply say.  Maybe if I close my eyes, this will all go away.  Maybe I can convince him to let me stay here, and help my sisters.  This has to be a mistake.

"I have direct orders to bring you with me. The act of refusal is punishable by death."  Did death really sound all that bad after receiving the news that I am to be condemned to the Barracks?  Death would be all too good; sweet and decadent compared to what waits ahead for me.

"So kill me." A blank stare follows a blank heart. My sisters scream and plead louder. His eyes do not betray him, but I know he won't kill me. It is too easy of an end for me.

"Please don't do this Sora!" Nesta pleads. Her eyes are wide with fright. "Please."

"Shut up," I growl. Silly Nesta, if only you could see that death might be more merciful than war, even if he wasn't going to actually kill me.  The yellow glow of his eyes showed that even he knew that he had no intentions of carrying out a kill.  Not today at least.

"How about a life for a life?" He said through a wicked grin.  He wanted to toy with me, to play a game and break me more.  I couldn't put Mare or Nesta in anymore danger.

"No. Absolutely not." I am not a game to be played.  I am only Sora Edwards. and I will not let anyone change that.

"Oh?" He drawled. "But I do love a good scream when I kill vermin." I didn't have time to blink before he sent a thick blanket of magic up, the stench choking me. My eyes watered and I heard a scream. Death would come easily.

Only it wasn't my scream that rippled through the air this time.

Nesta's face was redder than the sun when it set. Veins popped out of her temples and she looked like she was about to explode. Another scream echoed around us. He was going to kill her with his claws.

Her face slowly started to turn from red to purple.

"Stop! Stop! I'll go!" I screamed. "Just stop hurting her!"

Never in a million years did I suspect that he would hurt my sisters.  I never wanted this; this life, this problem, any of it.

Tears unwillingly streamed down my face. A fool. A coward. An idiotic disgrace. I nearly got Nesta killed from my erratic behavior. There would always be a price for my actions, I should know this by now.

Nesta still wept on the ground, but it wasn't the cries of pain now, but rather the cries of defeat. Mare comforted her. I prayed that the Gods watch over them while I am away.

I need to remember to pray for them later tonight.  After I've settled into my barrack.

"We haven't got all day," he barked at me. As if he had a right to bark orders at me.  He is, after all, taking away everything I hold dear.

I stumbled forward, away from the only thing I've ever tried to make good- to a world unknown. Mare and Nesta wept and cried to me, sounds that I'm sure will haunt my limited number of days.

"Take care of each other," I whispered. I'm not even sure they heard me, but it didn't matter. Broken. I am broken in a million pieces and am laying on the dirty ground.  

I wish I was dead.

"Not as strong as you look Red," he chucked in my ear. His hand clasped my upper arm, and he washed his magic shield around us for protection.  Protection from the Gather Folk; as if they would have the courage to rise up and attack us.  They wouldn't try to assassinate us.  They are all too scared of him.

I stared at the ground as we walked, refusing to look at anything else. Maybe if I didn't see me walking away, deserting my family it wouldn't actually be real. Maybe I could live in a dream land. I felt raw defeat. I felt raw despair.

Thunder clapped in the distance.  Lightening bloomed soon after.  For the first time ever in my life it started to pour down rain.

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Edited on January 23, 2017.

Posted on December 8, 2016.

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