The Blessed City

The air swirled a mean grey, rustling the dead earth beneath her feet. Homes that once stood proud crumbled at the touch of a simple breeze. Unsteady floors lay broken and tethered, shattered from the weight of the war. Where the grass once lay green and lush, it now was brittle like old bones.

Life was not sustained here. Less remain the marks of a village awaiting life to breathe anew.

She knew she was dreaming. The repetition of the scene scorned into her memory. Yet the yearning she felt when the wind slapped its cold hands across her face felt real and new.

Memories screamed past her, carried on the whisps of wind. Hope withered with each dying sigh.

She stood near the fractured path, where earth split, threatening to swallow the village whole. Tumbleweed rolled, catching on the upended earth, then thrust forward again with another gust.

She could feel the final breaths sighing: resistance met with a fatal conviction.

How long had it been since life roamed this land? she wondered. How long will it be before people reigned again?

Following the broken road, she found the remains of a river. A large deciduous tree lived nearby, its branches hunched like shoulders shuddering from the cold. Water trickled down a narrow rock-bed. Fish and plant corpses layered the bottom. Wet dirt spread like sand between her toes as she crouched down to meet the river bank.

The water ran cold against her hands until it shivered from her touch.

Visions of days long past swam to the surface. The faces of those who'd come first and rejoiced from the abundance of drink. Life gathered. Built around the sustenance, fueled by its replenishing power. Tiny humans laughed over its stream, splashing through with unclothed feet. Animals roamed freely, peacefully taking nourishment from its stream. Fish wiggled against the current. Seagrass burrowed deep between the rocks and waved as the water passed.

Her body shook from nature's forgotten history. She could feel the life flourish; the vacancy it left behind.

The past faded, leaving her eye to eye with a stranger from her own past.

Skin hollow and pale. Dark rings strung around and under empty, glistening eyes. Cratered cheeks and protruding bones where her neck should be. She needn't see her reflection to witness the atrocity of her beyond her dreams.

The world shifted; browns and greys folding until she sat crouching in another world. Standing, she stood to greet her new surroundings.

She was on the side of a mountain. Only the very thin edge of a cliff stopped her from falling a very long distance. She could hear the distant crashing of water. Below her, she stared onto a steel trap.

The labyrinth rose boldly from thick metal. Towers stood tall over the rest of the compound, like hands reaching towards the sky. A compass for the godless heavens.

Her gaze fell to the heavily guarded walls where she knew men marched across its roof. Their black silhouettes floated from one end to the other. Glints of silver caught by the hands of a washed-out sun illuminated the pink shimmering veil that ensured all that was inside its barrier remained there.

There wasn't a shadow of doubt in her mind; she stared at the skeleton of the borstal.

A cry echoed from inside the barrier. Jerking, her foot caught the edge and the safety of the mountain slid beneath her. Her body tumbled, rolled, smacked into the ground as she came to a stop.

Wincing, she pulled herself from the dirt and wiped away the fresh mud. Her ears pounded, but not from the fall. Like a heartbeat drumming in her ears, she felt the life beat from the borstal. She took a tentative step forward to the veil. Its soft pink glowed like a large bubble surrounding the prison. Lifting a hand, she pressed against it and wasn't surprised when she found it as hard as the steel it enclosed.

Another cry pierced her dream; another shiver raced down her spine. To her left, doors swung open. A child emerged from the darkness beyond.

He couldn't be no more than nine winters. Too young to be here, she figured.

As he ran towards the veil, she watched his face contort and recognized the familiar look of terror. He looked behind him as his feet scrambled under him. Following his gaze, she found the four guards rushing after him. Their bodies were much larger and fuller than the boys'. They ran like brown blurs, spreading out until they surrounded him, pressuring the boy against the barrier.

"Enough!" The boy swirled, panting against the command. A hand clamped down over the boys' arm. But he didn't pull away. A sly grin spread across his face.

She blinked. When she opened her eyes, the boy had disappeared, a puddle in his place. The puddle quivered and began moving like a caterpillar, stretching and contracting quickly. Only when it was out of the guards' reach did it grow towards the sky and the boy reappeared. Growling with determination, one of the guards thrust his body into the boy. But the boy was faster. With a side-step, he disappeared into the shimmer.

Staring in shock, she searched the area around her for him. Her mind swirling with curiosities unappeased by the boys' disappearance. Sparing a glance, she looked to the disappointed guards. Listening as they mumbled and stomped back into the building.

The ground shook. Pebbles bounced excitedly near her feet.

Thud. She turned to see the solid mound of a boulder fall from the mountain.

Thud. It rolled over the edge and met stone, earth. Her.

Thud.

. . .

A hard fist wrapped the solid steel door, "judgment time."

Moments later, a slim metal door opened and her single meal was tossed through. She listened until the crunch of the guards' boots faded then peeled herself from her dark corner where she'd spent the last fourteen days in isolation.

Weary, she slinked to where her food had spilled onto the dirt. She never knew what kind of food she would be subjected to. Never knew what kind of sludge she'd have to choke down or the horror that would be inflicted when locked I side these four steel walls.

When she was back in her cell, she could count on bread and jam. Burnt to crisps and crawling with bugs. Or half-eaten leftovers. The agony of either was aimed to break her. Torture her into submission until she said the words many of her captures longed to hear.

She could still feel the flame dying out as she picked up the hot chards of bread. In the dark, she peeled back the burnt pieces until she felt a sliver of unscathed dough. Nibbling at the edible parts, she searched the black space for the fallen cup of undrinkable water. Instead, she found mud. Nearby, her bony hand closed over the rough edges of the empty cup.

Sitting back, she sighed. Her body was exhausted from lack of everything: food, sunshine, water. Resigned, she scraped the roll clean of bread and left its carcass on the tray it had come in.

A flood of real light cleansed the room of darkness as the guard threw open her door. She blinked furiously at the outside world until she could see the guard dropping the bucket. Water sloshed over the brim.

Almost as quickly as it had come, the light vanished. Wasting no time, she dove into the wetness, pried the moldy sponge from its muddied bottom, and began scraping the grime from her body. Its teeth bit into her skin, the stench seeped into her open wounds.

Gritting her teeth, she peeled hard skin off her body. Her cuts and bruises sang, harsh tones clashing with the seething from her mouth. She ran the sponge across her face, felt the pangs from her half-healed black eye.

When she'd finished, she occupied her near-empty mind with the dingy water. Swirling it between her hands, turning circles with her fingers, picking it up, and letting the droplets fall to feed the earth around her.

She felt them before she heard them. Their heavy feet beat the ground outside. One sound creak echoed as the door flew open. She recognized his silhouette. Its oversized, muscular build clashed against the harsh backdrop of light. Aedon, the guard, took his time, sauntering into the room half his size. Seizing her arm, he wrenched her from the ground and tugged her wrists begin ever back, tying them in two solid knots with a rope that ate her skin.

The rope vibrated with the magic imbued in its twine. He secured the final knot, ensuring her imprisonment for another day, and let his fingers linger on her sides a moment longer before he shoved her outside.

"Off you go," he hissed. Three more guards waited on the other side. Another precaution, she knew even as they wedged her body between theirs. Their strides grew longer as they left the room of isolation behind.

Sunlight stripped her vision, warmed her skin. It rained down from behind a grey mass of clouds. Despite it all, she tossed her face to it, drinking it in and ignoring the scowls, from the guards behind her as she basked in the simple pleasure of outside.

Sweeping her gaze backward, she caught a final look at the small lopsided cell. From there, it appeared like a shack: frozen as if eternally falling. But she knew the horrors embedded in its walls. The torture intended to break whoever was sentenced to its cage.

And like many others, she was not immune to its tricks. Several times she'd been left in its prison for days upon weeks. Each time, witnessing the worst of her memories. Each time resisting the words that rose up in her chest. Each time emerging with renewed anger and determination.

"Missing home already?" Aedon taunted. She sneered at him. "Don't worry, you'll be back there soon enough. We all know you can't resist a good fight."

"I did nothing and you know it." She clenched her teeth and continued into the shade of the labyrinth from her dreams.

The borstal was a maze. Unlike its simple outside appearance, the insides were a knotted mess. Every turn twisted, every hall slanted and angled. There was no clear-cut way anywhere. Only the guards knew how to navigate these halls. Their brains rewired to understand the ever-changing map of its insides.

Its design made it harder for prisoners to escape. They could run for days and never find an exit. The unlucky ones – those who did find a door to the outside – found no exit. This made the guards' jobs easier, too. But as far as she was concerned, there was no getting out. The day you were captured by the King's Men was the day your life ended in an eternity of imprisonment.

She would know, she'd been there longer than anyone else.

Looking up, she searched the patches of moss growing from the cracks of steel between wall and ceiling. Smiling, she counted the patches, eyeing how each had either grown thicker, greener, or deader since last the last time she was judged.

They turned the final corner and into the hall with a large wooden door. Carved from the wall as a circle of beautifully glossed wood accented with curved metal arches.

Moss grew abundantly around the hall. Accumulating as a large mass around the door. Its simple growth was an oddity as nothing seemed to grow within these walls. Except for her own determination. To her, the moss was a symbol of rebellion and life in a lifeless prison.

At the foot of the door, Aedon pounded the wood. "Doc!"

Inside, she heard the rustling of parchment and the loud crash of many things falling onto the floor. From the grumbles that followed, she knew Doc had either tipped over one of his many piles of books or stubbed his toe. Both were habits of his.

At last, the door opened. The dwarf peered from the slit with strange glass wear fashioned atop his nose. She knew from previous visits, he had designed them himself. They made small things large, fuzzy things clear, and far things close. The double glassed frames, however, were still too large for his face.

Doc peered at them at first, then his face filled with recollection. "Ah, yes! I had nearly forgotten. Good thing too or else..." he stopped as he caught the faces of the guards. Quickly, he cleared his throat and swung the door open. "Off with you lot! I will not have you sullying my home with your foul tempers, ill-washed hands, and misplaced manners. Off with you now!"

His beefy hands pulled her inside. Promptly, he shut the door before Aedon could say whatever he had grown on his tongue.