Talia's Torment

Chapter 1: The Promise.

    The sun shown down on her still sleeping form, she breathed in.  Once, twice and with it the pain that blurred her vision with each inhale and exhale the wave of nausea would build and recede.  Hey, she thought, at least now I can actually do this without my vision blurring.  Progress, small but still it was a victory and if her plan had any hope of success she had to hang on to that little bit.   She wouldn’t call it hope; she lost all faith in that word the night she ended up in her current state.  Thinking of the girl she used to be she wanted to punch something, she wanted to scream, but for now she would settle for breathing in and out and calling it progress. 

    Funny, before she would have never thought that air was such a treasure, you never think that until you can’t have any.  The deer never sees the hunter till it’s too late, and then they see nothing at all.  She wasn’t so lucky, her hunter was like a weekender, he was cocky and had maimed instead of killed.  Now though, she had new purpose, fate had reshaped her and she was no longer that calm, trusting deer in the woods.  She was a force, a will all her own.  Fate had allowed her to survive and she would use all her rage and will to make that hunter regret before he closed his eyes one last time.  The hunter was about to find that the deer they thought had gotten away was really a bear, and boy was she hungry.

    She would make herself this promise.  She would see it through and make him pay.  He would never be able to do this to anyone else, and moreover she would make him feel every second of the torture he put her through.  It would be her mission to accomplish; only she could.  She had something on her side that no one before her had.  Ironically enough it was her very quarry that had given her this magical gift, while he was stripping away all her hopes and dreams he had given her a gift that was so much more precious than anything he had taken away. 

    He had given her not only the fire and determination to see her task complete but had also given her the element of surprise.  He thought he was done with her, that she was not worth the efforts it would take to ensure she was gone.  Now he would know just how quickly his mistake would come back to bite him, he would learn that sometimes the underdog doesn’t just win.  Sometimes they annihilate the competition with the utter absence of mercy.

    It was those thoughts that kept her from submitting to the pain, letting his handiwork finish her off like he thought it would.  She couldn’t let him win, she wouldn’t let it happen.  If only to see the look of surprise on his features before they were both wiped clean from this world, it would all be worth it.  So yes, a promise is what she would call it. 

    A pledge if you will, to herself, to make sure that no other person would feel what she had endured.  She would ensure that he would meet his maker and it would be with the accompaniment of pain and torture the likes of which he had dealt out to so many countless others.  He would never know the solace of mercy once he was in her hands.  She would not enjoy the moments like he had done, she would not revel in the pain. 

    Rather she would bathe in the knowledge that the evil she must do would be to done in the name of removing a greater evil that herself.  She would taint herself in his world for only the time required to make sure he served his penitence before finally moving on to the depths of the void where evil should stay forevermore.

    First she needed to repair the damage that was done.  She needed to be the carpenter of her own self working.  She would make her new reality work in her favor; make it a path to her own goal.  She would endure the looks and the pity and the whispers from the staff while they thought she was sleeping.  Sleep, funny, that was something she was definitely sure she would never do again.  Every time she closed her eyes she could see his face, that cold smile. 

    To think she had thought him to be handsome, gorgeous even, and that had been her downfall.  She had been a shy, timid creature thinking that she had surely been smiled upon by some form of the fates for a god of a specimen to even shine his gaze her way.  That had been her thinking, and his trap, how he had snared her into his web like the spider he was.  She could still hear his cruel laugh, accompanied like some strange horror movie theme song playing along with her screams.  He had told her that they sounded like the sweetest melody to him, that he could listen for hours and never tire of the tune.  She had no doubts that his touch and his words would haunt her memory for an eternity and still never lose their edge, much like the knife he had been so fond of.  However, that was a story for another time though, for now she had other things to worry about.

    For now she would focus on the current task.  If she wanted to carry out her plan she would have to heal, as much as possible anyway.  She didn’t care about the trauma, just the physical side.  If she healed her trauma like they kept asking her to do she would lose this fire.  She would lose herself she thought, it would all result in her being a quivering mass on the floor that would get her nowhere.  So no, they didn’t like it but they also didn’t have a choice in it, she would get her physical condition ready.  She would heal her body as best as it now could and she would then train. 

    She knew she had to be prepared, she would get only one chance, never mind that she would have to find him first, she could wait as long as she needed to find him.  She needed to make sure that when she did, she didn’t mess it up, cause that would be the biggest loss.  If she missed her chance and lost the one card she had in her hand, her element of surprise, she would be done.  He would make sure of it, so she waits and prepares.  She will not let her prey go as easily as he did his.  She would savor her reward, and her trophy would stay with her when she finally chose to rest, she would not need to deal when she was done.