Page 35 of Enslak

Nothing was going to hurt her.

Nothing.

The darkness surged again.

I felt myself sinking deeper. My thoughts scattering into pieces I couldn't hold together.

But through it all, one thing remained clear.

Her.

The blackness pulled harder.

It would be so easy to let go. To stop fighting.

To just... sink into the darkness and let it take me wherever it wanted.

I was so tired.

A century of pain and torture and pit fights and experiments.

A century of being treated like an animal. Like a thing. Like something less than alive.

It would be easy to just... stop.

But.

But.

If I let go, I'd never see her again.

Never see her face without the disguise.

Never hear her voice speaking my name.

Never feel her small hand in mine or her soft body pressed against me.

I'd touched her face.

I remembered that.

Right before the darkness swallowed me the first time, my hand had found her cheek and I'd seen past the hologram. Past the Negita's features.

To her.

Beautiful.

She'd been beautiful.

And she'd been crying.

Tears streaming down her face because of me. Because I was hurt. Because she thought I might die.

No one had cried for me in a century.

No one had cared whether I lived or died.

But she did.