Slave

[08.07.01] » by Valvalis

I go into my glass box and they tell me to sleep, but I cannot follow those orders. Images haunt me, images dyed red with flames and the blood of the men I kill. He says I need sleep, to refresh my body so that I may obey Him further. But He cannot make me sleep. He says, He could, but He fears it might interrupt my system.

I do not know what that means.

I know my box made of glass - know it very well. I know each flaw and ripple in its structure more intimately than I ever knew my mother and father.

If I ever knew them, or had such things. I do not know.

I remember vaguely a woman, with honey hair, and I remember being taken from her. But that is good, because it brought me to Him, and without Him...

There is no without Him.

I cannot focus my thoughts on anything for a time and so they go wandering, wandering onto fields of battle, wandering back to the fire. The fire. The beautiful red fire that I call for Him. It makes a smell, a sick smell. He tells me it is the smell of flesh burning... He tells me that He finds it to be an intoxicating perfume.

It makes me sick, but I hold down my sickness because it would displease Him for me to be sick. I want to go back, to drink water, to smell the factory smells of oil, not because I enjoy them, but because they make this smell, the sick smell, go away. I lean my face closer to my suit of what He calls MagiTek Armor, trying to breathe in its oil and metal smell. It is a mistake; now I am going to be sick.

But He tells me not to, and so I do not.

The ride home, with the MagiTek Armor set on autopilot, is unsettling. My stomach revolts, and He is not there to order it quiescent. I think I am going to be sick again, but just when I know I cannot hold it back any longer, we arrive in the place He calls home. I have heard others speak of it as Vector. I take a moment to relax in my padded seat within the armor; to breathe in the oil and metal and breathe out the burning flesh. After a bit, my stomach quiets and I am led to a meal, then to my glass home.

I have been laying here for some hours when He comes again. He tells me of an urgent mission, one that only I can accomplish. It makes my heart leap to be of service to Him! So of course I go, although my body feels strangely heavy, and difficult to manipulate. But that is of no consequence, as long as I can use the Armor.

It is a long trip to the goal of the mission - a place called Narshe by the two soldiers who accompany me, Vicks and Wedge. They are what He calls incompetent; I recognize it immediately, but He sent me with them, and I must not question His judgment. At least there is a long boat ride, and I can sleep, with the clean ocean wind filling my nostrils and lungs, and quieting my stomach, it seems, for good.

A long trek through the mountains is the last thing that bars us from our goal. I hear the incompetent soldiers call me "witch," and I do not remember what that word means, if I ever knew. We enter the town and the incompetents, frightened, make me walk in front of them. As if weapons could penetrate our glorious MagiTek Armor, that He made for us. I have no fear, but my stomach churns again as I smell burning flesh; the men of this town have attacked us, bringing with them some strange large animal that they seem to have tamed. But nothing can stand against His glorious MagiTek, which I use so adeptly. Even my incompetent companions know the simplest of uses for it.

There is a giant snail creature that I must burn, and it doesn't smell as bad burning as it did when it lived. But that is a momentary hurdle; quickly we have leapt it and moved toward our goal, what I have heard the incompetents call an "esper." That word... but no, I've never heard it before.

It is of no consequence; we are at the "esper," encased in ice. We must retrieve it. I approach...

Have you truly forgotten whom you are, child of Maduin?

Maduin? What... The esper starts to glow, distracting me from my thoughts. The men behind me are screaming, but that bright blue light seems to fill my mind with images; a honey-haired woman and a strange-looking green haired man... hair the color of my own... with strange horns, he looks so odd... and others that look like him... small females with translucent wings... creatures of myth and legend... what are myth and legend? I question, and the answer comes. It is like a dam breaking in my head, and the flood hurts so much... I scream, I know not what I scream, perhaps it is not even words but just a primal scream... images flash through my head... I see my mother slain, dying... I see... my kin, dragged cruelly from their homes... I see... I see... and I begin to realize who He - no, he - is, what he stands for....

And it is all lost to a rush of darkness.