With my bound hands, I awkwardly pulled up my pants as best as I could. I couldn't quite get the back of my pants to come up properly. Nevermind. It was more important to try and escape in case Chad came back. So long it wasn't going to fall down, I should be fine. Confused, I searched blindly on my hands and knees, looking for the exit. The floor disappeared and I fell headfirst into a deep pool of icy cold water. The shock made me accidentally breathe in the water and brought another spark of clarity to my foggy mind, however I was too tired to stay afloat for long. My feet couldn't reach the ground underwater. I choked as I sank deeper into the water. Driving my legs hard to kick was insufficient. It felt like there was something that sucked the water in one direction, pulling me down. I was failing the upward drive. My bound wrists hampered my movement.
What a failure. After all those swimming classes they'd forced me through, I still couldn't tread water and keep my head above the water. It was too cold and the cold sapped the strength from my limbs even faster.
*"Uki-chan!"*
Distantly I heard a voice but it was too far away to help me. My thoughts were becoming muddled.
People often said they cared but I didn't believe them no matter how often they'd said it. Correction. I should never let myself believe them. In times like this, like now, when it really came to the crunch, I was always disappointed. Whenever it came to a real time of need, I would always be left alone. People I cared about always left me and they didn't care enough to take me with them.
I was already dirty anyway. Although Chad hadn't actually finished the deed, according to tribal law, he had as good as done it. Flint had tried and gotten close a few times, but he'd always thankfully been interrupted.
According to tribal law, Chad would now be considered my man or my owner. Girls had a lower status in our patriarchal society. If I refused to follow him or if he repudiated me, I only had one real route of recourse. That was to undergo the ritual cleansing ceremony that would end with me jumping off or being pushed off the Cliffs of the Dead.
The ritual cleansing ceremony was usually enough to make anyone want to kill themselves. It was a ceremony where all the tribal elders would take the girl and abuse her in full view of the rest of the tribe. If she survived, she could jump off the cliff herself. If she didn't survive or refused to jump, she was thrown off the cliff.
If the tribe valued me enough or hated me enough, I could be spared the jump and instead be forced to be a baby making machine for the tribe or forced into... hmm, the closest interpretation would be enslavement. Not that the tribe would value me. They might hate me though. A living death, they called it.
I had, after all, unmanned the grandson of the Old Chieftain while acting in self defence during a session of intense bullying when I was younger. I had then subsequently also unmanned that boy's father when he came to teach me a private lesson. I had also ruined the Old Chieftain's prospects of a new marriage by spreading rumours that he had one of 'those' diseases. So their family currently no longer had any male progeny or any way of producing new ones. They'd had to adopt a boy from a branch family.
But then the tribe had sent me back to my parents in the city, absolving me of my crimes. I wasn't entirely sure why, since I knew my tribe was a vindictive lot. So I had assumed that they had forgiven me. There had been visitors living in the guest houses outside the tribe at the time, so perhaps their presence had been enough to save my life. Perhaps they had intervened and spared me the punishment of being beaten to death. I might never know.
Besides that, I was of mixed blood of illegitimate parents who had not grown fully up in the tribes, but tried to escape the tribe and wanted nothing to do with the tribes anymore. Now I had also been defiled.
I was dirty. I was as good as dead. The man who had played with my body had run off without me. I was useless to everyone else, so there was no one who would really miss me. There was no use crying. Nobody could hear me or see my tears. In the water, my tears weren't visible anyway. It might be just right for me to die here.
I ran out of what little breath I had fallen in with. The choking stopped. My eyes drooped and I grew sleepy. What else could I do? I was meant to die anyway. Nobody would miss me. Nbody would care and I barely cared anymore either. Death would be a relief. I surrendered to the watery grave.
There was a splash and the water swirled around me. A hand grabbed hold of the back of my neck and dragged me up by the armpits. I felt myself being flung up into the air to land on the frigid stone floor. My chest felt heavy and blocked, my consciousness was still sinking. I couldn't open my eyes.
"Uki-chan! Kim Na! Wake up. Wake up! Don't give up."
A firm thrust on my abdomen forced my stomach to heave. Nothing happened. It should have hurt, but my entire body was numb. I may have lost consciousness for a moment. I couldn't tell how much time had passed, but I know they didn't give up, because I was suddenly vomiting and coughing up water. I was exhausted and yet my body insisted on expelling as much of the water as possible. Fatigue rolled over me and I passed out.
I spent what felt like a very long time drifting in and out of consciousness. I think I had a high fever. The people by my side changed but I didn't pay them much attention. I felt too sick and tired to care. Even if I woke up again, after a while, there would just be another person wanting to come and torture me. Nightmares dripped and blinded me, overwhelming me and trying to pull me deeper into the depths. It felt a bit like playing hide and seek with death.
Falling, falling, falling. It felt like I had been falling for an unknown length of time. There was a bang and I hit the ground at the same time. Tangled in the bedsheets, I struggled and coughed.
There were white walls and the smell of disinfectant. Where? Where was I?
It was cold. I shivered after disentangling myself and then wrapped myself back up in the blankets after finding myself bare beneath the sheets. Why was it so cold?
A whirl of voices and people, like cotton wool in the ears while in a blizzard and the feeling of living in a cotton cloud. Picked up, I felt the wind wrap me up in a blur of confusing events I couldn't quite comprehend.
Someone sat on the bed and hugged me, promising something important. He smelled like citrus and coffee. I could only nod, not understanding what he was talking about. Someone pried him off me after gentle fingers probed my mind and realised I was still lost in an uncomprehending thick fog.
I was encouraged to eat and rest. Waking and sleeping felt the same to me. They were both filled with looming monsters and danger everywhere I looked.
The citrus and coffee person returned to hug me, half lying on the bed beside me. With him, was someone who reminded me of the bright burst of sweet and juicy plums with a tang that had you wanting more. She had a nice voice. Then a sweet egg yolk and bean paste person. There was also an otter den.
An otter den?
I queried these images and people with words that may or may not have made sense, but resulted in peals of sweet and sour summery plum juice like laughter. There was a disgruntled grunt and more laughter. The coffee and citrus man was sounding serious. As serious as a shout from the burst of a short rain shower that seems to soak you for the fun of it before running away laughing.
My feelings and thoughts seemed strange. Both fast and heavy at the same time. Like mothballs and pool chlorine. Thick cordial and salt. Maybe lightning and oil.
"Chad's made a new list," said the egg yolk and sweet bean pastry person to somebody. It was the first thing I heard clearly and that made proper sense. I felt like I was crawling out of a mud pit that wanted to continue to suck me down. It was a slow and arduous process. "He's started killing more people and this time, he's being far more brutal. He's unhappy that she hasn't seemed to have recovered enough to reply to him yet."
"The higher ups want to let him be and allow him to execute all these criminals that they can't be bothered dealing with. When he's just about killed everyone that they want, they want to reel him in," said the woman of tangy summer plums.
"I don't know if that's a good idea. Although the public seem ok with it at the moment, they're becoming more and more nervous with every new reported death. Chad's even feeding news, videos and pictures to the media," the otter den said in a dry voice. "We don't have very good control over the situation. Add to that, he keeps asking how Kim is. Every time I respond, I know that he's going to probably kill another person in anger, because I can't give him a good answer."
"We shouldn't put Kim in anymore danger," citrus coffee man grumbled. "When she's better, I'm not letting her anywhere near this case anymore."
"She's not your wife or even girlfriend yet," the otter den said and it sounded like someone was patting someone's shoulder. "You haven't even asked her."
Wait. I was pretty sure an otter den was a thing, not a person. Look. I was making progress. I made a rational thought.
"Even if she was your girlfriend or even wife, you still wouldn't be able to stop her," summer plums said with a juicy bite. "As a City Agent, she answers to the Organisation and has to follow orders for as long as she is under our employ. With Chad fixated on her, she is under obligation and oath to do her part in helping to keep the Gulf safe. Even if it means putting herself in danger so that she can keep others safe. After Chad has been caught and this case is over, I might see what I can do about transferring her to one of the back desk roles."
I liked summer plums. So red, so juicy and fresh. Whatever she said was right. As long as I didn't get thrown at a wall or ceiling or floor.
A phone rang and I jumped.
Day had become night. A dirty, greasy head full of head oil masked the stale coffee and citrus smell. It lay heavy by my side with my arm being kissed by its lips. Dry lips. Scratchy. Ticklish.
Vaguely, I recognised this room as the sickbay ward of… of… Wait. I had to do some deductive thinking after I opened the cubicle curtains. Seeing the ward room and the six beds, with the occupied beds being surrounded by curtains, I managed to confirm that this was the sickbay in our branch's smaller office building base. Not Headquarters.
I sighed and rubbed my head. All that careful reasoning had made me tired and my head hurt again. Taking myself to the toilet and back, I stared at the man sleeping by my bedside. I covered him with the blanket I had been using.