Aphotic Born (Immortal's End Book 1) by Elizabeth Myrva

Author:Elizabeth Myrva [Myrva, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

twenty-one

Raven

The rotting stench of decaying flesh chokes what little air is left to burn. Billowy clouds of smoke render the area invisible as I trip through blood-soaked fields. Bones and forgotten limbs catch my boots and slow my steps.

It should have been me.

I allowed this to happen. I’d seen the signs and could have warned the troops from marching that morning. I could have—

Done nothing. There was nothing. I’d been given my orders, the same as all the rest of them, and orders could not be ignored. No matter what, they were not to be questioned.

We don’t have the right to question a God.

We are nothing. Wriggling bugs in the dirt. Cannon fodder for a war we have nothing to do with. We don’t have the right to emotions or love. We don’t deserve it.

The Aphotic are blessed to breathe.

It’s been beaten into my skull too many times to forget as I’ve done with so many years of my life. It’s what I grew up foolishly defending. I have no rights. All I have to my name — a name Gabe had given when the number burned onto my cheek got too long to call out — is that precious, blessed gift to breathe.

And what a wretched, cruel ‘gift’ it is. When every second I have it is spent serving a merciless God who thinks I’m less than the blood-stained dirt the dead lie beneath.

Somewhere in the mess of fire, smoke, blood, and ash is a scream. At some point, I blink and I’m thrust back into that suffocating little cell, so cold and scared of what will happen next. Somewhere beyond those thick iron bars, boots scrap against the crumbling brick. No matter how far back into that cell I crawl, how much I beg and cry, the arms that take me never falter in their steely grasp. They drag me down a poorly lit hall, past all the other cells with their occupants cowering in the shadows, quiet and thankful it isn't them. The arms don’t release me until I’m strapped to that all too familiar table. Until a towering head of flaming hair comes into view, that evil sharp-toothed grin scraping all the worst intentions down my spine.

Then, and only then, do they leave. When I’m left begging for them to stay, to take me back to the cold, dark cell.

How many times did I scream when those soulless eyes raked over my trembling form? How many times had I begged when he picked up that scalpel? How many times did I black out and wake once more to him tearing into me? I can still feel the ghost of his ice-cold fingers touching my flesh, savoring the wails of mercy as he lapped up every drop. As he pleasured himself with my mangled body.

Something holds me down, restricting my thrashing limbs while strong fingers stroke away the tears cascading down my cheeks. The world shifts again. I buck against the weight, lost in the remnants of that horrible nightmare, throat raw in my screaming for it to stop.

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