I smell smoke in my sleep, and I my eyes flipped open. I tried to sit up but to no avail. Then like a gecko sneaking its way into a crack on a rock, vivid images of the day before crept into my terrified thought process, a long chain of horror after horror.
Surprised at being alive, I tried to move but found I was stacked.
"stop moving, give your body time to heal in the soil," a woman voice echoed in the cave.
It is the same voice of the panther. only difference is I now hear it verbally instead of telepathically.
There was no one on site in the dark cave. Only a presence, the same presence of my captor.
I tried moving my head but it was also stacked to something. Technically, I am buried alive with only my face expose to the dingy air in the cave.
"where is it?". "you mean where is this place?". "no, I mean the cat".
"oh,..it has gone back to the wild where it belong," she answered flatly.
I still couldn't make out the part of the cave the voice was coming from.
"are you a witch or something, such that you have the power to summon animals to do your bidden."
"for a wounded man closer to death, you surely can talk," she replied sarcastically.
"you know, the cat was able to communicate to me through the mind, and the voice and your voice are the same."
"I was using the animal as a medium to communicate to you telepathically…"
"I believe you are a sorcerer then."
"what if I am?"
"I can't remember much about who I am, or where I came from, but I know sorcerers are my enemies."
She chuckles a rasping dry chuckle and said, "and how do you know that, if your very being itself is not fallacious like you and your kind all combine. You repel the unknown, and give it all sort imaginary identities. How do you make an enemy of something you don't understand…?"
"so you intend to teach me the unknown by killing me slowly? I am suffocating in here…".
Another chuckle followed, "yes, I am sucking up your energy through the soil to revamp my energies, and your death will at least be of some use to the soil and the earth shall exalt your death. you will not be some rotten flesh on top of a tree for vultures to feed," she laughs again.
"well, at least you are frank with a dying man. As dreadful as it feels, I am glad to know the intentions you have for me.".
"maybe you should stop talking, and die in peace…." She replied flippantly, and I heard her movement, but couldn't tell in which direction.
Then things where quite for a while till I heard movement again, coming closer to me. there was a smell of roasted meat, and boiled herbs.
In the faint illuminated cave, I could make up the face that was now hovering above me, blocking my view to the roof of the cave. The face was reversed, and drew ever closer as she squats next to me.
"open your mouth," she commanded, and I oblige. She ingested little drops of the herbal juice into my mouth, and compel me to swallow, as though reading my intension to spit away the broth.
I swallowed and gasp for breath. "It tastes bitter".
"now take in some water," she ordered again, and I complied. This time I was relieve to taste something sweet. The water tasted of honey and limon.
I felt a surge of vitality, crept into my blood after every spasm that left my body through my mouth. all this while she sat close by, waiting patiently till the spasm subsides before she fed me the roasted meat and I ravage it gladly, in little bites, before peeling away big chunks.
She laughed and said, "you will kill yourself before I ever kill. Take your time….". I sensed the amusement in here voice and looked up at her.
Our eyes met and locked. Her eyes where so large and bright I found myself falling into the depths, as she drew me in unaware.
"emeralds, sapphires, rubies, your eyes, they are beautiful…" I murmured breathlessly, surprising myself.
Swiftly she stood and hissed for breath like a serpent. I wouldn't doubt if she is indeed a serpent.
But the aromatic smell of the big cat filled the space again. She must be link to the animal one way or the other.
She wondered away from me, and I didn't see her, or hear from her for a very long time. I couldn't tell how long.
Lying immobile and restrained, made time spread into an endless ocean.
I was trapped in an endless state of hallucination. The pain I feel in my body now was that of immobility, and not pain from my wounds.
Then the air blew into the cave, a cool air wearing a natural cologne, her natural scent. She is close, so close, she has not abandon me. how many days has she gone? Perhaps a day or a week, I couldn't tell.
She came and sat next to me, and fed me a condiment of sumbul broth and cooked meat.
"why are you doing this?" I managed to asked after the meal. "do what?". "fed me, only to kill me?"
She didn't answer as the oppressive silence ensued. "I want to fatten and nourished you, so that when I am taking the life essence out of you, it will not be sickly staled and feeble…"
"I wish I had died on that tree. By now, I would've been free."
"maybe I should send you back there as a gift for the flies and vultures, or the hungry panthers who will waiting ravage your flesh" she beams lively in an unusual taunt.
"you are the she devil then. Beautiful, but wicked…".
"finally, a definition that suit me well. But I am called the fallen though. Makilla the fallen one. An abomination, a bastard they say, a plague the young men dare not look upon.
A curse because of the strange circumstances under which I was born, nothing I would've know about, for as long as I could remember, I was always the odd one out, the bad blood no one dare approach.
She-devil. That is a name I can related well with," she giggled and her wild echoes caused the cave walls to resonate.
There was silence in the cave. "for the meantime can you bring me out of the soil?" I pleaded, testing the waters.
"not yet, your injuries were quite deep and started pustulation, before you got here. The healing property of the soil and the herbs will drain out all the pus, before you heal completely," she answered in a grinned that exposed even set of sparkling white incisors and yellow protruding canines.
The sight frightens and fascinates, cripples and rejuvenates. I couldn't help but grinned in response.
This caused her to put on her serious nonchalant demeanor again as she stood to go, "don't go she devil…".