User blog:Annacaza/The Challenge Commences

The first story in the series. This story is not censored, and contains torture and violence starting in chapter three. Read at your own risk, you've been warned.

I'm going to finish this one today, will be uploading it soon.

The Choice
''From the time that I was a young girl to the time that I moved to California, I always kept to myself. During my classes, I would always isolate myself and get wrapped up in something else. After my classes, I never went out with my closest friends to Tivoli, or went out on the nightlife scene. I always stayed inside, never wanting to leave. The choice to leave Denmark had been one of the hardest I had ever had to make until recently. The opportunity was there for me, and I knew that I wouldn’t get a second chance at it. Still, my life in Copenhagen had been one of happiness, and the feeling of solitude. California was so much bigger, as Los Angeles was nearly four times the size of the entire country of Denmark, which was one of the reasons that I needed to think for a long time about my choice.''

''When I did move, it took me a very long time to adjust to life in America. It wasn’t as different as I thought, but there were more people that crowded the streets, more than I had ever seen before. It was very hard for me to escape from the city lights, as I lived in Anaheim, which felt like the energy levels were always surging from the Disney park a few minutes from my house.''

''There was one place in California that I could escape to, and that was the tiny island of Santa Catalina, which was a full-day sail from Long Beach, but it offered an escape. Copenhagen was on an island, and it was how I felt even more solitary. During my frequent trips to Catalina island, I mostly hiked, as the island had better trails than I could get in any of the places I lived in.  I didn’t know at that time how much of my life I would truly spend on an island.''

She wasn’t a working class hero. She wasn’t someone who could make a day better. She wasn’t someone who existed to make the world a better place. One thing was certain though, she wasn’t someone that could have survived outside of her comfort zone.

Laylini Germali was a Danish woman, polite, calm, but not outgoing. She always kept to herself, and that was exactly what she was doing. Nothing would change the fact that she had island roots deep in her blood, and that it was an instinct. Something that no one knew about was her true hardiness and strength which seemed nonexistent on her surface.

It was only during her forced time away from civilization that it was shown.

Hawaiian Ties
''The day I flew to Hawaii was one of great calmness for me. In a way, it felt like coming home. I had been to Hawaii at least ten times before, and loved every bit of it. I had relatives that lived there, and I made my trips as often as I could, money permitting. I had only been in California for six months when I made my first trip to Hawaii.  It had been six years since I had last seen the islands of the Pacific. When I was 21, and could legally drink in the USA, I went there with my friends on a university trip. I had been the only person who had even been to the islands before, and when we stayed for a few days in Maui, we stayed in my relative’s house. It was to Maui where I was going. I loved all the islands, but it was that one specifically that I felt a strong connection to.  The flight to Hawaii was one that I had done many times before, and the length of the flight didn’t bother me, as well as the time changes. Many people were walking up and down the plane’s thin aisle, and I just shook my head. The flight from LA was over six hours, but, they probably had no idea what it was like to fly from Europe then connect in America, and then connect again in LA or Vancouver. That was a full day of travelling in itself, and I could still remember the massive jet lag. Hawaii was a full eleven hours behind Denmark’s time, and that was where being able to travel well came in handy. ''

Hawaii
Hawaii. Just the sound of the name made anyone think of vibrant images of volcanoes, rainforests, black sand beaches, and of course, pineapples. A tropical landscape with a humid climate seemed the opposite of where I had grown up. Denmark was not very humid, at least, not where I was. The air was mostly dry and light, comfortable to breathe in and out, and to relax in after a day at work. The air that Hawaii possessed was heavy and thick, also carrying its out vibrant feeling, though it wasn’t able to been seen from the eye, but for me it was comfortable, maybe because I really did have the island connection.

I had been in Maui for only a few days. My hotel had a private beach, which I loved. I always stayed at the same hotel because of it. Powder white sand, calm waves, and the right sounds of bird and wind overhead was the perfect place for me to go out on a lounge chair, a freshly-made Pina Colada at my side, sunglasses on my face and dressed in my beach dress, and relax, also gaining a light tan in the process, though not a very nice one, as my beach dress, no matter how thin it was, did not allow sunlight to penetrate the fine fibres for an even tan line, and I often ended up with fully tanned arms and fully tanned lower legs, but a pale white body, which was a little undesirable to me.

It was me lounging on the beach alone, looking out along the expanse of blue and green in front of me, and the bright tan sand that continued its way towards me, and seemingly ended where my vision did. In between the ocean on the sand, there was a small amount of white from the foam that was left after each wave. The foam sizzled as the water receded back into itself, before melting into the sand. It would be replaced by more foam several seconds later. During the times I spent on the beach relaxing, I would pick out individual sounds and listen to them, enjoying their elements and how it played a role in the score of nature in Hawaii.

Off to the left side of the beach, was a rock cliff, which was roughly twenty feet high. The rock was a brown colour, with the based washed into underwater caves from the ocean waves and currents. It extended out into the ocean for about one hundred feet, and from the point where it ended, the reefs began, which were home to many different types of exotic fish. I had gone out to the reefs once a few years before, but it wasn’t something that I’d do again. I had dived for the first time there, and it wasn’t as great as a thought. For one, the reef was high, which made diving a real pain because I couldn’t go deeper than twenty feet. Also, the fish that lived there generally hid in the reef, so there wasn’t always a lot to see.

I didn’t pay much attention to the cliff. It was nothing more than a rock face, ragged and beaten from the wind and the water which had battered against it for hundreds of years. Paddleboarders went around the corner of the cliff very often, and I liked to watch them as they turned their boards around the massive wall of stone. It shouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary to see a catamaran turn the corner.

I had been alone on the beach. Catamarans were a popular boat for people to have, as they were fast and rode the waves very well. There were lots of boats that sailed from the point of the cliff, across the channel, and to the nearest harbour a few miles away. This boat was different. Instead of heading to the harbour, it started to move towards the beach. I only eyed it from behind my sunglasses, not trying to look as if I was genuinely concerned, which, at first, was easy. As it got closer, I began to realize that it wasn’t lost; it was coming towards the beach, towards me. I sat up in my chair so that I wasn’t lounging, and didn’t have to raise my head to watch as the boat continued to sail closer. As it moved, it seemed to gain speed, and so did my fear. I tried to tell myself that it was nothing, that it was just someone that would dock their boat on the beach, fix something, and go, but I knew deep down that I was just lying to myself.

The boat finally slowed down, but I was still on edge, watching it with sharp eyes filled with fear, masking behind the dark shade of my sunglasses. It was about fifty feet from me, and floating on a patch of water that was deep enough for it to stay, but close to the beach. I didn’t dare to move, or even breathe, and I had no idea why. It was just a boat, and I hadn’t seen any movement on the boat yet. Paranoid as I was, the wind had blown just once, and the sound of the palm tree leaves rustling above my head were enough to partially calm my frayed nerves. The sounds of the islands were always calming.

I saw movement from the ship, and saw two men jump off of the white-painted catamaran. They looked to be dressed in dated clothing, something that only seemed to exist in movies. They were talking to each other, but they were out of earshot. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to turn my head to look at them. I didn’t want to get their attention, but I was the only person on the beach, and my beach dress was a blue colour and stood out again the pale white of the beach chair, so my chance of not being noticed was slim.

They started slowly walking towards me, still talking and looking at each other. They couldn’t have been very old, maybe in their mid-to-late twenties, like me. One had caramel-brown hair and a handsome face, and the other had even darker hair, which looked to be nearly black, but he did not have as handsome of a face as the other. I was quick to scold myself inwardly, knowing that I wasn’t here to watch the boys. I was here on vacation, to escape the feeling of the city back in California.

The two made their way up to the hotel, and once they left the limited vision range of the corner of my eye, I stopped worrying about them. Still the catamaran was sitting there, and I couldn’t get it out of my sight. Eventually, I stood up, and walked over to it, my curiosity getting the best of me. The two boys were nowhere in sight, and I always looked at the boats that came into the harbour whenever I was there.

This catamaran was white, and was genericly small. It looked as though it could only carry two people, but I only saw one side of it. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but there was something about it that I wasn’t sure about.

“Thinking about hopping on and stealing it?” a sharp male voice rang out behind me and I was quick to turn around to see one of the boys, the lighter-haired one, leaning with one arm on a palm tree.

“Not at all,” I said. “I just wondered why you docked here.”

“We have a place where we get supplies here,” he said. “We live over on one of the smaller islands off the coast.”

“Why not go to Lahaina?” I asked.

“Lahaina’s supply shops are more inland than we like,” he answered, and paused, looking me up and down. “Are you here on vacation?”

I nodded. “Visiting from California.”

He looked confused. “That’s not an American accent.”

“I was born and raised in Denmark before I moved to America.”

“That explains it.”

I smiled, and he looked over his shoulder to see that the other boy was walking back towards the ship, a dark wooden crate in his arms. He looked at me once before walking up the stairs and loading a crate onto the ship’s limited floor space. The boy who had been talking to me walked over, until he was standing just a few feet away. “Surely you would like to come with us, see the island, if you are on vacation,” he said softly, and began to slowly advance. I watched him carefully.

“It depends,” I said, backing up, matching the volume and tone of his voice. “How far out is it?”

His face suddenly turned to one of lust to one of cruelty. “One that requires two boats to reach.”

It was in that instant when I felt my arms grabbed and held behind my back, and an arm wrap around my head, covering my mouth. It was too fast for me to even respond. My body went into a state of shock, and I didn’t put up any kind of a fight as my arms were bound at my wrists and my legs at my ankles. Not even when I was dragged up the stairs by my elbow, and roughly thrown into a corner of the ship, right behind the helm. It had been the dark haired one that had taken me onto the boat, while the one who had talked to me had only watched, making sure that no one had really seen it.

For a minute I just lay there, trying to comprehend what has just happened. It had all happened so fast, and it was completely out of my control. One moment, I was relaxing, at ease with everything going on around me, which wasn’t much, only the sounds of the ocean waves as they washed gently against the sand and the sound of the wind as it disturbed the palm trees. Now, the sound was my breathing, fast and partially laboured, and the sound of the water against the white sides of the boat where the only sounds I heard. I had no idea where we were going, or why it was me, but I knew that I had no chance to get out.

The Island Spirit
''If there was ever one thing I knew about the long wait times, it was the journeys to Santa Catalina by boat. Generally, I would take a ferry over to the island, but it was large and comfortable. Since I often took the one that traveled at night, I knew what it was like to sleep over the water, and to not even feel the slightest waves underneath. I remember that the rooms were also comfortable, and not claustrophobic, something that I never had, and something that I was now increasingly thankful for.''

Arrival
It had been close to noon when I was abducted, and that meant that the sun had been high. The catamaran that I was on was sheltered only over the helm, and about six feet back. The walls surrounding the helm were only about two feet high, making them look more like barriers, and were the same colour of white as the rest of the boat. The paint on the barriers where I was lying was worn a little scratched, and it made me wonder how many other people had been in the same position that I was in; afraid, restrained, and confused.

I was facing the helm, and I couldn’t watch as the beach drifted away from sight. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to mourn the past, not in this situation. I needed to find a way to escape.

''Oh yes Laylini. You’re going to escape, to where exactly? You’re in the middle of a damn ocean.''

The voice in my head was nearly roaring at me, and I snarled at it, but I knew that I had nowhere to go even if I did escape, which was unlikely. One of the boys was at the helm, and the other was sitting on the wooden crate, which was placed in the corner to my left. I was lying partially on my side, putting a lot of my weight on my shoulder, and with a solid, unmoving surface, it felt as if the very bones in my shoulder were grinding against my muscles, sending a sharp pain right where the bone was pressed against the floor. From that spot, the pain traveled in a field, dulling as it went further, but my muscle was fatigued and began to hurt even more.

The ride was silent. The only sounds were the ones of the ocean. I had accepted the fact that, wherever I was going, it really would be too far out for me to get back to. As night fell, the two boys ate in silence, while I lay on the floor. I had shifted after every last bit of the shock had worn off, but my shoulder still ached with the memory ingrained in the muscle. Every fibre in it felt as though it had been torn, and the nerves frayed.

The lights on the catamaran had been turned on, which gave the white paint a yellow-orange colour. The lights hung in rows, attached to the posts that held the roof up. The one boy who had been steering before had stepped away from the helm to eat with the other. Eventually, they noticed me, as it seemed that they had forgotten about me. The lighter-haired one walked over, carrying a leather canteen, and I eyed him, uncertainty blatantly obvious in my stare. He grabbed my good shoulder and propped me up against the barrier behind me, then held the brown container to my face. I turned away, my lips pressed into a hard line. There was no way I was going to submit.

“You’re don’t any other option, sweetheart,” he said, obviously amused by my resistance.

“What makes you think I’ll take water from your hand?” I asked, turning my head sharply, an edge in my voice.

“I’m not going to let you die on this boat,” he said. “I’ll get it into you somehow.”

It was the look on his face that made me finally give in. “Fine,” I said. “But god forbid if you do something stupid-”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, in a playful voice. “Your hands are literally tied. I wouldn’t be talking down to me.”

“It’s not like you can control that,” I said back.

It was at that moment that he brought his hand up, and then brought it back down on my face, my head turning with the force. The slap stung, there was no question, but I still returned to see him with the same composed face. “That is a warning,” he said. “You might be able to bypass some of it with your looks, but I’m not as soft as you think.”

He forcefully grabbed the back of my neck, underneath my hair, and I snapped my head back. In the moment that my mouth was open, I felt the top of the canteen hit my lips the water came pouring out. At first I choked on the liquid as I wasn’t prepared, but then I realized that my thirst was depleted, and I drank as much as I could, avoiding his gaze. I knew it was probably a smirk of victory, and it was something that made me feel weakened, which, even though I was, I wanted some dignity on the boat.<br. Once the canteen was pulled away, I shot him such a look of disdain that he started laughing light to himself. “Are you trying to look mean?” he asked.

“I’m hoping that looks could kill,” I retorted.

“You keep sitting on that,” he said, and turned away. I lowered my gaze and shifted back to I was lying on my back once again. I was fighting to keep myself from falling asleep, but the lights of the boat were just dim enough for me to close my eyes without them burning in the back of my vision. Even though I hadn’t moved much, I was still exhausted. Being in a state of shock for so long had taken a lot of my energy away, and mentally fighting the voice in my head was something that I knew would take energy. Still, I couldn’t help it as my eyes shut without my consent, and I was quick to black out.

___________________________________________________________________________________

I was startled awake by rough handling on my bad shoulder. I tried to sit up, but considering that my arms were still tightly bound, I had no ways of leverage, so I fell down against my back once again. The unwelcome face that greeted me was that of the lighter-haired one. “We’re here now,” he said, and pulled me up by holding my forearms and lifting. The lights on the catamaran had been switched off, leaving only the light of the moon. I glanced around quickly, and saw nothing but dark black, blue and white. “We are no where,” I said.

He roughly turned me around, and that was when I saw it. Huge stone walls, and an orange glow behind them. “Welcome to your new home,” he whispered in my ear, playfully, and I tried to pull away, but he was too close for me to get away from. He then reached down and swung his arm against the back of my knees, and held me bridal style, which I hated, but it sure beat being dragged. It wasn’t so much that I was in pain, but the fact that it was this boy, who had slapped me on the ship, and was now trying to make some sort of a move on me, and I could do nothing to fight back.

He carried me off of the boat, and towards the stone walls. I watched carefully, trying to where we were, but in the dark, it was too hard to make out anything but the stone walls. They were at least twenty feet high, maybe more. They looked more to be castle walls than anything. We neared a gate, and it opened for us, the wood sliding up slowly. Once it was raised enough for him to walk through, he did, and it opened up a world of an island.

There were wooden huts everywhere, and that made up about half of my vision. There were fires going in controlled fire pits, and were starting to burn low. Deer were settling down for the night, close to the huts, and I assumed that they were tamed. There were farms that made up the other side of my vision, growing trees and bushes. I couldn’t tell what was on them, but it looked as if the farms were large enough to feed a village twice this size.

He started walking again, towards the huts. I was still trying to take in everything. The huts looked as if they had been randomly built, with no specific grid, but in a way, they seemed organized. There was nobody outside of their hut, as it looked to be quite late. He stopped and turned into a bigger hut, then set me down and closed the door behind him. He then got out a knife and cut the ropes from my hands and ankles. I was too weak to move away. “I suggest you sleep tonight,” he said, placing his knife on a table-like structure across from me. “It’s going to be hard tomorrow for you.” I didn’t question it, and just lay right where he had left me. The hut was lit up by a burning torch, though it was slightly covered by rock so it wouldn’t burn out of control. The hut was quite long, and he moved over to the other end of the hut, where a well-furnished room lay in front of him. There was a rather comfortable-looking bed, a table, chairs, and a desk. There was nothing on my end of the hut, just the usual grass floor. Even though I should have tried to stay awake, I just couldn’t, and once again I was unwillingly swept into the darkness.

Eyes of Rust
My eyes were always something that my friends and family said were an asset, and I could tell why they thought that. When I was angered, they would glow with the flames only found deep in the heart of a fire. When I was sad or worried, they would look as if they were rusting over, threatening to flake off if my emotion held its path for a long period of time. When I was at a neutral feeling, they would glow lightly, not rusted, and not burning, but rather at an equilibrium point in between the two, and take the colour that iodine naturally had.

I always disregarded my eye colour. It meant nothing to me, as I didn’t believe in any spirit charming them to turn the amber that they were. To me, they were just a part of my body, and nothing more.

Inflicted
I woke once again with a jolt. There was nothing that would keep me unconscious for very long. Somehow, I knew where I was even when I wasn’t awake, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t dead. Every three or so hours, I would wake, look around, and fall back to sleep, all within a matter of seconds.

It was the the fourth time when I woke up that the sun had risen. The boy who had slept in his “room” was awake, and had his back turned to me. I sat up on my elbows, trying to gain a better view, and he turned almost instantly after I was propped myself up. “Nice to see that you’re awake,” he said, smiling. I was quickly reminded about the events of last night and my gaze turned hard. “Why is it nice?” I asked with an edge in my voice.

He turned so he was directly facing me, and in his hand I saw the shining short blade of a knife. I sat up a little higher, trying to figure out how I would be able to back up if he approached me. “Surely you don’t think there is some sort of ‘test’ to enter this tribe,” he said. “We have it good here for a reason. We need highly trained slaves to do some of the work.”

“Why did you take me then?” I asked.

“We’ve been watching you ever since you entered the island,” he said. “We knew that you came here a few years ago. Don’t you remember me?”

I looked at him questionably. “It was six years ago, and I was drunk for most of my time here. I wouldn’t remember one person.”

“But you should,” he said, then smiled. “That was a fun night.”

At that instant, I jumped up and without even thinking clearly, jumped at him. He was taken aback as I crashed into him, sending us both back against the grass floor, hitting it hard. I was about to line him up for a punch, but he grabbed one of my arms and twisted it. I folded instinctively, trying to ease the pain. He was fast to get up, still holding my arm, and my body followed him to avoid breaking my arm. Once he was on his feet, I was on my knees in front of him, one arm twisted, the other holding my shoulder, which was still sore. “Big mistake, sweetheart,” he said. “Trust me, you don’t want to try that again.” He released my arm and at the same time, pushed me down onto the ground. I just lay against the grass, happy that my arm was free again and not contorted. I didn’t know where he went, and I didn’t really care, as long as I wasn’t being restrained.

My arms didn’t stay free for long. As I lay on the ground, he bound them behind my back once again, and dragged me over by my forearm to the other end of the hut. I didn’t try to fight back. There was no reason to. He left me in the corner, and then left me, probably to go back to his area, but I couldn’t see, as I was facing the opposite direction from his area.

I lay there for what felt like an hour, but it was probably only twenty minutes. He came back with a small amount of bread and a leather canteen. I didn’t make any move to get up, but I was still forced to, as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me up. I was expecting him to let go of my shoulder, but when he didn’t I began to fight a little bit. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, what he had said had stung too deep.

Probably one of the many nights I was stone drunk I thought to myself. I tried to push it out of my mind, which came a lot easier when he began to break off smaller pieces of the bread for me to eat. I knew that fighting against him now would be pointless, because he had a strong grip on my arms, and I did not want to starve. So, unwillingly, I took the pieces of bread from his hand, and the water from the canteen. When everything was finished, he let me go, and I fell once again against the grass, and he left to go back to his area.

While I lay there on the ground, I began to recall what his name was. I could remember a few things from the night, that was, before the tequila shots had started coming out. I briefly remembered him buying me a drink of some sort. Then it hit me. “Adrian,” I said, a little louder than I thought, and regretted it soon after when I heard his voice. “So, you remembered?” It was more of a statement than a question. “Not much, but yes,” I said. “How did you know I would be on Maui this week?” “Luck,” he said. “Really. I had a friend who was staying at the same hotel you were at, and when I went to go see him, I saw you in the lobby checking in.” It was a good enough reason for me. “Was that friend the one who drove the boat yesterday?” I asked.

“No, that was the co-leader of this tribe,” Adrian said. “I am the other co-leader, and seeing as though I am distracted right now, I figured that he can take over.” There was a long pause, and I thought over my fate for a few seconds before I asked the question he had been waiting for.

“Are you going to kill me?”

The question hung in the air for a long time, open-ended.

“I hope not. It’d be a sad waste.”

The next generic question came next.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“Inevitably.”

It took me a while to make sense of it, but when I did, I knew that there was no way that I would be able to avoid it. I would have to endure whatever pain he brought on me.

“When?”

“Tonight.”

At least it gave me time to prepare, however one could really prepare to be tortured. There was a little bit of rustling behind me, and then dull footsteps toward me. “I’ll be back,” Adrian said. “Don’t try to escape. I have a guard outside, armed. He won’t kill you, but he’ll make sure you don’t try again.” And with that, he walked out, closing the door behind him in a swift movement.

I must’ve been left alone for a few hours. I couldn’t keep track of accurate time, but I could hear movement outside, as the walls weren’t very thick. They were made of solid brown wood, and the hut was made of tightly-woven leaves.

During the time in the hut, I decided to see if there was anything I could cut to cut the rope around my wrists. I wasn’t going to try to escape, as I could see the shadow of the guard under the door, but I wanted the comfort of having my wrists free. I stood up, and walked over to the furnished area of the hut. He had taken his knife with him, but if there was any sharp edges anywhere that I could use. I looked around carefully, trying to spot just one edge that I could use, but there were none. I was about to give up when I saw an edge on the table that I could possibly use. I backed up against it, positioned the rope against the edge and began to saw. I couldn’t hear a lot of fibres snapping, but I knew that this would be the only thing I could use to free my wrists.

I finally began to make progress on getting the rope off, as I heard the first fibre snap. My arms were starting to fatigue, and I knew that I only had a limited amount of time before they were too tired to move. Within a short time of hearing the first fibre snap, I heard Adrian’s voice outside.

My head shot up, and I knew I only had about ten seconds to get over to the other side of the hut, but I was so close to getting free. I could hear more fibres breaking behind me, and Adrian’s voice got closer. I glanced up at the door, not seeing it open or seeing a new shadow cast underneath it, but I knew he would be at the door soon. Finally, the last fibre snapped, and I didn’t hesitate to bolt across the hut. Right as I passed the door, it swung open, catching me right in the nose. I fell back, crying out, bringing my hand to my face and closing my eyes. I opened them and brought my hand back, seeing that there was thankfully no blood, but it stung with a passion. The pain in my head was quickly forgotten about as I looked up to see Adrian staring down at me. “Going to make an escape there?” he asked sweetly, and I growled in my throat. He looked over at where I had been able to cut off the rope from my wrists, then looked back down at me. “Good thing I came back when I did,” he said, closing the door.

I still lay on the ground, not moving, as he moved behind my head. I didn’t bother to watch him. I thought that he was going to drag me over to the other end of the hut, but he didn’t. Instead, he disappeared from my vision. I could hear him behind me, but I didn’t really care what he was doing. What completely caught me off guard was that he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up. I gasped a little, as my left shoulder was still sore, but it was getting better. He let go, and my hand flew to my bad shoulder, rubbing it gently.

“Let me ask you a question, Laylini,” Adrian said, and my jaw clenched as he said my name. “Do you know what this is?” He walked in front of me, holding a short handle with a long thin blade attached to it. “Only that it’s a knife,” I said. Adrian laughed quietly to himself.

“It was used in medieval times as a way of execution,” he said. “It’s a flaying knife.”

I tried not to show my discomfort at the last statement, but I didn’t do a very good job at it. Adrian saw it quickly. “I’m not going to kill you tonight,” he said. “But this thing can inflict a good amount of pain. If you can co-operate with me, this would be less painful for you.”

He walked over to the very end of the hut, opposite of his little setup. I followed him, almost too petrified to know what was going on. He grabbed my right shoulder and pushed me down on my knees. My wrists were then bound to separate walls which were across from each other. I looked up as he finished tying my ankles together, full of fear as the shadow of pain loomed closer.

I shut my eyes, only listening for where Adrian was. I knew he was somewhere behind me, and when I felt the rope on my right arm tense and then go limp I knew that he was in front of me. Only then did I open my eyes to see him, not two feet away, plotting, probably figuring out where he was going to start. My suspicions were confirmed when he started talking quietly to himself, but partially to me. “Where shall we start?” he asked himself, and then a few second of silence passed. He then made his decision. “Back,” he said. “Then you won’t have to see what I’m doing.” My eyes started to flare up, and Adrian caught it quickly. “Are you afraid?” he asked softly.

“Of course I am!” I spat at him. “Someone who I knew six years ago kidnapped me right off of a beach, brought me here, and is now holding a knife in front of my face. You really think that-” I was cut off by a slap to the face, once again carrying that same stinging pain as the first time. Right afterwards, he grabbed my chin and held my face inches from his. “You’ll learn your place here, Laylini,” he said, then roughly released my lower jaw. My anger and fear were in a constant battle as he ducked back under the right rope and was out of my sight once again. At some point my fear would take over and I would be left at his mercy, even though I technically already was, but at that point I seemed to have some wild conception that I’d be able to escape. When I felt the cold metal blade in between my shoulder blades, my anger disappeared and the fear replaced it. My whole body tensed, even though it wasn’t what I wanted.

The blade slashed across my back swiftly, and I gasped, not wanting to give Adrian any satisfaction of hearing me cry out. Within the next few seconds, the blade met my skin again, lower this time on my shoulder blades, but deeper. I still tried to not making much of a sound, but it was getting harder, as the first cut was starting to sting and burn, making both wounds hurt even more. And to top it all off, because my arms were stretched, I had to stay in the most uncomfortable position, which was putting all my weight on my knees and sitting up straight, to keep the wounds from stretching and opening up even more. It seemed to be so perfectly planned out, yet it felt so crude.

Eventually, the knife moved to my arm, and I couldn’t contain my cries any longer. Every time that silver-coloured blade, tinted red now, touched my skin I couldn’t help but letting the pain out in another way. I knew that I was giving Adrian the satisfaction of knowing that he was hurting me, but at that point, I didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop.

When the blade finally did leave my arm, it took me about thirty seconds to fully recover. Every thing that the knife had touched hurt with a burning sting. Adrian left me for a few minutes, and then returned, but not with a knife. I didn’t look over my shoulder, one reason being that I couldn’t without tearing the wounds more, and the other reason was that I somehow trusted him, and I didn’t know why. He had towel or something that he was holding to my back. “Why are you healing me?” I asked once I had caught by breath. “You need to be in good shape when you work tomorrow,” he said. “Or, at least, not looking like this.” I didn’t even try to comprehend what he had said. Anything was better than staying in this godforsaken hut.

I must’ve been cut pretty bad, as it took Adrian a long time to finally leave my back and move onto my arm. My arm wasn’t nearly a bad, as the cuts weren’t as deep or as frequent. The pain was starting to subside, and I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out within the minute. But I still was a little wary.

When Adrian left me completely, I glanced down at my arm where the wounds had been inflicted. They had been bandaged with what looked like leaves, and had a brown-green colour to them, one colour not overriding the other. I assumed that my back was also covered in the same thing. I didn’t care, as it was helping me cope with the pain, which was still coming down in its intensity.

Adrian came back over, this time, with another knife, though it was shorter. I eyed it uncertainly, but he didn’t pay any attention to me. He was on my right side, and cut the rope holding my arm to the wall, then moved to the left side and cut it as well. I pulled my wrists out and rubbed them, as the circulation had been cut off, though my hands were not completely useless. My wrists had red marks from where they had been bound, and I had a feeling that those marks would fade, but never disappear entirely. I thought the same of the wounds on my back and my arm. They would be only the first of the many pains that would be inflicted.

One Week
It was one week of me and Adrian in the hut, and one week of partial pain. I wasn’t tortured again with that knife, but scars were left on my back and my arm. I could cover them with my clothing, which I had revamped. Instead of the beach dress I had worn for the first few days, Adrian had gotten me some better clothing to make sure I would be able to hide the fact that he had inflicted pain upon me purposefully. He had threatened me that if anyone found out, he would make sure that I wouldn’t live to see the civilized world again, as he didn’t want the people that lived in the village to know about him being a little unstable.

When I woke up on my seventh day of being on the island, I sat up and looked at Adrian. I wasn’t tied very much anymore, which was nice, but I still had the marks on my wrists that had faded as much as they would. Adrian was already awake, standing at his table. “You’re going to use the mill today,” Adrian said. “We have people to cook but we need someone to actually make the flour.” I didn’t protest. “We’ve already got a few others to help you,” he continued. “And you’ll be watched over by the other co-leader. I’m going out to another island today.”

I nodded, and looked away. The group of islands where this tribe was located was called Oelus, and the island that the tribe was on was called Mainland. I had only seen the tribe once, and that was when I was brought in at night. Still, I would probably have plenty of time to see the tribe as I had accepted the fact that I was pretty much stuck here. However, I was still going to wait for the time when someone let their guard down, and I would seize the opportunity to get out.

Adrian walked over to me, holding my clothing, as I slept in my beach dress because it was more comfortable. The islands were still hot and humid even with the sun down, and my usual clothing was way too hot for me to sleep comfortably in. He dropped them next to me. “I’ll go see when their ready for you to come and work,” he said, and then swiftly left the hut. I sighed, and dressed quickly. I hoped the other people would help make the work easier so I didn’t get too hot in my clothes. The clothing that I wore was quite dated, and looked like something that could’ve been shipped from Port Royal. It was a white loose shirt, and a red coat that extended down past my hip. I also had loose white pants, and all of it was pretty comfortable when you weren’t sweating in it. I also had a black hat that covered my face from the sun. If I did have a mirror, I would think that I’d look something like a female pirate.

Adrian came back into the hut shortly after I’d put my coat on. “They’re ready now,” he said, standing in the doorway, one hand holding onto the wooden doorknob. I walked over to him, silently. He closed the door behind me, and to be out in the natural light again was something of value for me. The sun wasn’t very high in the sky yet, but the temperature was on its way up and the humidity was also getting high.

Adrian’s hut wasn’t out of place from the other residential huts. It was a little bit bigger length-wise, but other than that, it was completely normal. Like the rest, his hut was made of wood, as there was no stone huts yet in the tribe.

We walked only a short distance before we had arrived at the mill. There was only one, but it was huge, and definitely looked like it needed more than two people to handle it. The others were already there, and the other co-leader of the tribe was there as well. He looked at me as we walked up, and nodded to Adrian, who promptly left. There was something about this co-leader that I wasn’t so sure about, but I didn’t know what it was. He looked at me again. “You’re going to collect the flour today,” he said. “There are bags there.” He pointed to a pile of roughly sewn bags made out of leaves. “You can put them on the cart whenever you fill one up.” He pointed to a cart, driven by what looked to be deer. I was a little confused, but got over it as everyone left to go to their station.

I had to wait until they started putting the wheat through the mill for me to do any work, so as I waited, I looked around the village. It was surrounded by high stone walls that I had seen before, and but I had better view from the mill, as it was on a higher vantage point than the rest of the tribe. Half of it was wooden huts for living in, and the rest looked to be shops and storage huts. There was a huge lake to the right side close to Adrian’s hut and the rest of the residential quarters, as there were open spaces for deer to roam and graze in, which looked to be of the same breed as the ones that pulled the cart. Gotta make do I thought to myself and turned quickly back to the mill as the ground flour made its way down. I held out the bag to catch it, and within moments the fine white powder started to stream out.

We worked for what felt like two or so hours before the cart was fully loaded. There as someone waiting for us to load it up, and when it was loaded and they drove away, we were allowed a break. I sat down in the cool grass, sweating from the effort of carrying and lifting the bags of flour onto the cart. I started to look around the islands, hoping to see a few more and map out how exactly this was laid out. I was facing south, and directly to the south was a tall island, surrounded by natural rock barriers, which looked like it grew wheat, as I could see a large mass of gold close to the grass, though I couldn’t see it very well. To the east was a rock island that resembled a mountain. I turned around to look to the north. The north-east had a smaller island, with tall trees that looked to grow fruit. To the direct north was another small island, with what look to be blue animals running around on them. I blinked, and squinted to make sure that my eyes weren’t lying to me. I decided to let it go and keep looking around. The west had two different islands, one was a rock island that looked to be some sort of cave-like island, and the other was covered in trees and foliage that I couldn’t even tell if it was habitable or not. That was all I could see from my vantage point, but I decided to take it as what it was, and turned back to the south.

I was handed a canteen of water, and drank quite a lot of it, which I wasn’t blamed for, since my work required a little more strength. Still, there were three others who were bundling the wheat and making it so that it could even be dropped into the mill. When the cart came back, we all got up again and set to work once more. I was a lot slower than in the morning, but I hadn’t eaten at all that day. The co-leader finally showed a side of him that I had been worried about, and at his side he brought out a long, coiled, thin whip. I began to work faster, but it wasn’t long before my knees gave away and I collapsed onto the ground, the bag of flour dropping down next to me. I heard the sounds of voices behind me, from the top of the mill, where the other three were. I knew that I was probably going to have that whip brought down on me, but I couldn’t force my muscles to move. I couldn’t feel anything past my knees, and I just lay there, looking up at the sky, waiting for the co-leader to come over to me, and hoping that it would be fast.

As soon as I saw his face come into view, I shut my eyes. “Get up,” he said sharply. “I can’t,” I said. “I haven’t eaten since last night, and I’m too weak.” I opened my eyes to see the whip raise into the air, and I rolled over right before it hit me. It lashed the ground, and I found some sort of strength to stand, quickly. The adrenaline in my veins was huge. I turned to face him, and he looked as though he was going to attack me. His hand flew to his belt and pulled out a sword. He had dropped his whip to do so, and I began to back up. I was starting to plan out how I was going to be able to get over to the whip and hopefully use it as a tool to lash the sword out of his hands.

He ran at me, swinging the sword, and I ducked out of the way, and bolted for his whip, which was lying just a few feet behind him, so I had to be quick. my hands wrapped around the handle and I pulled back away from him as I figured out what I was doing. I lashed out violently at him, and caught in in the cheek. He didn’t stop to wipe the blood away, but he continued to advance on me until I was close to the stone walls. I had nowhere to run, so I lashed out again, this time catching the blade of the sword but not enough to wrap it around. He used this moment to advance quickly on me, and I had no time to react. I waited for my death, knowing that it was inevitable. Right at the last second, something suddenly tackled the man, and I backed up, knowing exactly who it was.

I sat in the hut, not waiting to look over at the other side that had been Adrian’s. He would not return to it. After he had saved me by tackling the other leader, the iron sword had hit hit right in jugular. I had not been able to stay, and I didn’t know why. I had tried to convince myself that there was nothing between us, that the night six years ago was a one shot and nothing more, but I did have something left. The co-leader’s name was Lee, and now he was the true leader. I was going to live in another hut, one with the other three people who had also suffered through the same thing I had when I first arrived. I was just waiting for them to come and find me, because I had wanted to grab my beach dress before I went to their hut. I didn’t want to go outside and see anyone. I was too busy grieving and being angry at myself that I was grieving. Still, everyone knew where Adrian’s hut was, and it didn’t take long for the three of them to find me.

Two boys and one girl, all around my age, arrived at the door, trying to be quiet and gentle with me, but I was in no mood, so they stopped. I just wanted to be left alone until I could sort my feelings out.

The hut that the four of us would live in was a hut a little bit bigger than Adrian’s. It was divided into two big rooms, with the dividing wall placed on either side of the door. The little entrance way wasn’t really used for anything, though there were a few things sitting against the back wall.

The boy had the right side of the hut, while the girls had the left. Since there were only four of us, it seemed that the only time that any of them were in their own side was when it was time to sleep. They were very comfortable with each other, but I was pretty sure that they had living together for longer than I had been on the island. I walked into our side of the room, with the other girl in front of me. The room was set up quite like Adrian’s hut, except that there were two beds, and they were smaller. They were set up along the side walls, with a wooden nightstand against the back wall. There was a couch-like thing that sat in the wall opposite of the night stand. It looked like a very cozy place to be, but I still didn’t forget that I was trying to get out of here, and get back home to California. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to survive out in the wilderness.

“We generally make our own food,” she said. “The boys will sometimes eat with us, but they’ll cook half of the meal. Now we can just stay in here or go wander around the village because of todays...events.” I nodded, and walked over to the close, bed which looked to be completely untouched. “You can have that one,” she said. “I sometimes switched beds because I like a change of scenery, even if it is just two feet.” She smiled, and walked out of our room to the room where the boys were.

I sat on the bed, looking at the wall. Now that Adrian was dead, Lee would be in charge. There was no way that I’d be able to stay unharmed while he ruled, as he seemed to have a lot more of a rougher personality to him, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to trust him.I knew that I would just have to try and fight my way for a few more days. There had to be some time when everyone was asleep and I could make my attempt. But, I needed a while to figure out the exact layout of the tribe beforehand.

She came back inside the room, and I turned my head over my shoulder. “Why do you stay here?” I asked.

“Even though it sounds bad, we stay mainly for the food,” she answered, not sounding at all surprised that I had asked such a question. “Once you live here for a while, you don’t want to leave.”

“Even after you’ve been tortured?” I asked. She stopped and looked at me.

“You’re the only one that has ever felt Adrian’s knife,” she answered quietly. I looked up.

“But you were kidnapped weren’t you?” I asked.

“From the islands around here, never from the Hawaiian islands,” she said. “There are five other island groups in this area, including this one. I was originally on the fifth group, or Filus islands. The two other boys came from the third and fourth island groups. This one is the smallest, as it only has a few islands, which is why there is only one tribe that lives here, but it’s big. This island is the biggest in all of Oelus.”

“That’s why it’s called mainland?” I asked.

She nodded. “The other islands are referred to here as, Paradise, Zanth, Denrai, Reflection, Peak, and Castle.”

“This seems like a big enough island group,” I said.

“Seven islands is not that big. The third group, Trilus, has thirteen named islands, and a few that have broken off from the main island body.”

“Do people travel between island groups?”

“Only to get workers. Nothing is imported from other island groups. They’re too far away for goods to make it very far.”

I sighed, and looked at the ground, which was the same grass flood that Adrian had in the one end of his hut, where I had slept.

“How far out are they?”

“Are you planning to escape?”

I looked up at her. “Why are you so fast to ask that?” “Because I know which guards are out at which times, and the weak spots in the wall.” “I’m not taking the backstabbing risk.”

“If I wanted to stab you in the back I would have done it literally already. I lived rough in my beginning on Filus. Raids happened on my island, which was the primary island, which was also called mainland. A lot of people settled there. My tribe was raided quite often until we moved to a mountainous island. Then the raids stopped, and we were more prepared to fight when the advanced tribes tried to attack. I had to trust a leader that I didn’t like, and I still have to do that because Lee is one of the cruel-hearted men in this tribe, and I had to hope that he wouldn’t leave me out to dry if we had to fight.”

“What was Adrian like as a leader?”

“He was a lot kinder.” She sat down on her bed so she was facing me. “He made sure we were all taken care of, and made sure we had a good hut like this one. Lee thought that slaves should have it rougher, even though we had all gone through some tough times. Adrian protested against him, as well as the rest of this village. I hate to say this, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Adrian would be murdered at Lee’s hand.”

“I am planning to escape.” She paused. “I’ll help you. But, I need to come with you. My tribe back in Filus has been without me for a long time, and I need to return. The other three need to as well.”

“What was the real reason you stay here?”

“The reassurance that Adrian would protect us.”

I leaned back against the wall that the length of my bed ran down. I had never thought that Adrian would be the voice of reason in this tribe. “Tell me about this place,” I said.

“Before I do, what is your name?”

I turned to look at her. “Laylini.”

“I’m Ashita. I’ll give you a complete rundown of Oelus as a whole.”

“Alright.”

“Oelus has seven islands, as you know. Mainland is the biggest, and has deer, called Bento, that are usually used for work, as you saw, they help pull the flour carts. This is the only island with people as well.

Castle island is the island to the south of here. It grows wheat, and has a little rock hill. It is also surrounded by natural rock barriers. I have been there, and I can tell you now that if you are planning to make an escape, make it there, and swim south. It is hard to get a boat out from the rock barriers, as parts of them have broken off, which made the island accessible because there was no other way to get onto it unless you climbed up. South of here is the closest island group, Dolus. The others are too far away to swim to.

Peak is the tall mountain-like island, which has no vegetation on it at all. The only things that are there is a rock cave, and that isn’t very big. That one is pretty close to here, within swimming distance even.

Paradise id a heavy-vegetation island that grows so much food that one could live there forever. I always wondered why this tribe didn’t settle there, and instead chose here, but when I went there I found out why. There is no room for building, there is just plants and bushes and trees everywhere.

Zanth is another island with animals, Zanth goats. That island is used mostly as a mining island as it has iron veins inside of it. But it is really spooky there, because it has the illusion of being like an old prison because of the vines and the way that the rock structures look like.

Denrai is the only other island with animals, and these are called Denrai runners. They are very fast, as have a really big tail. They’re blue, and they don’t like people, so they run as soon as someone docks there. But they’ll also attack.

The last island is called Reflection, at least, I call it that, because it has a huge pond that I like to use to sit by and relax. I’m only allowed to go there with one of the co-leaders, now Lee, so I probably won’t be able to go there anymore. It also has oranges, though whenever the tribe goes on supply runs, it always striped the trees from the fruit, so the only thing left is the pond, at least for me.

One of the most important things about all of these island groups, is how advanced they are. These islands are engineered so that they are advanced, but the first, second, fourth and fifth island groups are not being attended to anymore. The third island group always has the most people on it, which is why it’s still. attended to.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Did you catch all of that?” I nodded slowly, sorting through everything she told me. “I’ll probably need regular lessons until i have everything memorized. Anyways, what is Filus like?”

She leaned back. “You seem very curious.” I smiled and nodded. “Very well. Filus was the last of the island groups to fully develop. It is the third-most inhabited of all the groups. It only has a few islands, like this one, but they’re are all quite big. The first one, Mainland, like here, is one of the biggest islands, and it also has deer, though they aren’t used for work. We had pens of them, and chickens as well. We lived close to a lake, and had a nice fleet of ships so we could make frequent supply runs quickly. We were raided by a tribe that lived on the Mainland that our leader didn’t seem to like, and must’ve angered during a scouting trip, or something. I don’t know the whole story. Anyways, we moved to an island called Coal, because it is the only island that has natural coal, which we used to make steel. We lived on the top of the highest mountain, and had beautiful walls that surrounded our tribe. There were only about ten of us in the tribe, which was a lot, but everyone pulled their weight and was treated equal, including the leader. My sour feelings toward him had only developed during the time that we had been on Mainland and had got raided. But he didn’t think too fondly of me either. Because we were the only tribe that could make the advanced weapons, we were able to hold off a lot of attacks quite easy. I was abducted when I had been at the shoreline fishing. They came out of nowhere. I didn’t even have time to call for help. The leader was the only one that saw the boat as I sailed away towards this place. I’ve always wanted to go back, but Adrian made sure that Lee didn’t turn this tribe into a military power. Now, I don’t know. All I know is that I want to fight with my tribe on Filus instead of stay behind these lines.”

I shifted my weight. “What about Dolus? Do you know anything about that group?”

She nodded. “I’ve been pretty much everywhere here. I went to Dolus on one of my exploring trips. There are ten islands there, so a bit bigger than here in Oelus. There are Bento Deer there, and they are in pretty much every island group. They’re pretty popular. Anyways, there are also hostile animals, like stone hornets, so stay away from those.

One of the more notable islands is Waterfall, with is literally a stone island with a huge waterfall. No food, but you can always grow some. There was a tribe last I checked, and they were friendly. If you do escape, go to that island, as that tribe will help you.

There was also a tribe on the desert island, which is just called Desert. It’s a little further out from the rest of the islands. That tribe was pretty neutral, and has a lot of defense. I’d think that they’d make good allies. but I wouldn’t want to live there, simply because, well, it’s a desert.

Dolus is a lot like this place is, but bigger. Are you planning to get home?” “Yes,” I said. “I need to go to a place that has advanced-enough ships to get me home.”

“If you want the fastest ships, Filus has the things needed for them,” Ashita said. “But the best place to get them is Quadrus. There is a special ship that can be made out of rare materials that never regenerate. That’ll get you home, no question about it.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I’m staying in the islands,” she said. “I came here voluntarily in the first place. The first island group that I stopped at was Filus, and I met someone who was willing to take me in. He’s still there, and I want to make sure I get back to him alive. If he didn’t help me, I don’t know how long I would have lasted.”

At that moment one of the boys walked into our room. I only looked up a little bit; for a moment I forgot that there were two others that lived with us.

Ashita smiled as he came in. “This is Jacob,” she said. “He came from Trilus.”

I nodded in acknowledgement. “How did you get here?” I asked.

“Washed away from my tribe after a storm,” he said. “Adrian was the one that found me. I thought I would go back to my island, but we didn’t. I’ve been here for a long time, but never moved up in rankings.”

“Do you ever think of going back?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I’d like nothing better than to go back to my tribe, though they have probably forgotten about me. Why?”

I looked over at Ashita, wondering if it would be okay to tell what we had been talking about, and she nodded. “The two of us are planning to escape,” I said. “I hear that they are planning a run to Denrai tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re fast, you could probably go unseen, but it all depends on which guards they are taking.”

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. I mainly stayed in the hut, thinking about what Ashita had told me about the islands. If the rumor was true about a run to Denrai, I was pretty sure that they would need the four of us to harvest whatever it was that they needed. Knowing what I knew about that island now, I was pretty sure that I might be able to pull of an escape, but the plan that I was thinking of could only help one person escape. I didn’t want to leave Ashita behind if she could escape with me. I also feared for the punishment that all of them might receive as a result of me getting away. Still, I needed to try.

We ate dinner in our hut, which I found out was locked from the outside. When I asked Ashita about this, she sighed. “Lee seems to be already placing more and more restrictions on us,” she said. “We would usually be able to wander the streets, with a bit of a stricter curfew than the other villagers here, of course, but Adrian was always sure that we were never locked up.”

The dinner was bread and apples, with a canteen of water to go around. The meal looked pretty generic, considering the resources available around the mainland. I didn’t complain, as being able to eat with Adrian right over my shoulder was a bit of a relief. Yet, I still couldn’t get the image out of my mind, of Lee racing at me, sword held high, preparing for a deadly slash, and Adrian smacking into him, saving my life. Why?

After dinner, which Ashita and I ate in our own room, with the two boys in theirs, we all got together in the middle room for a minute. Even though it was small, there was enough room for all four of us to fit inside comfortably. “Meet in our room in a few minutes,” Jacob said. “We need to talk.” I looked at him suspiciously, not sure exactly what he meant, but Ashita nodded, and that was enough to assure me somewhat. We both went into our room, which was lit up by bright lanterns hanging in each corner. It was already quite dark outside, as the sun set fast in this place. There was no light coming in from under the door or through the cracks in the wooden structure. I lay down on my bed and looked up at the tightly-woven ceiling made of leaves. “Why does Lee not want you to live in this hut?” I asked. Ashita shrugged. “He’s not the warmest person around here,” she said. “We’re looked upon as slaves, but he looks upon us as animals. If he had his way, we’d be locked up in a tiny cell, chained to the wall and gagged every night. Adrian, and most of the villagers fought for us though.”

“If he’s so cruel-hearted, Lee I mean, how is he still leader?” I asked.

“He has the leadership qualities,” Ashita answered. “Adrian sometimes has weak points where he let his personal feelings get in the way of his work. It’s sad that it was the death of him, but I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Do you know why he came here?”

“Lee came here after he had nothing to live for in the civilized world. He used to live somewhere in Europe, and had no family, no girlfriend or wife, so he came here to start anew pretty much.”

“And Adrian?”

“Born here.”

I sat up and looked at her. “Where?” I caught myself suddenly. “I mean, which island?” “He was born in Trilus I believe, like everyone else. I think the island he was born on was called Mainland as well. Wouldn’t surprise me, as Jacob told me that there is a monstrous tribe on that island that is still going today.”

At that moment, Jacob walked in the doorway of our room, and we both looked over at him in unison. He jerked his head back over his shoulder, and both Ashita and I got up and walked over to him. He then led us the short distance to his room, where the other boy was sitting on the couch.

The layout on this side of the hut was very much like the other side. Two beds, a table and two chairs, as well as a couch. There were also lanterns in the corners, lighting up the room. Jacob sat down on his bed, and the other boy moved as well, so Ashita and I could sit on the couch.

“I confirmed tomorrow that there will be a run to Denrai,” Jacob said. “They’ll be taking two of us. We need to decide which two though, as they left that up to us.”

“What exactly is this run for?” Ashita asked.

“Denrai meat,” Jacob said. “They need hunters.”

“More like bait,” Ashita said quietly to no one in particular, leaning back against the couch.

“If you two want to escape, you need to take this opportunity,” Jacob continued. “Both of us can deal with this a little while longer, and we just need one run to Zanth to make our escape. You guys can go on this trip to Denrai.”

“How do you suggest we try to pull this off?” I asked.

“When everyone is loading off of the boat, jump off the side and stay underwater,” Jacob said. “You’ll need to swim fast, but they boats they use are slow to untie and need some time to get free. Go around to Reflection and rest there. Then, go to Peak, and make sure to stay well away from Mainland and other ships. Keep going until you reach Castle, and then make your escape for Dolus.”

“Is Lee going to be on the run?” Ashita asked.

“Yes, and that’s where you have to very careful,” Jacob said, and she cursed under her breath. “If you’re able to wait until he’s on land, then you have a better chance of successfully escaping.”

“I think we’re decided then,” I said, and everyone nodded.

“They’re leaving in the afternoon tomorrow,” Jacob said. “We’ll be working tomorrow on the mill.” I stood up, and turned to leave, before Jacob stopped me.

“Laylini, I need to tell you something, about Adrian,” he said, and I turned to look at him.

“Adrian’s tribe on Trilus was also mine. He remembered you. It was a year later that he moved to Oelus. Just know that what he did was not a coincidence.”

I nodded only once, then turned to go back into the room.

First Attempt
I awoke the next morning, and for the first time, I was actually comfortable. Instead of waking up on the hard ground, I woke up in a semi-soft bed. If there was one thing I didn’t miss about Adrian, it was the fact that I actually got to sleep on a bed. I changed into my usual clothes, and put my beach dress into my coat pockets. I was going to have to take it out when I dove out of the boat, as I didn’t want my coat weighing me down.

Ashita was dressed in clothing much like I was, except she had no coat, and nothing to pull back her curly brown hair. Everyone in the hut pretty much dressed the same, but they didn’t have a coat. I wore it because it at least kept the sun off of my back, which my thin white shirt didn’t. I also had a hat to keep the sun off of my face that none of the others had, and I wanted to keep that if I could.

We were waiting by the door of the hut for only a few minutes before it was opened for us. We all walked to the mill, where everything was set up again. Lee was standing close to it, but this time, instead of hiding his whip, it has held in his hand at his side, as a clear warning.

As we walked by, he called out what we would be doing at the mill. Ashita and I were to collect the flour at the bottom again, as Jacob and the other boy could handle the wheat at the top. We got to work quickly, working at the clipped pace, but it wasn’t fast enough for Lee. After a few minutes passed with no flour coming out of the bottom of the mill, he snapped his whip at Jacob, who was standing at the top clearing out the top because it seemed to be clogged with wheat stalks. The tip of the whip cut into his arm cleanly, and he jumped back, in partial fear and surprise. Lee called out to him angrily, and soon after the flour began to make its way down into the bags that Ashita and I had held out below.

Still, Lee was not pleased with the pace. Ashita and I finished off one bag, and we were bringing it over to the cart when Ashita’s foot hit a hidden patch of mud. Since we were both carrying the bag, I almost went down with her. She landed flat on her back, and my shoulders felt as though they were nearly dislocated as the whole weight of the bag was suddenly put all on me. Lee walked over and didn’t hesitate to unleash the whip. Ashita turned just in time to have the whip miss her face, but it caught her full-on in the side. She cried out, and Lee continued to deliver four more lashes before he kicked her in the side. “Get up,” he projected as he kicked her. She stood slowly, and returned to helping me load the cart.

For the next hour or so, she kept helping me, even though she was in a considerable amount of pain. Everytime she moved her arms it looked as though the wounds were opening again. I tried to take more of the bag to take some of the weight off of her, but her condition didn’t improve much.

Both of us were relieved as we loaded the last bag onto the cart. Lee was talking to someone, who I guessed was probably going to go with us to Denrai. The two boys had climbed down from the mill and Jacob walked over to Ashita. “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded, though her condition didn’t look to be improving. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’m not bleeding anymore, so I’ll be able to go to Denrai fine.” At that moment, Lee walked over to us.

“Who did you decide?” he asked, looking only at Jacob.

“Ashita and Laylini,” Jacob said firmly.

Lee looked at us. “We’re leaving right now,” he said, turning to us. He waved off Jacob and the other boy, who I still didn’t know the name of, and I shifted my hat on my head. Lee left, and I looked at Ashita. The marks were mainly on her back, as only two had hit her side before she had rolled over. They weren’t deep, but they overlapped, and ran the length of her back. She was about my height as well at six feet. Lee had not held back by the looks of it.

As we waited, I looked around the island once more. Denrai was pretty close to us, as were all the other islands with the exception of Paradise. I knew that Ashita’s injuries would play a major role, as the wounds weren’t covered yet, and I didn’t want to put her through more pain of swimming in saltwater for her life. Yet there was something about her that I felt, that she would do anything just to get back to her tribe, even if it meant having a burning back.

Lee walked over to both of us and grabbed each of us by the shoulder roughly. I staggered a little as he pushed us forward, not expecting the sudden force. Both Ashita and I moved quickly to the harbour, which was close to the mill. The gate was open, and it was one of the only times I had seen any of the four gates open, with the other one being when I first arrived on the Mainland.

We walked through the gate, and Lee pulled us back to stop us. We just stood there while he walked over to the small fleet of boats we would be taking. They were sailboats, small, but there were at least four people in one of them. They looked to be loading up the boats with crates, most likely holding weapons.

Lee walked back to us, holding two lengths of rope, and Ashita instinctively held out her wrists in front of her. I looked at her, almost surprised that she submitted so quickly, but I knew that this was not yet the time to attempt the escape. Reluctantly, I held mine out as well. Lee quickly tied them, and once again took us by the shoulder and led us to one of the sailboats. There were a few open spots for people to sit on, amidst the amount of crates that took up much of the volume. Ashita and I were forced down beside each other, and we said nothing. I was silently going over the plan in my head. I assumed that Ashita was doing the same.

When the boats were pushed off, Lee walked over at sat behind us, undoubtedly not being able to trust the other two people inside the boat to watch us. He had his iron sword out in plain sight, as another clear declaration of pain. I still didn’t pay much attention, as did Ashita, and we just looked forward towards Denrai.

The entire ride there was almost silent. The only repeating sounds were the waves slapping the side of the wooden boat, and the two others adjusting the sail to make it move faster. I could see the Denrai animals running around the plains. They looked to be some sort of wolf hybrid with a huge bushy tail.They were blue in colour, and on first glance looked to be animal that would fight back.

Our sailboat docked, and Ashita and I looked at each other, silently reassuring each other. Lee stood up behind us, and I closed my eyes, hoping that he would just walk by us. But, the boat was having trouble docking, so he had a reason to leave us on the ship. He didn’t see it in the same way, and instead pulled us up onto the shore by our shoulders, and we stood there while he walked over to help. Ashita and I knew that this was our chance.

We wasted no time. When Lee had his back turned, Ashita and I made a beeline for the water. Lee was fast to see us though, but we kept going. Ashita made it into the water first, and she cried out as the saltwater hit her wounds. Once I hit the water, there was the problem of getting the rope off of my wrists, but with the rope wet and not very tight, I was able to get out quite easily. Ashita also was able to get out of hers. Finally, we could swim.

I didn’t want to look behind me, but I could hear the frantic shouting from the shore. We were already making good distance, but we were still able to be seen quite easily. I had my destination of Reflection right in front of me.

Ashita and I dove under the water, almost in synchronization. The water was pretty murky at this point in the ocean, which gave us more cover, but the grit from the water was irritating, and we couldn’t see Reflection very well.

After about a minute of being underwater, we both came up for air, only to be met with the hard wood of a sailboat. I tried to dive down, but I got caught up in some sort of net. I fought to get out of it, but I knew that I didn’t have much air. It only took a few seconds for me to tire out completely from the lack of oxygen, and the net hoisted me up above the surface again.

The first thing I noticed as I was brought back onto the ship was that Ashita was not there. She needed to escape I thought as I was rolled onto my stomach and my wrists were bound. If Ashita had escaped, then this wasn’t everything for nothing.

I was suddenly jerked out of my thoughts when Lee brought down his whip on my back. I snarled under my breath, but I had no way to fight back. I was still trying to get oxygen into my lungs, so I lay there and waited for him to stop. My lungs were burning more than the wounds he was inflicting did.

When the whiplashes stopped, I was left there. There was still no sign of Ashita, thankfully. Still, I knew that Jacob would probably be surprised to see me come back, without Ashita. I hoped that he would come to the conclusion that Ashita had escaped and wasn’t killed on Denrai, but in this environment it was very likely.

We sailed back to Mainland quickly. Lee We standing right next to me, his feet right by my side, ready to kick if I so much as even shifted my weight. It was lucky how close we had been to Mainland at the time.

When we docked, Lee was the one to take me off the boat before anyone else was. He had me by my elbow, and I could barely keep up with him, which didn’t help the wounds on my back, as they were pulled on. He led me over to a huge amount of stone with a small hut on it. He twisted me around to look at him, even though I tried to fight him off. He had the obvious advantage.

“You’re staying here for the rest of the day,” he said firmly. “Maybe it will teach you a little something about your place.”

He pushed me roughly into the tiny hut and locked the door. There was nothing inside of the hut but a small pond of murky water. Other than that, there was nothing else inside the hut.

My first priority was getting the rope off of my wrists. They were so raw by this point that it didn’t matter how tight it was. It looked as though I had tried to commit suicide multiple times by the looks of my wrists.

With no sharpened edges anywhere, I knew that I would probably have to resort to the painful and long way of twisting and pulling to get my hands free. I started quickly, but within a few minutes I was already too tired to carry on. I fell down to the rock floor on my side, and looked at the murky water. There was nothing but stone around it, so I looked around at the edges of the hut, and there I saw something that no one else had bothered to notice before. Growing underneath of the edges were little green herbs. There weren’t very big, but they were cut off from sunlight for most of the time. Inside of the hut was dark as it was made of stone on all sides. I made my way over there, slowly, as it required a lot of pain to push on my shoulder, and the wounds didn’t help. Thankfully, the wall was pretty close to where I had laid. I reached the herbs and made a silent note in my head that they existed. I hoped that no one else knew about them, and that I had been the first one to discover them, and that they grew on the island.

Developing
I was taken out of the hut when night fell, and locked in the slave hut for the night. Ashita had escaped successfully. When I was sitting on my bed, looking at hers, Jacob walked in. “What happened?” he asked. I turn to look at him.

“We were standing on the shore, and Lee was helping dock the sailboat,” I said. “Ashita and I took our chance and ran for the ocean. We were able to make it about half of the way to Reflection when they came at us. I was taken, but she escaped. Lee then whipped me,” I turned to show Jacob the marks which had finally started to close, “And then took me to that hut on the stone. I found something there.”

Jacob sat down next to me. “And that would be?” he asked.

“Herbs,” I said. “Small ones, of course, but I was able to eat some of them. Easier said than done because my hands were bound behind me for most of the time.”

“Did you manage to free them?”

“Yes, soaked it in the murky water there and I was able to get it off easily.”

“I never thought that Lee would continue to punish with isolation. He never liked it in the first place because it was ‘too kind’ or something like that.”

“Sounds like Lee.”

“Are you hungry?”

I nodded. “Do you still have food left over from dinner?”

Jacob stood up and walked into his room. I waited only for a few seconds before he came back and tossed a whole bread loaf at me. “We keep a secret stash in here,” he said. “Having a good line with the baker here pays off well.” I smiled, and gratefully began to eat the bread. Jacob was a lot smarter than I thought he would be, but he had been here for much longer than I had, and it sounded like he had been in the island groups for years. I had been in them for about ten days. I had already lost track of how many days, as it all seemed to happen fast. I knew that I needed another time to escape.

I awoke the next morning, and quickly got dressed. Jacob and the other boys were waiting in the middle room for me. It seemed oddly strange that Ashita was not with us, but I had faith that she had escaped to Dolus and was on her way home to Filus. I wanted to be the next person to escape, but I knew that it would need careful planning.

The three of us walked to the mill and began to work once again. The herbs had really helped with my back, and I felt like I could work properly. All of us were a little surprised and confused when we didn’t see Lee standing at the mill like usual. Instead, there were a few other people, dressed as though they were soldiers. All of us walked over to them, somewhat cautiously.

“Lee cannot supervise anymore,” one of them said. “We will be watching you now. Two people to work the top, one to collect and the bottom. We start now.”

Shortest debriefing ever I thought to myself. There were two people to watch over us, and they both looked like they only held a sword, which was comforting, as I didn’t want to feel the sting of the whip again. Still, they made sure we worked quickly. I was able to work at a comfortable pace throughout the entire morning. Never once did they tell us to pick up the pace. I was filling a bag of flour every five minutes, and we reached something that we hadn’t before. We had run out of bags to put the flour in. I smiled inwardly to myself, knowing that we would never have been able to do that before under Lee’s supervision. I looked over at the two boys who were climbing down from the mill.

“You guys are free to go for the day,” one of the soldiers said. “I’m sure that this will hold the tribe off for a good long time.” We nodded, and walked back to our hut, but with Lee not being able to lock us in, we could roam around the village. I wanted to go and find out more about the town, but I couldn’t do it alone. As we walked back to the hut, I looked at Jacob. “Do you have plans for his afternoon?”

Can you not sound like you’re coming on to him? The voice in my head had been getting increasingly annoying.

Jacob looked at me and smiled. “No, I didn’t even think that we would be able to accomplish what we did today.”

“I want to find out more about this place,” I said. “Lee can’t do much about it, can he?”

“Not that I know of,” Jacob answered.

“Good, so when do you want to leave?”

“Whenever.”

“I’ll need some time to go and cool off first, so we can leave after that?”

“Sounds good to me”

“Alright then.”

We reached the hut and I went into my room, alone. It was still weird without Ashita, but knowing that she was away from this place was soothing. Still, there was a part of me that desperately wanted to see her again. I was sure that there was probably a time where we would meet again, but it wouldn’t be here, and I would be sure of that. It didn’t take me long to cool down once I had removed my coat and began fanning myself off with my hat. I didn’t even notice when Jacob came into the room. Everything between the three of us was very casual. “Are you ready yet?” he asked.

“I guess so,” I said, putting my hat back on my head and picking up my coat. “Where are we going to go first?”

“Not sure,” he said. “There isn’t much here, because the resources are limited, but maybe that just me, since I come from Trilus and that place is chalked full of trading items. Here it’s really just bread and iron.”

“I still want to find out more so that I have a lead when I make my next attempt,” I said quietly. Jacob nodded.

“I can tell you everything about what happens here,” he said. “For example, I know that there is a big ship coming here tomorrow from Quadrus. If you can find a way onto that ship, you might have a chance to get out of here as a stowaway.”

“I don’t know much about Quadrus.”

“Dylan came from Quadrus. He can tell you all you need to know.”

“He’s the other one here?”

“Yes. Anyways, shall we go?”

I stood up and nodded, putting on my coat. Jacob walked over to the door, which was a luxury to have it unlocked for once. I followed him out, leaving Dylan alone in the hut.

The slave hut was closer to the mill than the rest of the residential huts, but it didn’t look completely isolated. There were a few huts by the huge farmlands that stretched out along the north edge of the island. The mill was also on the north half of the island, but it was more along the east side, and placed a bit more forward that the farms were. The farms mainly grew berries, apples, oranges, and wheat from the looks of them.

Jacob and I walked along the beaten sand paths of the tribe towards the residential areas, which covered half of the island, the southern part. There weren’t shops, besides the bakery, anywhere. There were open buildings where people would trade their goods. There was an open stone building, one of the few stone structures in the town, that looked to be full of people making tools. “Only iron is in this island group,” Jacob told me. “That’s why I find this place very dull. The tools aren’t very strong, not like the ones I had back home on Trilus, but it works here I guess.”

The tribe was about seventy strong, and most of those people were out in the town. The residential huts looked to be about the size of our hut, with some being a bit smaller. The whole town was very flat building-wise, as there didn’t look to be any two-floor buildings.

The deer roamed in the farming fields. Jacob and I walked over to them next. They didn’t seem to care that we were so close to them, and continued with their grazing. I also saw where all the gates were and made note of them in my head. “What is that island called to the west?” I asked, pointing to the stone island not far from the mainland. “Zanth,” he answered. “It’s where all the iron comes from. There is a settlement, branched off from this tribe, that lives there, because sailing there and back takes too long.”

“And where will the big ship you talked about dock?”

“In the harbour close to the mill. If we finish like we did today, you’ll have a bit of time to plan, because it comes in the afternoon when the sun is on its way down.” We started to walk back to our hut. “Think you have all your information now?” he asked. I nodded. “I’ll talk to Dylan tomorrow, and see what he knows about Quartus.”

“Everything,” Jacob said, and I smiled.

“You should tell me what Trilus is like.”

“Well, there’s a lot. First off, there are thirteen named islands called Mainland, Canyon Rockma, Paradise, Teraphyx, Flax, Bento, Spire, Plateau, Magma, Desert, Goldrock, and Spring. In my view, the bests islands to live on are Magma, Mainland, and Plateau. There is a huge tribe on mainland, and has been around for a long time, since Adrian was born there, and he was in his late twenties when Lee killed him. I was on the travelling ships for most of the time, trading and setting up our post to sell things to other tribes. It was how we got more people to join us. If you ever come to Trilus, you are welcome to come to Mainland’s tribe.”

“Are you going to escape too?”

“Been thinking about it. Not any time soon; you need to get out of here first. I could probably take Lee down if I had the tools to do it.”

“Like a sword?”

“Not even. More like a sharp piece of wood. Lee has killed in some of the worst ways possible, I can’t see him dying with any honour. Not after what he’s done.” “Why is he a leader then?”

“He came in with an ‘obey me or die’ kind of stature. People did die for going against him. It was Adrian who really managed to keep him somewhat under control.”

“And he was killed for it.”

“The only difference that was between his death and Lee’s upcoming death is that Adrian died with honour, a word that Lee deems nonexistent.”

We walked back to the hut in silence. Even though I knew that Adrian had been the one to first inflict upon me, but Lee seemed to be worse. Never did I see Adrian lay a hand on either of the other three that had lived with me. Lee was toxic to this tribe, and I didn’t know why so many people lived here within the same walls. Still, this was pretty much as good as it got in the islands by the looks of it, so why would people go anywhere else?

We reached the hut, and both Jacob and I went into our respective rooms. I lay down on my back, wincing a little as the healing wounds had pressure on them. Eventually, they settled down, and I relaxed my back. I knew that they would probably scar as well as my wrists. They were mainly just thin lines on my wrists, but they still were irritating whenever I scratched my wrists, as feeling over the lines that the ropes had made was uncomfortable as I was afraid that I might reopen them, but I never did. I was only lying on the bed for a few minutes before Dylan walked into the room. I didn’t sit up, but instead kept staring at the woven-leaf roof. “Jacob told me that you were wondering about what it’s like on Quartus,” he said. I sat up quickly at hearing this.

“I do,” I said. “I want to know everything about it. Ashita told me that it had the best technology to get back home.” Dylan ran a hand through his sand-blonde hair. “It does have a good ship,” he said. “But you have to understand how rare it is. The resources are only available once a year, and it takes them another year to regenerate.”

“Ashita told me that they never regenerated,” I said.

“Ash wasn’t in Quartus for as long as I was,” he answered, moving over to my bed and sitting down. I drew my legs in to give him for room. “I’ve been in the islands for a year now, as I was just recently taken here.”

“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“There was an attack on my village by one of our enemies, which meant easy picking for the people of Oelus. I was the only one who was somewhat uninjured from the bombs that had gone off. I knew that I probably had no future anymore, so I came voluntarily with them. Of course I didn’t know that I would be stuck as a slave.”

A few seconds passed of silence, and during that silence, we heard the lock on the door click shut. I sighed quietly. Lee must be back on his guard.

“Where did you live on Quartus?”

“I lived on a huge island, with about fifty others, and the island was called Finika. It was isolated from the other islands and had so much food on it that the tribe never starved. I worked my way up the ranks quickly, and eventually because one of the co-leaders. I did have a job though. I was the tailor for the tribe, and that kept me busy, but I loved it. It was really nice being able to contribute to the tribe in a good way. We had an impressive fleet as well, mde up of huge galleons, steam ships, and the best boat in the islands, the legendary Rainbow boat.”

“And it’s called the rainbow boat because…?”

“It is made up of different coloured stones, and that is why it takes so long to regenerate the materials. They regenerate in different area across the islands, which is a reason that I’m thankful for having Quartus to be quite small, land-mass wise. We build a galleon, and arrange the stones in the colours of the rainbow, and, somehow, it changes the speed of the boat. It flies, and the captains have a lot of trouble controlling it. If you need to get home to Hawaii really fast, that is the boat. Sadly, they were destroyed or stolen during the attack, so you probably need to go and find another faster ship. The steam ships are fast, but they’re big, and take a while to make. Still, it would look a lot more natural than driving a rainbow-coloured boat into one of Hawaii’s harbours.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“No. I am also planning an escape, but I’m going to Trilus with Jacob. I can’t stand Lee, like everyone else in this town.”

“What else about Quartus do you know?”

“There are also thirteen named islands in Quartus and they take on a slight form of Trilus. It is one of the most popular areas to settle on, and people can be hostile, so I’d watch out for people and stay away from them if possible.”

“Why Trilus?”

“Because Trilus is the most settled, and Jacob will be accepted back into the tribe there. Also, he’ll get to see his prized animal again, unless they turned him loose.”

“Which animal?”

“It’s a horse breed that only exists here, called a Cifalse. They are huge war horses, and when I say huge, I mean seven to eight feet huge. Some can reach ten at the top of their ears. Jacob told me a lot of stories about that horse, and how they are one of the best working animals in the whole of these islands. Something tells me that it is one of Jacob’s main reasons for going back.”

“I can see why. Anyways, are there any other tribes on Quartus that would be advanced enough to have a good ship?”

“Either the enemy tribe or maybe a soloist, but I don’t know for sure. They could be hostile.”

“Thank you for the tips.”

“You’re welcome. Anything else you need to know, feel free to ask.”

I nodded, and Dylan stood up and left the room. I rubbed my eyes and re-lit the dying lanterns. It was getting quite dark outside, and I had more energy than I usually did. I walked out of the room and into the middle dividing area. A newly-installed well had been dig for us, and I was pretty happy for that. Lee could restrict us, but his officers knew that we needed to be kept alive if we were to be of any use. The well had been dug today while we were working, and there was already a clear pool of water sitting in the stone basin. I pulled my canteen from my waist, and went to go fill it up, but I stopped as soon as I saw my reflection in the water. I nearly dropped the canteen.

I hadn’t seen myself in over a week, and my face didn’t even seem to belong to me anymore. The only thing that was recognizable was my amber eyes. My long hair, which was naturally straight, was curling. My face looked harder, and my skin was quite a bit darker. I touched my cheekbone lightly, making sure that the reflection did what I did. I was still in a bit of a shocked state. How could I have changed that quickly?

Zanth
The night seemed to drag on, which I was happy for. I had not had a good sleep since I arrived on the mainland. I had woken up right before dawn. Jacob and Dylan were also awake when I was. I sat on my bed, my lanterns unlit. There was no light in my room. I turned around to see Dylan standing in the door. “The ship has arrived,” he said. “Id you want to make another attempt, go now.” I stood and walked over to him. “How look will it stay docked?” I asked.

“Not long,” he said. “I’ll be out of here before the rest of the town wakes up. You’ll need to go now.” He stood aside for me to go through the door. I walked through, but looked back at him. “Is the door unlocked?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I didn’t waste anymore time. I knew that I needed to take my chance and go. This would be my second attempt in two days, and I knew that if I was caught again, there was a possibility, that I wouldn’t live to see Ashita with her tribe again.

I left the hut, and moved low and quietly. There weren’t many people up, and the ones that were looked as if they were heading to the harbour to unload the boat and load it back up. Taking into mind the layout of the tribe from yesterday, I moved quickly over to the next hut and carefully turned my head to make sure that the next move would be clear. I also had to move very quietly along the huts so that I didn’t disturb the people inside, who were probably still sleeping. I made my next move, and continued on, getting closer to the stone walls. The gate to the harbour was open, and the boat was visible. It looked to be some sort of galleon, but it wasn’t the usual dark wood colour. I squinted my eyes to see if I could make out the colour, but I couldn’t. The darkness was still heavy and lingering, even though it was starting to lighten to the east. The west was still very dark.

I reached the end of the huts, and had to make sure that I couldn’t be seen at all. There was only one way to the ship, and it was pretty busy with people. I didn’t dare to move from behind my safe hut. I watched as they carried large wooden crates onto the ship, which I could finally get a good glance at. It was one that Dylan had told me about, one that he had said was legendary, and that there were none left. The huge Rainbow boat was docked in the Mainland harbour. I leaned against the hut, thinking. This would be the best chance I had, and I needed to take it. For all I knew, the boat was the last of its kind in the islands. I couldn’t screw this up.

I began to think to myself on how I was going to get past the people who were loading the boat. I would stand out there, as there didn’t seem to be any women helping with loading the ship. The most important thing I saw was the dark-haired man who was watching over everything, sword blatantly visible at his waist. I had no weapons, but I was fast. Still I didn't want to underestimate any of the people walking in and out of the open gateway.

I saw a small ladder, close to the gate, made of thing sticks and branches that led up to the top of the wall. I eyed it for a while, planning what I would do if I was able to get up on the wall. They were high, and I knew that if I jumped off, I would probably break something. Still, it was my only option.

I waited for a few seconds, and then I bolted from behind my hut straight for the ladder. I didn’t once look back to to the side. The ladder was only been about twenty feet away, so I wasn’t running for long. I made my way up quickly, leaving no time to feel insecure about the possibly unstable wood branches it was made of.

I made it to the top, and quickly lay down. The wall had enough room for people to walk on, and laying down still gave me enough room to be able to move. The gate was slightly higher than the walls, and the incline was sharp. It was only taller by about five feet, but it still meant that I had to stand and give up my position. I stopped, thinking. Maybe I didn’t need to get to the gate. If I could fall a little ways down from it and sneak onto the boat, it would be a lot less painful and less of a chance of being found.

As soon as I had drafted my plan, I carefully moved, on my stomach, to the opposite side of the wall, which wasn’t very far. I glanced down, and saw nothing but grass. The whole way down was pretty grassy, but there was one hut on the other side of the gate. It would make the fall a lot shorter, but it meant blowing my cover. Not to mention that my weight could penetrate the leaf roof and then it would be over. I looked down at the grass below me once again. I had to take my chance. The crates were almost completely loaded, and Lee was standing by the gate controls. He would be the one to haul it back up once everything was ready. I shifted a little, the old pain in my shoulder coming back. Lee must’ve had eyes all over the wall, because all I heard from below was yelling right afterward.

Angrily, I cursed myself, knowing that I couldn’t take advantage of the chance that had been presented. There were people massing on the grassy side of the wall, including Lee.

“How long are you going to stay there?” he asked, and I turned away, not wanting to deal with his taunts. “You can come down yourself, or I can come up there personally,” he called up to me again. I stood up, and looked down on him. “You’re welcome to try,” I said, moving into an aggressive stance. A dark look crossed Lee’s face, and I began to pace carefully, almost in my own taunt. Everyone below was watching me and Lee battle it out silently. He couldn’t touch me from where I was, and if he did manage to get up to the wall I’d be running down it by the time he reached my starting point. I still had the upper hand. As long as Lee stayed down there, I was safe. There would be no way that he could physically hurt me.

I kept my eyes locked onto his, not wanting to take them off, for fear that if I broke the bond, the feeling of control would be lost. It was the first time that I had felt empowered in my time here. Even Adrian couldn’t have given me this.

As soon as Adrian crossed my mind, my anger flared up, and I wasn’t able to control it. I wanted to forget, but I couldn’t. I stopped suddenly, and turned violently towards the group below the wall. There was a look on my face that seemed to startle some of the below me, and I was fine with that. If they were scared, I would be able to hold them at bay for a while longer until I figured out how I would escape by running along the wall. The boat was still there, I and did not want it to leave me behind. As far as I knew, that could be the last rainbow boat in all of the islands, and the only one that could get my home as fast and safely as possible.

I was watching Lee, and he looked just over my shoulder, then smiled. I turned quickly to see one of his soldiers nearly five feet away from me. I jumped back quickly, and the back of my legs hit the side of the gate. I nearly fell over, but I had a very good sense of balance, so I was able to stay standing easily. I felt behind me for the edge of the wall, and once I found it, I waited, leaning on my arms, but keeping them braced. I was waiting for the soldier to make the first move, then I would be able to judge and plan my next move accordingly. I underestimated the soldier.

He moved to fast for me to keep up with, and in an instant, he had my arm in his grasp. I pulled away easily, but at the expensive of my balance. I search frantically for an edge to hold onto, but I found nothing, and felt nothing on my backside as I fell. The wall was still there, but I was already passed the edge of it. I knew then that I would be lost in free fall for a split second before I came into contact with the ground.

I had landed on my back, and rolled over onto my stomach soon afterwards. I wasn’t in shock of any sort, so I had to deal with the major wave of pain that followed my fall. I didn’t care to look at what anyone else was doing as they crowded me, but I did hear Lee say one thing. “Pack the ships for Zanth,” he said sharply. “And get the other two. I’m sure they had something to do with this.” I knew that “the other two” meant Jacob and Dylan. Why he said Zanth, I had no idea. Lee knelt down next to me, and I gritted my teeth, partially because of the pain and partially because of the sight of the leader. “Didn’t work well for you there, Laylini,” he said, amused, as if trying to provoke a non-existent reaction out of me. Even if I didn’t have the pain, I couldn’t bring myself to lash back because the pain would come again, just at a later time.

I lay there for about five minutes, and turned my head slowly to see the fast ship sailing away from the harbour. I had lost one of my best chances to get out quickly once again. I knew that I might not return from Zanth if Lee was to come with us. Jacob and Dylan might not survive either if I knew that Lee planned to do on the island.

When the mainland sailboat pulled into the harbour I had still not moved much, so I wasn’t bound. I was simply placed in the bottom of the ship, but Lee kept one of his boots always resting lightly on my back.Jacob and Dylan were loaded into the boat and sat in front of me, and out of my immediate vision range. They looked to be bound, but they weren’t in a paralyzed state like I was. I didn’t think that either one of them would try to escape, even though they probably could. But with everything that had happened in the past few days, it wouldn’t be wise to try it again. Even with the thought in the back of my head, I knew that they would probably suffer as much as I would, as Lee didn’t seem like the person who would back down from the sight of someone in pain.

I tried to recall what Ashita had told me about Zanth. I remembered that it was a stone-based island, with animals, Zanth goats, that lived on it. It was also the mining place, where the iron would be shipped out from. The way she had described it sounded like it was a very dark and gloomy place, with no comfort or any sort of light near it. But, I had been in rough shape for a long time, and I was starting to look on everything with a darker mindset, not an optimistic one. Why would I sound so positive after everything that had happened. Kidnapped, tortured, put into slavery, isolated, and two escape attempts. Surely, no one could look at the world the same way after all of the pain and suffering.

Along with everything that had happened, I also noticed that my pain tolerance had increased. After a bad fall from twenty feet, I probably would have passed out after contact with the ground because of the pain, but now I was trying to keep the levels of discomfort and hurt at a minimum by not moving. I was sure that I had fractured a rib or two in the fall, as if I didn’t break anything from that fall, I’d be very surprised as to why. I knew that as soon as I moved, I’d be sent back into pain, but the sailboats were surprisingly slow. I didn’t want to ask why. As far as I was concerned, the longer it took to get to Zanth, the more time I’d have with minimal pain levels.

We did reach Zanth, and the sun was high. Lee grabbed my arms and helped me up forcefully, and I gasped at the sudden movement. I wanted to hold my side, but Lee was holding my forearms tightly, and I had no way of moving them around without his consent. Jacob and Dylan were already off the boat, and Lee and I were the last ones to get off. I looked at Zanth, and understood why I had felt that gloomy feeling when Ashita had described it to me. It was a high, cave riddled island, with vines floating in the wind, and the goats watching over the island like guard dogs. Nothing about this place seemed inviting.

We walked towards the huge rock formations, and into what I assumed was the main cave. To the edges of the cave sat veins of iron ore which had yet to be mined, and in the middle was a bright pool of water. The water looked deep, but calming, as if it was the one speck of light in the dark and gloomy island. Above our little party, I could hear the clipped sounds of rock falling against rock as goats scrambled up the sides of the rock face to get away from the people that were invading their island. Lee stopped me and I stood, looking at the pool of water. My hand finally had the ability to hold my injured side. Dylan and Jacob were also standing near me. I looked over at them. “What did you do?” Jacob asked quietly.

“Fell off the wall,” I answered. “It was the rainbow boat too. I should have just stopped when I saw how busy the gate was."

“You did what you could,” Dylan said.

“But now both of you will be punished for helping me,” I said.

They both smiled. “You think this hasn’t happened before?” Jacob asked. “This is pretty normal, and one of Lee’s favourite ways to inflict his punishments for slaves who don’t listen.” I turned my head to see the leader of the tribe coming back towards me, green vines in hand. I didn’t even try to figure out what his plan was, but I knew it must’ve been bad from the look on Jacob’s face. If they had been here before, maybe there was a chance I would survive, but I kept the same thought in my head that it might all be too much of me to handle.

Lee spread my arms so that they were parallel to the ground. The vines were then attached around them in a manner so that he had the ability to control my upper arms like a puppet. To test them, he jerked once on them, and my arms immediately slammed down to my sides, and I gasped sharply from the pain it sent through my body. I could feel that he was smiling behind me, and I knew that I couldn’t help what I did. I would have to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he hurt me, no matter how weak I looked. In my eyes, I was stronger than I had been, and that was enough for me. Lee pushed me toward the water pool, holding my arms behind my back with his harness-like restriction. I looked down into it once, not sure what to think. Nothing about any of this would end up in good favour for me. Lee walked behind me, and waited, giving me a chance to figure out what I was going to do. I had no idea how I was going to plan my way out of this, as Lee had me right where he wanted me, leaving no room for me to even make an attempt to get free. With one swift movement, his arm hit my back, and I plunged feet-first into the water pool.

I went to push myself up, but Lee had my arms crossed above my head, making them useless for me. I couldn’t feel any sort of solid object for me to push off with my feet to get my head above water. My lung began to burn and scream for oxygen, which I couldn’t give them no matter how hard I fought. My mind was going foggy right as I was pulled up and out of the water once again. I coughed, trying to get as much air into my lungs as I could, not knowing how long I had been underwater for. As well as my burning lungs, I also felt the sting once more in my side as I fell to my knees. I wanted to collapse, but Lee still had me on his puppet strings, and was keeping me up. The more I let my weight sit on the vines, the more pain I was inflicting on myself. It didn’t take long before I was dragged back to the pool. I dug my heels in for the first time, going against Lee’s will. Angrily, he brought his foot up, and kicked me square in the jaw. I felt myself sail backwards, and into the pool once again. The kick had already taken me aback, and I was only underwater for about five seconds before my lungs started to burn again. I tried not to fight, to save my energy and hopefully let my body save the little energy it had. Still, Lee found a way to make me struggle against his hold by jerking up and down on the vines, and I could feel them almost cutting into my skin. Once again, I was heaved out of the water, and the vines were dropped next to me. I was only conscious for about five seconds after air had returned to my lungs before I went limp.

Comfort
When I woke up, I was still lying on the rock, still on Zanth. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious for, but it couldn’t have been long. I saw a familiar face lying on the rocky ground close to me, one that I was actually happy to see. Lee was probably behind me. However, the face didn’t look to have any sort of feeling in it. It looked empty, and for a minute, I didn’t want to think that it was true, but, deep down, I knew that it had been inevitable. Jacob was dead.

His eyes were still open, and I was starting to think that he might not have drowned. There must’ve been some other way that he had died. I couldn’t see much just from my angle of vision, but it did look like he could have been strangled. There were bruises slowly starting to form around his neck. I could only see the top part, but I was sure that they stretched all the way down. Only then did I remember that Dylan was here as well. Where was he? Was he alive?

I heard footsteps behind me, and I shut my eyes again. If Lee saw that I was awake, I had a feeling that he would start with me again, and I would do anything to stay away from that. My lungs still burned fiercely, and my side also stung even more than I remembered. It wasn’t hard for me to stay perfectly still, as it eased the pain on my side. I heard coughing from behind me, and then the sound of a body falling down on the rock. Then there were footsteps that passed close to my face, and the sound of Lee’s voice. “Get these two into the boat,” he said. “We need to make it back before nightfall. There looks to be a storm coming on.”

There was a bit of shuffling, and I heard the sound of something being hauled up onto it’s feet. I knew that it was probably Dylan. I still didn’t want to open my eyes and give away that I was awake, even though we were heading back to the mainland and to the tribe. As long as they thought I was still unconscious, I would probably have to deal with a lot less pain.

I was picked up off the ground and carried out of the cave. I could instantly tell what Lee meant about the storm. I could smell the rain coming in on the wind. I had a feeling that there wasn’t much time for us to navigate back to the mainland. I was set down in the boat, and I had to be careful not to move on my own accord, as I didn’t want it to be known that I was awake. “Shall we bind her?” I heard a male voice ask above me, not Lee. “No,” Lee said. “She’ll stay here, with me. I’ll watch her. I don’t think that she’ll try to escape in her condition.”

“Are you going to still use her as a slave?” the male voice asked again.

“For a few more days,” he said. “Once we come back from Castle, I don’t see this tribe in need for slaves. Then, I’ll make sure that her and Dylan don’t make it back to the tribe alive.”

I had to really fight to control my breathing as I heard the last few words, yet I knew that it had been coming. The tribe was getting bigger, even in the short time I had been a part of it. Soloists came looking for refuge and then ended up staying, becoming productive members of the tribe. There wouldn’t be a need for slaves anymore. I knew that Dylan and I needed to get out before the journey to Castle, whenever that was.

The boat lurched forward, and Lee settled in behind me, once again placing his foot lightly on my back. The pain in my side was still there, but slowly starting to go away, and I was slightly astonished. Why had it gone away so fast? Surely I had broken the bone. The best case scenario was one that I only had a deep bone bruise, but that was unlikely. After all, I did fall twenty feet, and then dangled in a pool of water by vines.

I lay still in the bottom of the boat until I could hear the water lapping against the sides of the boat, and I knew that the storm was starting. My head was turned away from Lee, so I opened my eyes, slowly. I didn’t want to have them open for long. In front of me, a few men sat with their backs to me, as well as Dylan. The sky was turning a dark blue and purple. It was moving in from the south. The frequency and sound of the waves against the boat were becoming harsher and faster. I knew that the storm was moving in fast. I felt Lee shift on his seat above me, and my eyes shut quickly once again. He stood, and stepped over top of me. I could hear his footsteps clearly.

“How far are we from mainland?” he asked. Right afterwards, an incredibly harsh gust of wind came from the south. The boat raised sharply at my head, and I could feel my feet below me for a few seconds.I dug my fingers into the wood to keep myself from flailing. As well as me trying to hold on, I heard the sharp creaking of wood and slamming of feet and hands as they tried to hold on.

“We’re too far out to dock,” someone said. “We have to get to another island.” “No, there is no rain yet, and that was the first strong gust of wind yet,” Lee said. “Get us there.”

With that, he walked back over to me and sat down above me, one foot on my back again. There was another strong gust, and when the boat came back down, I lifted up off of the bottom floor. I knew that I couldn’t fake getting through that still unconscious, so I opened my eyes and sat up a little bit. Lee took his foot off of my back, and reached for my arm. Right as his fingers brushed my skin, the boat hit a monstrous wave. I looked over toward the bow just in time to see Dylan fly out of the boat. Without any realization over what I was doing, I plunged into the water after him. The rain started soon afterward, and the water was rough. Dylan’s hands were bound behind him, and I knew that there was no way he would be able to swim. Once I reached him, I grabbed his arm, fighting through the waves of water that continuously washed over my face. He didn’t try to fight me off either, and tried to help as much as he could by kicking. I knew that we could make our escape right now, but he was bound, and I didn’t have the strength to pull him to an island. Besides, in the middle of a storm, we wouldn’t stand any chance against Lee if he chased us. He had his ways to find his people.

I reached the boat, and pushed Dylan in front of me. I wanted to make sure he was safe first before Lee pulled me up. The rain lashed at my face, but I knew that I needed to fight through it.

As soon as I felt Dylan’s weight lift off of me, I was then roughly hauled up into the boat by none other than the leader of the tribe. I tried to fight him off, but he was easily stronger than I was, and was able to get me down onto a seat. His hands were locked firmly around my wrists. Once I was sitting down, I stopped try to resist him, and relaxed my muscles. I had to focus on keeping myself in the boat. As soon as Lee let go of my wrists, my hands flew down to the bottom of the seat and I held on for my life.

My knuckles got sore at the right time, as we managed to stop the boat at another island, but it wasn’t the mainland. It looked to be Peak, as There were high rock walls everywhere, but I couldn’t see very well from the rain. Lee pulled me off by my arm, and pushed me off the boat. I started walking into what looked to be a dark cave. I was desperate just to get out of the wind and rain, as it had chilled me to the bone. Dylan walked after me, and we both stayed in the cave. As soon as he was inside, I noticed that his hands were no longer bound behind him, and I walked over to him and, once again without thinking straight, hugged him full-out. At first, he was taken aback by it, but returned the hug cautiously. Lee walked into the cave holding a wet wooden crate, and set in on the floor. He pulled out a knife, and began to saw away at it. I hoped that there was some sort of blanket or fire materials in the box because I needed to warm up, Dylan as well. Lee was working as fast as he could, as he too was cold from the constant rain. The other few people walked in as well. I was still leaning against Dylan with my arms around him, and he still had one arm around my shoulders, trying to keep each other warm. Lee got the crate open and started unloading blankets. There was also a bit of dry wood for a fire, and some flint to create it with.

Dylan and I were given the biggest blanket, and we walked over to a place close to the fire. I took my coat off, which I had worn all throughout the day, and set it next to me. Lee got the fire going quickly, and I was surprised how fast he was able to get the flames up and rising. I set my coat close to fire to dry it off, but not too close as to catch it on fire. Dylan was setting up the blanket so we didn’t have to sleep on the rock. We would be stuck here until the storm blew over, and I was sure that we had spent a full day on Zanth. The blanket was big enough for both of us to sleep widthwise on it, and cover ourselves with the ends. Soon, everyone had started to settle down. The entrance of the cave faced to the West, which kept the wind out, and most of all, the rain. The cave was damp, but it was made better by the small fire at my feet and Dylan lying next to me.