Savage Divinity

The weight of the world drops from my shoulders as I lay my weary head to rest, and Lin-Lin’s soothing presence wicks away what remains of my concerns and apprehensions.

I do not know how long I stay suspended in the sweet calm of oblivious serenity, but all too soon, my restless mind shifts itself into gear and sets my thoughts to stirring once more. It’s subtle at first, but all too soon, my peaceful slumber is tainted by the steady stirring of subconscious thoughts, here to once again ruin a perfectly good nap. Even half-conscious as I am, I can’t help but be annoyed by my stupid brain, because I am still so very, very tired. My head feels fogged up and my body weighed down, as if I drank too much and was buried beneath a mountain of sand. There’s a faint but constant ache coursing through my muscles, and the mere thought of getting up is unpleasant to the extreme, so I desperately hold fast to oblivion even as genuine sleep slips through my metaphorical fingers and relegates me to a restless, half-trance of unfulfilling dormancy.

Arms empty, seat unsteady, chest uncompressed, and head unsupported. A gust of cold air whisks away the soothing warmth as the world tumbles around me, but still my eyes sit sealed and my mind half-dormant, aware of these minor happenings around me without any of it feeling real. Is all this happening, or am I merely imagining it? A dream, it must be, a manifestation of my not-so-repressed anxieties bubbling over in my unconscious mind. Sleep. Rest. Recuperate. I need this, want this, because the real world is full of unpleasant, undesirable, unhappy things, and here, in the imagined wonderland of my dreaming mind, the world is what I make it.

My head settles into a warm, soft pillow and my arms wrap around a sturdy, reassuring presence, so for a time, all is right in dreamland. Oblivion returns, but the problem with oblivion is nothingness means no concept of time, so all too soon, my quiet rest is interrupted once more and my mind brought back to semi-conscious limbo. How long I blacked out for, I couldn’t say, but it feels like the blink of an eye, my head still stuffed with cotton and now my back is twinging in minor pain. At least it’s still warm and soft, but my mind refuses to fall idle and leave me in peace. At this point, I might as well give in and wake up. There’s still so much I need to do, though what it might be, I don’t really remember. There’s a vague sense of immediate danger, but again, it feels unreal somehow, like the remnants from a half-remembered, fast-fading dream.

And that, more than anything else, concerns me. Why can’t I remember anything? What was I so concerned about? Who is this warm presence supporting me? How much have I forgotten?

I remember...

Fear, but not immediate, nor was it personal, more of a general sense of dreaded concern.

Then surprise, because something happened, something unexpected which made me...

Amused. Not laugh out loud funny, only a slight exhale through the nose, but it was pleasant all the same.

What comes next is pure exhaustion, but in a good way, tinged with the satisfaction of a job well done. There’s something else, but try as I might, I can’t remember what. It’s important, I know that much, something wonderful and invaluable which I want back, but how can I reclaim that which I do not remember? I am empty without it, incomplete and unfulfilled, a man gasping for breath and dying of thirst while surrounded by air and water aplenty. What am I missing? What have I forgotten?

Whatever it was... it gave me warmth and stability, a sense of support and security unlike anything else. It was power and confidence coursing through me, for I knew I had something to rely on. It was restorative and comforting, a source of pride, pleasure, peace of mind, and happiness, everything right in the world and everything I hold dear.

It was love, plain and simple, and now, I fear I have lost it all.

But how can you lose what you never had?

The thought chills me to the core as the truth rears its ugly head, my dreams slipping away until all I have left is a memory of a memory. That’s all I ever had, a dream, a self-delusional fantasy put together by my anxious mind to give me an escape from the nightmares of the waking world. The thought registers and I sleep no longer as an all-too-familiar steel-toed boot hammers home in my ribs. “Wake up,” comes the guttural command, and I jump to my feet, not daring to fight back and careful to keep my eyes fixated on my dirty, shackled feet, covered in dirt, bruises, and dried blood a plenty. Across from them is a set of large, leather boots which dwarf my bare feet in size, only one of many ways in which I am outmatched. “Worthless slave. Ye’d sleep all day if I left ye to it.” A meaty hand smashes into my cheek, and I tumble back to the dirt floor, but instinct and self-preservation drive me to scramble back up lest I give the guard more reason to beat me.

I am a slave. I pick up rocks. That is my purpose, and my goal is to keep my head down and survive another day. That is all there is, and that is all I have. No more, no less. The fanciful lies fade away and the truth hits me in the gut like a hammer, and the loss of imagined warmth and happiness hurts more than the guard’s boot to my ribs.

My real memories come flooding back like a deluge of ice cold water as I join the line of slaves shuffling out into the familiar yard. Fresh scabs and old wounds register as my tally of aches and pains make themselves known, bruised heels, tender joints, and throbbing head, merely the worst of the bunch. Truth be told, a cold shower would be far more welcome than these unpleasant memories, if only to wash away the blood, grime, and sweat caked all over my body and perhaps dull the constant, unending pain. A dip in the river or a swim in the bay would be nice, but I can’t remember the last time I saw running water, or anything besides murky barrels of collected rainwater. Speaking of which, today’s barrel is almost emptied by the time my turn arrives, but despite my great thirst, I wait to see if there is anyone who wants seconds before I dare approach. Even among slaves, a hierarchy exists, one in which I, the smallest, scrawniest, most cowardly slave sits at the very bottom.

On the bright side, this means there’s nowhere to go but up.

On the contrary, things can always get worse.

As if fate wanted to prove the point, a hand grabs me by the scruff of the neck as I lean into the barrel, my lips so close yet so far from the murky, but potable water. “Enough slacking,” the guttural voice says, tossing me aside before I can quench my thirst. “Get in line. Time to go to work.”

How am I supposed to work without water? Or food for that matter? I’m so hungry, even tasteless slop seems like a meal fit for a king, but I dare not raise my voice in protest. Tired, hungry, thirsty, and broken, I shuffle into line and pray there are no more beatings, because I do not think I could bear one and continue working. If I go down, I won’t be able to get up and work, and I’ve seen what happens to those who don’t work. On cue, one of the slaves stumbles and falls, so I avert my gaze as the commotion begins, a sight I’ve seen a thousand times before and do not care to see again. The guards holler at the unfortunate soul to get up while beating him without mercy, interspersed with the slave’s pitiful screams as he futilely attempts to obey. Alas, his broken body and crushed spirit are not up to the task, and the guards take sadistic glee in slowly, but surely, killing the fallen, screaming slave.

Someone should step in and help. A hero to save the day. Twelve average warriors could take the compound, probably less if someone important shows up. The guards are brutal and bloodthirsty, but lazy and undisciplined. I’ve never seen them raise a weapon in practice or even use them against someone fighting back, only to threaten and torment the beaten and downtrodden slaves so consistently it’s almost as if they need to make room for new arrivals. That doesn’t make sense though, we’re slaves here to mine. Why would anyone want to keep replacing their slaves? I’ll keep my head down, work hard, and survive until whoever pays these guards comes by to see why their slaves keep dying, if only out of fiscal responsibility rather than the kindness of their hearts.

The screams continue behind me as I step up to the gates, and a wave of indeterminate terror washes over me before I can cross. Body frozen in shock, time comes to a standstill as my thoughts race at a million miles a second, weighing the costs and benefits of stepping forward in spite of my sudden, irrational dread versus the very real horrors taking place behind me. If I don’t leave, the guards will punish me, far worse than they’re punishing the poor soul who tripped and fell. I can see it now, the myriad of torments they will visit upon me. I can feel the imagined pain as if a distant, fading memory, and the thought of experiencing it in the flesh chills me to the core. On the other hand, a slow, painful death almost seems appealing opposed to what awaits me outside the gates, but I have no earthly idea why. It’s just... instinct, I suppose, unwillingness to proceed forward into the unknown, despite having made this journey hundreds, if not thousands of times already. It’s just the exit to the slave pens, which connects to a road leading to the mines. Why am I so afraid?

The real fear is what lurks behind, of being beaten, maimed, tortured, and tormented before the sweet release of death. It could be hours before that happens, days even, and if the guards are particularly creative, they could even make my suffering last for weeks.

And so I step past the threshold and out onto the road, my throat dry and stomach twisting at the sudden loss of safety and sanctuary. No, there was never any of either, not in the slave pens, and not in the mines ahead. Still, despite my overwhelming trepidation, there is no change to the situation save for the chains connecting me to the slave in front going taut as I hesitate in place. The very real fear of torture prods me ever forward, so step by careful step I proceed, but nothing out of the ordinary happens, save for the slave behind me growing impatient at my reticence and quietly urging me to hurry. My doom and gloom continues to persist, which is almost as terrible as actual suffering, but before long, we arrive at our destination. The open pit mines stand before me and I descend into the unwelcoming depths where I see a rack of picks waiting for me. Grabbing a handle without thinking, I heave with all my might, but the metal tool barely budges before a meaty hand smacks me down before the rack. “Idiot slave. Can barely even lift your arms, much less a tool. Quit wasting time and get to work.”

Right, right. I don’t break the rocks. I pick them up. Mumbling a fervent apology, I scurry off before I’m beaten again and grab the smallest basket I can find. Work time. Head down, back hunched, knees bent, and eyes on the ground. This is how I spend my day, crab-walking along the sides and filling my basket with rocks, careful to always be moving and never look idle. So desperate to look busy, I shuffle around the legs of stronger slaves and grab all the stones I can, ignoring the stinging cuts from flying shards of rock and the countless near-misses of swinging picks. It doesn’t take long for my calves to start burning, but I fight through the cramps and tension until my basket is full, at which point I can finally straighten up and stretch my screaming, tormented back and leg muscles. There’s no time to waste however, as I hurry over to the wagons and unload my haul, where a guard stands ready to reward me with a stinging strike of his leather lash. “This all ye got, ye slacker?” I know better than to answer out loud. Despite this, my cringing nod earns me another taste of the lash as the massive guard snarls, “Then work faster ye worthless shit.”

A beating is nothing. Verbal abuse is even less. The lash, a gentle encouragement compared to the horrors the guards save for those slaves who cannot work, so again, I keep my head lowered and hurry back to work. It’s a hard, gruelling life, but as I naively forgot earlier this morning, things can always get worse. This is my life, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, hopefully I can avoid the worst of it today and keep myself in one piece. Tomorrow, it would be best if I did this all over again, because any deviation from the norm is usually for the worse. Say I stumble and fall on my way back to unload. That’ll earn me even more lashes when I finally arrive, since the guards keep careful track of all my contributions. The same will happen if I move too slowly, perhaps to relieve an agonizing cramp or take pressure off my wounded feet, which are usually bleeding from several cuts at any given time due to walking through a working mine without any shoes. Then there’s the days when I’m almost too tired to keep going and I can’t get up to work. Those are the worst, because hard, painful labour is so much better than the alternative: being made an example of to the others.

The guards are fairly creative at punishing slackers, with nail pulling, skin flaying, and fiery branding being their go-to methods, but their arsenal runs deep. They always find new ways to surprise me, like the time one declared that slaves really only need their first three fingers on each hand to keep working without experiencing a loss in efficiency. If I dared to look up, I would see many of those guards wearing necklaces strung with collected fingers, though I am happy to say none of those fingers are mine. Toes are trickier, since we need them to walk properly, so we get to keep all of ours, but the guards like to beat the soles of our feet so every step brings fresh agony. They rarely punch slaves in the head, because it tends to knock us out, but similar to how we don’t need all our fingers, two eyes happens to be one more than we need to see. Noses are another trophy the guards like to take, and ears too, but usually, if things have gotten that far, it’s a sign they don’t intend to let the slave live, which is good since that means my face is still intact. They don’t particularly care for collecting teeth either though, because taking them doesn’t cause enough pain. Instead, they prefer to crack our teeth open and leave the nerves exposed, because then it hurts to eat, drink, and sometimes even breathe. I’ve still got a few good teeth left to me, though I’m liable to cut my tongue open if I were to run it over their jagged remains, and I thank the Heaven’s I don’t grind my teeth in my sleep, because otherwise I’d never get any rest.

Rest. Sleep. My only reprieve from this nightmare of a world, where I can drift into my happy dreams where no one can hurt me. I was strong in my dreams, a Warrior and Hero of great renown. Talented beyond belief, in fact, which makes sense since it’s my dream. I had wives, and family, and pets, and friends, all of whom loved and cherished me. I held a position of power and used it to collect great wealth, a man of great importance who was pivotal in so many matters of grave consequence. That’s who I get to be in the dream, but here, in the real world, I am nothing but a slave.

So silly, my idle little delusions, so fanciful and impractical. Wives? Ha! Who would want me, a weak, scrawny, worthless coward? Family? A real family would never sell their child into slavery, yet here I am. Pets? I must have been desperate to imagine so many of them, to pretend the rocks digging into my spine were rabbits snuggling into sleep, or the legs of other slaves laid out over my own to be a wildcat sprawled over me for warmth. Friends? I have no friends, no one to support me, because here in this world, it is eat or be eaten, and I am lucky to still have my insignificant life. Funny how I awakened to the Blessing of Water, because in real life, I’m always thirsty, and of course I learned how to cook, since I have nothing to fill my belly. My dreams were wish-fulfillment fantasy, much needed escapism to keep myself sane, but the sad, harsh truth of the matter is that there is no real escape.

No escape besides death that is, and despite this hellish existence, I so desperately want to live.

So I must surrender, give in to my despair, do away with all hope and accept my lot. I am a slave, and I will be so much more content if I just accept it. Hope. There is no hope. There is only ugly truth. I am a slave, and these fanciful dreams just make things so much worse when I inevitably wake up again, my hopes crushed by the reality of my situation. I am a slave. It’s time I acted like one. No more dreams, no more hopes, just surrender and obey, and everything will be fine.

But I can’t give up hope. Where there is life, there is hope, so without hope, there is no life, and despite all the pain and suffering, Iwant to live. Death is not an option, and thus, I will always have hope for a better future, so long as I still draw breath.

A sentiment my captors seem eager to beat out of me. Every time I return with a full basket of rocks, the waiting guard lashes me harder than before, scolding me for being slow despite my best efforts to hurry. I even switch to a bigger basket, but this earns me an even harsher lashing, and I come to accept this extra abuse as the new norm. Night falls, and the march back to the pens is long and arduous, with no sense of safety to be found when we arrive. The gates, the yard, the shack itself, everything is exactly as I left it this morning, yet somehow, wholly alien and unfamiliar. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s no time to investigate as the guards find a new hapless victim to torment, forcing me to hide in a nook and stare at my feet so as to avoid being picked next.

Neither food nor water are provided, compounding my misery even further. When it finally comes time to sleep, there are no sweet dreams to greet me, only a moment of darkness before the boot comes to wake me once again. My days pass in blurred agony as I am marked for torment, and try as I might to avoid it, the guards always find a reason to single me out. At first, it seems like nothing, just more expected abuse, but then barely an hour goes by without some form of punishment heaped onto me. Walking too slow? That’s a beating. Breathing too loud? Another beating. Look up briefly to stretch my neck? Hoo boy, that calls for a real beating. I soon forget the last time I ate or drank, but still my suffering persists, the guards demanding more with each passing day and my punishments escalating when I inevitably fail to meet their impossible expectations. Before long, my battered body is just one massive, ugly bruise in varying shades which run the spectrum from yellow to dark purple, and I have no tears left to cry during my all-too-brief moments of rest.

Then things get worse. They always get worse. It starts with a slight misstep as my large basket obscures my vision and I step on a sharp, jagged stone. In my efforts to avoid putting my full weight on it, I surge forward in hopes of tiptoeing over, but the jagged stone is longer than I expected and slips beneath my weight. Toppling forward, I upend my basket and the stones spill out across the mine floor. Panic wells up as I scramble to pick them all back up, but it’s already too late.

A pair of boots appear before me, but I don’t dare look up, grabbing rocks as quickly as I can with trembling hands, since after they beat me, they’ll make me do this anyways. Best to get as much done now while I’m still able to. “Ye see that?”

A second pair of boots emerge in my peripherals, and I choke back my sobs while redoubling my efforts, knowing tears will only egg them on. “That I did. Seems like the runt ‘ere grew some balls and tried to attack ye.”

What? “No! I didn’t, I swear I didn’t.”

An errant kick drives the air from my lungs, delivered by a third, unseen guard. “That’s what I say too. Ye calling us liars?”

“No, no, please, no, it was an accident.” As much as I would like to properly beg for mercy, I don’t dare stop loading rocks back into my basket, but there are just so many still left to go. “I slipped is all, I slipped.”

“Oh?” The first set of boots step close, and I can almost feel the guard’s breath on the back of my neck. “Ye slipped huh? What the rest of ye think? Slip, or attack?” Other guards chime in and for the life of me, I can’t tell which side is winning, but it seems I’m not without allies as a good number do say ‘slip’. I’ll still be beaten for my mistake, but at least I won’t be killed, so I work and pray they take pity on me. Long, agonizing seconds pass as my fate hangs in the balance, but then, a table knife falls in front of me and I freeze in place.

What’s happening here? Why did they give me a knife? It’s not the sharpest weapon in the world, but it can do some damage, especially if plunged in the right place. The guards all tower over me, so the neck is no good, but they stand with wide, open stances, meaning maybe I can aim for the crotch. I’d have to get real lucky to sever an artery though, assuming I can even drive the dull tip through a guard’s thick, leather pants. Liver? Same problem, not to mention any attempt on my part would put me right in smacking range. Or kicking range. Or elbow range. Hey, maybe things will work out and I kill one guard. Then I can grab his weapon and fight my way to freedom, whereupon I can sprout wings and fly away to a place of safety.

Yea right. I’m no warrior. I’m a slave. A weak, worthless, helpless slave who doesn’t want to die just yet.

“If it was a mistake,” the guard says, “Then ye can be forgiven.” Relief floods through me as I imagine I somehow passed a test by not reaching for the knife, only for said relief to be wrenched away by the guard’s next sentence. “But not without a show of contrition.” The other guards hoot and holler at the proclamation and my blood curdles in dismay, for I’ve seen this game before and know exactly how it’s played. Kicking the knife even closer to me, the guard says, “A finger’ll do nicely fer somethin’ like this. I’ll even let ye pick which one.”

Oh how I yearn to take up the knife and kill him, but I know how that ends. Poorly is how, and visions of inhuman pain and suffering flash through my mind, warning me to not do anything stupid. A moment of pain to escape hours of agony, it seems like a fair trade, so I take the knife with my right hand and lay the left one down flat, the pinky extended out to the side for a nice, clean cut. Again, I think to take up arms and fight, and again, all manner of horrific tortures flicker through my mind, culminating in one sorry existence where I am left blind, broken, and helpless, but still alive, my continued defiance earning me weeks upon weeks of constant, unending agony. Finally, I take a deep breath, line the knife up with the knuckle of my left pinky, my breath coming in short pants as I mentally fumble for any sort of escape.

And find none. So I grip the handle tight, and push down hard.

Pain seems too small a word to describe it, a sensation worse than anything I’ve ever experienced before and one I hope to never experience again. This loss of a finger should be nothing, but the single cut sends a wave of unspeakable agony coursing through my body, only to make the rounds and continue tormenting me for what feels like an eternity. I lost something today, something more than a finger and far more valuable yet. Today, I lost my pride and dignity, for rather than making them take from me what they will, I have surrendered a piece of myself not in hope of escape, but merely continued survival.

Maybe it would have been better to let them beat me. I can’t keep doing this anymore. There is no hope, only suffering ahead, so I should stop dragging it out and just give up.

But I can’t.

I wake once more in the unsettling slave pen, still alien despite all the days that have passed since I first arrived. How long has it been? Too long, and I have been lessened by the stay. My left hand has been bandaged and treated, my offering accepted and mercy given, but the absent pinky finger throbs with the searing heat of a burning sun, and I feel ashamed by my actions. I gave in, capitulated, made the choice to inflict this wound, which in a way, makes me complicit with my tormentors.

And yet, the next time the knife is dropped at my feet, the visions cross my mind again, and again, I chop off another finger. The fourth finger on the left hand, since it makes sense to keep all my mutilations to one side, but once the indescribable pain fades away and I regain consciousness, I can’t help but mourn its loss and wonder if I made a mistake. That’s my ring finger, the place where my wedding band would go, and while I don’t have a wife, I had two in my dreams, and I do miss them so. I don’t remember anything about them, or the other women in my dream-life, but I know I loved them, and they loved me. Even if they were figments of my imagination, does that make my love any less real?

No one loves me, not even myself. I am a weak, cowardly, worthless excuse for a human, an insignificant, eight-fingered slave without value. Why struggle when surrender would be so much easier? Why fight to live when death would free me?

Desperation and despair threaten to overwhelm me, but I will not give in. The third time the knife is thrown at my feet, my visions of resistance are so vivid and real, it comes as a surprise to find myself still crouched low to the ground, and the knife just barely out of reach. That’s the new game now, making me fetch the tool of my undoing, and loath as I am to play along, I do not want to die in so many horrific and unpleasant ways. I want to live, I want to escape, and so I crawl to the knife and grasp it in a three-fingered grip, idly wondering if I should’ve spread out the damage after all. Well, I guess it doesn’t make any difference if things continue in this way, so I grit my broken teeth and lop off my other pinky finger. No longer content to suffer in silence, I scream and flail without shame or regret, wholly embracing the pain because to do otherwise would leave me broken beyond repair.

A phantom hand smooths my hair, but when I open my eyes, no one is there, though I can almost feel the imagined love and concern still lingering in the air. The pain has not lessened one bit, but there is work to be done, and my day unfolds as it has every other day in this hellhole, starting from a boot to my ribs and ending with dinner and a torture show. The days blur and my agony grows, the self-inflicted wounds never mending, but the next time the knife is thrown at my feet, there is almost no hesitation to my actions. The handle feels cool in my hands as I drive it through the guard’s boot, and in response, they flay my skin in long strips and slather salt into the wounds. They bind my arms and hang me up until my shoulders pop out of my joints. They beat my feet until the bones are shattered and work their way up to my neck. They slice the tip of my finger off and cauterize the wound, then slice some more and repeat.

Yet once they are done, death does not come, and I find myself staring at the knife once again.

And again, the knife goes into the guard’s boot. Left this time, since the right one moved out of the way.

More torment awaits in the form of an elaborate stretching device which slowly pulls me apart, and again, death is denied me. Up goes the knife, this time aimed at the crotch, and again, I am tortured to death. Knife, attack, torture, die. Knife, attack, torture, die. Knife, attack, torture, die. Each round takes an agonizing eternity, one which passes by in the blink of an eye, and soon, I spot the repetitions. Baked over coals, vivisected whilst alive, being literally torn apart by hand, these sorts of tortures stand out, so when you go through it twice, one tends to notice.

“You know,” I say, looking into the dark, unrecognizable faces of my tormentors as they hammer nails into my flesh, “I thought I blocked you from coming in, but apparently, it didn’t take.” The guards don’t respond and continue administering my beating, which hurts, but only because it’s so vivid. Still, I can ignore it enough to keep being cheeky, though it really should’ve stopped hurting by now. “...So you’re just going to ignore me and keep pretending this is real?” Focusing on my surroundings, I try to will the guards away alongside their torture implements, but my efforts are futile and the horrific scene remains. It’s not just the pain that feels real, everything else does too, from the hard, cold, uncomfortable surface of the slab I’m lying on to the fetid stench of sweating piggies mingling with the metallic tang of blood and unmistakable aroma of shit and piss. They were hammering nails into me, of course I’m gonna piss and shit, but just thinking about it like that brings the agony back to the forefront, and it takes some time to power through it. “Okay,” I mutter, mostly to myself since Gen-Shi isn’t in a talkative mood. “So you’ve gotten better at this illusion thing. Kudos to you. Still, this is my Natal Palace, which makes it my Domain, and I will not be bested by a village idiot delusional enough to think he’s become a monster out of legend.”

The guards finally stop hammering, much to my relief, but then a haughty, powerful chuckle shakes me to my core. “FOOLISH WORM,” the voice says, so loud it feels like my head is splitting from the inside, “YOU STILL THINK THIS YOUR DOMAIN?”

...

......

“Um... yes?” I mean, where else could it be?

The scene shifts and the void opens up around me, vast and infinite in all directions, yet filled with Spectres as far as the eye can see. Millions, billions, trillions, the scale is beyond my comprehension, but the air is thick with Spectres of every shape and size imaginable, writhing in obvious pain and agony. Again, the world shifts, but slower this time, the Spectres shrinking away to reveal even more Spectres and darkness, until the darkness turns to light and I realize I’ve been inside a single thread. The thread grows larger and my perspective widens, revealing more threads which gather to form a robe filled with shifting patterns, one worn by none other than Zhen Shi himself.

Not Gen-Shi. Seeing the real deal now, it amazes me I was stupid enough to believe the pretender in the first place. It’s the difference between a teddy bear and a ferocious grizzly, a shopping cart and formula one race car, a paper plane and a fighter jet. There is no mistaking the arrogance, confidence, and authority emanating from this man’s gaze, filled with the disdain I would have for a fly buzzing around my food.

And for good reason too. If Pong Pong’s eye was the moon, then a single thread on Zhen Shi’s robe was the galaxy that moon existed in, a difference in scale I can barely even comprehend.

...

I might be in over my head here. Just a little.

“The slave pen.” Understanding dawns as the memory sticks out in my mind, the dread and foreboding I felt that first time I left. “That’s how you got me out of my Natal Palace. You tricked me into walking out of my own accord.” There is no answer from Zhen Shi, and I notice his attention is no longer on me, his mind elsewhere whilst I stand broken and injured before him. The nails are still sticking out of my skin, and it’s agonizing just existing here, but somehow, the pain doesn’t affect my clarity of thought. My head still hurts something fierce though, my mind stuffed with cotton, and I realize it’s because I overexerted myself doing whatever it was I did helping Mister Rustram save Sai Chou. That’s probably why I fell for Zhen Shi’s lies, because my mind wasn’t in the right place, thoroughly exhausted by my expenditure of Chi. Or Heavenly Energy. Whatever.

“TROUBLESOME WORM.” His attention returning without warning, Zhen Shi’s gaze is not one of anger or contempt, but minor irritation, as if I were a lock of hair that constantly fell out of place or a slightly bent tine of his fork. “A WASTE OF THIS SOVEREIGN’S ATTENTION, YET ATTENTION LITTLE WORM DEMANDS.”

Gesturing at my nail studded arms, I retort, “Oh, I’m making this difficult for you? Sorry about that.”

Without warning, the nails grow searing hot and my flesh cooks around them, my screams ripped from my throat by the unbearable agony. The heat subsides, as does the pain, but the memory lingers and hangs heavily from my shoulders like a weight pushing me down. “DEFIANT DESPITE THE CIRCUMSTANCES, FOR LITTLE WORM IS TOO IGNORANT TO UNDERSTAND THEM.”

“Then how about you explain it so I understand?”

The agony returns, only this time worse than before. When I return to my senses, I find myself prostrated before Zhen Shi, my face pressed so low I can’t even see him, but somehow, I know he is directly in front of me. “THIS.” Stretching the single syllable out for longer than necessary, Zhen Shi’s tone is one of bored indifference rather than haughty satisfaction, the punishment meted out as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “THIS IS HOW LITTLE WORM SHOULD MAKE HIS REQUEST.”

“Eat shit you pompous – ”

The agony returns intensified four-fold, and I have plenty of time to regret my words before Zhen Shi speaks again. “DEFIANT, BUT MORTAL STILL. YOU STRUGGLE AND RESIST, BUT YOU WILL BREAK IN TIME, AND THIS SOVEREIGN HAS TIME APLENTY TO SPARE.”

And he’s right too, because this is his Natal Palace, and which means things are happening at the literal speed of thought. I could live through ten-thousand lifetimes of agony before a single second passes out in the real world, which means everything I just experienced, everything I just suffered through, everything I endured, likely happened in the blink of an eye, if that. Before I can come up with a pithy response, the agony returns greater than ever before, and agony is all I know, right up until oblivion comes to claim me.

...

I do not know how long I stay suspended in the sweet calm of oblivious serenity, but all too soon, my restless mind shifts itself into gear and sets my thoughts to stirring once more...

Chapter Meme