Crystalline Melodies I: Undying Strains
[PAST] The Detriment Of A Broken Mind
RECOMMENDED SONG ACCOMPANIMENT: "Not Alone" by Red
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODDtLMiGnY
Have you ever just sat there, curled up in a ball for so long you thought your spine had fused that way, praying over and over that you were just dreaming? Try that for about a week, multiply the experience by ten, and then you might get a vague idea of what I went through in the days following the "incident". I couldn't bring myself to actually acknowledge that anything was my fault.
'They made me do it. They must have hidden some sort of super-strong Taser-thing in his pocket that went off when he fell. There has to be some explanation.' I'd tell myself over and over. Sometimes, I'd just deny the whole thing altogether. Anything to lessen the pain. I guess Aria told herself the same things, because the few times I was aware enough to open my eyes, she seemed to be deep in thought, but showed no signs of anything…supernatural having occurred.
I must have worked myself into a fever, because I slipped in and out of consciousness so frequently, I hardly noticed the minutes, hours, and days passing by; I hardly noticed the sickening rock of the boat, the crowdedness of the lower decks, or how Aria never left my side the entirety of our journey.
Several days later (I'd long since lost count), I was finally well enough to sit up and have a decent meal. Well, that is, if you categorize the allegedly normal ration of two-week-old bread and a half-cup of water as decent…
"Hey, hey. Slow down," Aria whispered, placing a comforting hand on my back. "If you draw out the meal, it'll fill you up more in the long run."
I was almost too hungry to pay attention at all, but her words made sense, so I managed to wait a few seconds between each bite instead of stuffing the whole block into my mouth all at once. She had always been the logical one: the lover of science. I guess it served us well, that time long ago. Who would have guessed that the "nerds" are the ones who survive the longest?
Aria smiled sadly and passed me the small metal cup of dirty water as I licked the dry crumbs off my fingers. I nearly drank the whole thing down before remembering that it was a shared cup. I handed it back to her. "You should have some, too." I muttered, my throat and tongue too dry to really form the words very well. She shook her head and pushed it back into my hands. "You're sick." She said. "You need it much more than I do. I'll be fine."
I almost said something about saving some for Mom, but caught myself, visibly cringing at the memory. Aria and I's eyes met, and a sort of non-verbal agreement passed between us: never speak of the "incident" again. It was just too unexplainable -- too scary -- to deal with under these circumstances. It was so much easier to write off the incomprehensible as nonexistent and simply deal with the situation at hand. It was the only way to survive, I guess.
There were many days of this. No variation whatsoever. Eat, sleep, and wait. I don't remember this part of my journey very clearly, but I believe there may have even been a corner dedicated to defecation. Trust me, it did not smell nice.
But I suppose that was their goal.
Every time one of the "pirates" would walk in, I'd start shaking with rage, and Aria would have to physically force me to not rip his throat out. I think self-restraint and anger control were the first things my journey taught me. But what really infuriated me was the look in his eyes. He'd toss the sack of food into the middle of the mass and grin as our neighbors would rush into the mess and nearly claw each other's eyes out over the scant rations. The first few times, I was too sick to move, and Aria was too timid to make a serious attempt at getting anything.
"We'll go with what's left." She'd say. As if the abductees on a slave-trafficking ship would have a sense of chivalry or something, right? Wrong.
It was like watching a pack of wild dogs. The second law of the oppressed life: every man -- and woman -- for themselves. Survival of the fittest. Or in our case, the fastest. Within a few days, even Aria was leaping into the fray, pushing people out of the way to get to the food. And it killed me that their psychological games could push her so far as to engage in it. To turn us into something no better than animals. She probably would not have done it all, if not for me. Afterwards, I could always see the pain and conflict behind her troubled eyes: we shouldn't have had to do this. Fourteen and eight-year-old sisters, huddled in the corner, clinging to each other for dear old sanity. It was the real and true personification of a nightmare.
The kidnappers, however, seemed to get quite a good lot of enjoyment out of us. I'd see one of them come in and grab one of us -- we were all girls -- and drag her out, shaking and whimpering pitifully. It could have been anyone. The twelve-year-old in the middle, the twenty-seven-year-old in the back. When they left, they never came back.
Aria would use things she'd learned or read about to help us. She knew some things about how to remain inconspicuous; how to hide in plain sight.
"People have a tendency to look first at the left closer middle," she'd say. "It's best to therefore be in the right further middle. Take off any super bright or dark clothing. Don't make specific eye contact with anyone -- especially not the abductors, as they would see it as a challenge -- but don't stare at anything obvious like the floor or ceiling. Don't sit perfectly still. Statues are conspicuous. Move a little, but not too much: keep your movements natural. Keep your expression from conveying too much emotion. Also, be careful what emotion you convey. Your expression could make you stand out. Remember the second girl they took? She was smiling at her friend when they did. Everyone else was miserable and afraid. So she stood out. And the fourth one? She froze with fear, and looked more terrified than anyone else."
She paused, considering her words carefully. "The bad men prey on that: they look for the weakest, and the ones who have the farthest to fall. If you are neither of those, then you will survive. Do you understand?"
Eyes wide, I could do nothing but nod slowly, still trying to process the truck load of information just dumped on me. Her last comment had just described the next seven years of my life.
We went on like this for several more days. Aria and I would spend time engaging in completely pointless topics of conversation, just to help me get more comfortable with speaking. I'd always been pretty quiet, but I guess even then, the both of us had a sense of all the bad things that would ensue so soon after. Of how much we needed to prepare. We'd play pointless games to pass the time, or Aria would dig into our bags and pull out books to read aloud to me. Aria told me that soon after I'd passed out, the men had gone through all the passengers' bags, looting them of possible weapons and anything that looked even vaguely valuable. Luckily, our school textbooks, fiction stories, clothes, and photo album hadn't been categorized as worthwhile. Aria even managed to hide a small knife from them, and kept it stored safely in the bottom of her shoe.
"What are they going to do with us?" I asked once.
She just continued to stare at the wall, expressionless. "I don't know."
My eyes narrowed, and I struggled to keep from getting angry. "Just because you are older than me doesn't mean you can just lie to me like that!"
Aria turned to look at me. We looked at each other for a very, very long time: way past uncomfortable. I wouldn't back down, though. I needed to know. If there was anything that I hated more than being held captive, it was being kept in the dark.
"Aria, can you promise me something?"
"What?"
"Promise me you won't keep secrets from me. Not anymore. It's too scary to not know. I'd rather be scared by real stuff than be scared by my imagination."
Her expression softened, and she hugged me tightly. "I won't. I'm sorry. I don't know for sure where they want to take us, but I think…I think they want to take us to a sort of work camp."
"You mean slave-labor?"
She looked a bit surprised. "Sla--where did you even hear about that?"
"Just because I'm eight doesn’t mean I haven't had history class yet." I cocked my head and smirked. "I'm in fourth grade, remember?"
She laughed. "Yeah, you smarty pants. I know what you learn. We're homeschooled, remember?" Aria looked sad again, but quickly covered it up with a smile, the memory of Mom teaching us too painful to think about for very long.
I looked at the ground, ashamed of myself. Of what I knew I'd done. Aria took my hand and squeezed it comfortingly, just like Mom used to. I guess she squeezed some tears out of me, too, because the next thing I knew, I was sobbing into her shoulder. I cried for a very long time -- the first time since on the ship with Mom. It was a miracle that we made it through the journey at all. The atmosphere of the place was so hopeless and helpless, it was like a room so hot and stuffy you felt as if your chest was being squeezed and your heart twisted. Pressing in from all sides, the depression nearly made me give up.
It just hurt.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ODDtLMiGnY
Have you ever just sat there, curled up in a ball for so long you thought your spine had fused that way, praying over and over that you were just dreaming? Try that for about a week, multiply the experience by ten, and then you might get a vague idea of what I went through in the days following the "incident". I couldn't bring myself to actually acknowledge that anything was my fault.
'They made me do it. They must have hidden some sort of super-strong Taser-thing in his pocket that went off when he fell. There has to be some explanation.' I'd tell myself over and over. Sometimes, I'd just deny the whole thing altogether. Anything to lessen the pain. I guess Aria told herself the same things, because the few times I was aware enough to open my eyes, she seemed to be deep in thought, but showed no signs of anything…supernatural having occurred.
I must have worked myself into a fever, because I slipped in and out of consciousness so frequently, I hardly noticed the minutes, hours, and days passing by; I hardly noticed the sickening rock of the boat, the crowdedness of the lower decks, or how Aria never left my side the entirety of our journey.
Several days later (I'd long since lost count), I was finally well enough to sit up and have a decent meal. Well, that is, if you categorize the allegedly normal ration of two-week-old bread and a half-cup of water as decent…
"Hey, hey. Slow down," Aria whispered, placing a comforting hand on my back. "If you draw out the meal, it'll fill you up more in the long run."
I was almost too hungry to pay attention at all, but her words made sense, so I managed to wait a few seconds between each bite instead of stuffing the whole block into my mouth all at once. She had always been the logical one: the lover of science. I guess it served us well, that time long ago. Who would have guessed that the "nerds" are the ones who survive the longest?
Aria smiled sadly and passed me the small metal cup of dirty water as I licked the dry crumbs off my fingers. I nearly drank the whole thing down before remembering that it was a shared cup. I handed it back to her. "You should have some, too." I muttered, my throat and tongue too dry to really form the words very well. She shook her head and pushed it back into my hands. "You're sick." She said. "You need it much more than I do. I'll be fine."
I almost said something about saving some for Mom, but caught myself, visibly cringing at the memory. Aria and I's eyes met, and a sort of non-verbal agreement passed between us: never speak of the "incident" again. It was just too unexplainable -- too scary -- to deal with under these circumstances. It was so much easier to write off the incomprehensible as nonexistent and simply deal with the situation at hand. It was the only way to survive, I guess.
There were many days of this. No variation whatsoever. Eat, sleep, and wait. I don't remember this part of my journey very clearly, but I believe there may have even been a corner dedicated to defecation. Trust me, it did not smell nice.
But I suppose that was their goal.
Every time one of the "pirates" would walk in, I'd start shaking with rage, and Aria would have to physically force me to not rip his throat out. I think self-restraint and anger control were the first things my journey taught me. But what really infuriated me was the look in his eyes. He'd toss the sack of food into the middle of the mass and grin as our neighbors would rush into the mess and nearly claw each other's eyes out over the scant rations. The first few times, I was too sick to move, and Aria was too timid to make a serious attempt at getting anything.
"We'll go with what's left." She'd say. As if the abductees on a slave-trafficking ship would have a sense of chivalry or something, right? Wrong.
It was like watching a pack of wild dogs. The second law of the oppressed life: every man -- and woman -- for themselves. Survival of the fittest. Or in our case, the fastest. Within a few days, even Aria was leaping into the fray, pushing people out of the way to get to the food. And it killed me that their psychological games could push her so far as to engage in it. To turn us into something no better than animals. She probably would not have done it all, if not for me. Afterwards, I could always see the pain and conflict behind her troubled eyes: we shouldn't have had to do this. Fourteen and eight-year-old sisters, huddled in the corner, clinging to each other for dear old sanity. It was the real and true personification of a nightmare.The kidnappers, however, seemed to get quite a good lot of enjoyment out of us. I'd see one of them come in and grab one of us -- we were all girls -- and drag her out, shaking and whimpering pitifully. It could have been anyone. The twelve-year-old in the middle, the twenty-seven-year-old in the back. When they left, they never came back.
Aria would use things she'd learned or read about to help us. She knew some things about how to remain inconspicuous; how to hide in plain sight.
"People have a tendency to look first at the left closer middle," she'd say. "It's best to therefore be in the right further middle. Take off any super bright or dark clothing. Don't make specific eye contact with anyone -- especially not the abductors, as they would see it as a challenge -- but don't stare at anything obvious like the floor or ceiling. Don't sit perfectly still. Statues are conspicuous. Move a little, but not too much: keep your movements natural. Keep your expression from conveying too much emotion. Also, be careful what emotion you convey. Your expression could make you stand out. Remember the second girl they took? She was smiling at her friend when they did. Everyone else was miserable and afraid. So she stood out. And the fourth one? She froze with fear, and looked more terrified than anyone else."
She paused, considering her words carefully. "The bad men prey on that: they look for the weakest, and the ones who have the farthest to fall. If you are neither of those, then you will survive. Do you understand?"
Eyes wide, I could do nothing but nod slowly, still trying to process the truck load of information just dumped on me. Her last comment had just described the next seven years of my life.
We went on like this for several more days. Aria and I would spend time engaging in completely pointless topics of conversation, just to help me get more comfortable with speaking. I'd always been pretty quiet, but I guess even then, the both of us had a sense of all the bad things that would ensue so soon after. Of how much we needed to prepare. We'd play pointless games to pass the time, or Aria would dig into our bags and pull out books to read aloud to me. Aria told me that soon after I'd passed out, the men had gone through all the passengers' bags, looting them of possible weapons and anything that looked even vaguely valuable. Luckily, our school textbooks, fiction stories, clothes, and photo album hadn't been categorized as worthwhile. Aria even managed to hide a small knife from them, and kept it stored safely in the bottom of her shoe.
"What are they going to do with us?" I asked once.
She just continued to stare at the wall, expressionless. "I don't know."
My eyes narrowed, and I struggled to keep from getting angry. "Just because you are older than me doesn't mean you can just lie to me like that!"
Aria turned to look at me. We looked at each other for a very, very long time: way past uncomfortable. I wouldn't back down, though. I needed to know. If there was anything that I hated more than being held captive, it was being kept in the dark.
"Aria, can you promise me something?"
"What?"
"Promise me you won't keep secrets from me. Not anymore. It's too scary to not know. I'd rather be scared by real stuff than be scared by my imagination."
Her expression softened, and she hugged me tightly. "I won't. I'm sorry. I don't know for sure where they want to take us, but I think…I think they want to take us to a sort of work camp."
"You mean slave-labor?"
She looked a bit surprised. "Sla--where did you even hear about that?"
"Just because I'm eight doesn’t mean I haven't had history class yet." I cocked my head and smirked. "I'm in fourth grade, remember?"
She laughed. "Yeah, you smarty pants. I know what you learn. We're homeschooled, remember?" Aria looked sad again, but quickly covered it up with a smile, the memory of Mom teaching us too painful to think about for very long.
I looked at the ground, ashamed of myself. Of what I knew I'd done. Aria took my hand and squeezed it comfortingly, just like Mom used to. I guess she squeezed some tears out of me, too, because the next thing I knew, I was sobbing into her shoulder. I cried for a very long time -- the first time since on the ship with Mom. It was a miracle that we made it through the journey at all. The atmosphere of the place was so hopeless and helpless, it was like a room so hot and stuffy you felt as if your chest was being squeezed and your heart twisted. Pressing in from all sides, the depression nearly made me give up.
It just hurt.
Notes
GAH, I am SO NOT SATISFIED with this chapter. I went with everyone's advice and shortened it, but I couldn't settle on any one specific plot goal, so this ended up just being an Aria-Krystal bonding moment thing. Maybe I'll re-do it sometime. But hey, what are first drafts for if not to give you a bit of leniency, right? RIGHT?PS: I can take song suggestions for this one. I do a lot of genres, including Country, Rock, Hard Rock, Pop, Techno, Dubstep, etc. etc. I DON'T do Heavy Metal or 70s/80s music. Sorry. Nope nope. Fav artists are TobyMac, Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy, TFK/FM Static, Red, Owl City, Rascal Flatts, Skillet, etc. etc.
SHOUTOUTS: @That_Dam_Persassy, @Eliza Rush, Thank you for the encouraging reviews! It means a lot! =D
We've missed you!!
1/19/16