The Fruits of Earth - Part 14
Sunday, February 03, 2019
I wake up once more to the sensation that somebody is fiddling with the bandages on my legs, sending scorching arrows along my spine. My legs feel like being on fire. I peep and see a fruit-servant unwinding the bandages to reveal the horror beneath. My whole legs are skinless, just a bloody mass of red meat that looks horrendous. They hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. A raw, thudding, protruding pain. I feel like the whole world has come down crashing on my ever so beaten body.
The fruit-servant rubs some ointment on my lower legs and this, in fact, feels even worse than before. I scream in pain and try to shoo her away. It’s the best I can do since I can’t muster any drop of force to kick her or to move away. Crying and screaming is my only option. Imperturbable, she continues to apply her foul-smelling paste on my wounds, not even looking at me. Surprisingly, the tincture has a calming effect. After a while, it gets better. I no longer feel my legs, they start to get numb.
I fall asleep.
*
I don’t know how many days have passed. They all seem the same to me. Locked in this cave, days and nights have no meaning anymore.
I have been moved to a different room a while ago. I no longer have the luminous, white room that looked so neat and aseptic. I am now living in a cave-like chamber, with grey walls and an opening through which I receive my meal. One meal a day! Long gone are the days with three delicious portions of meat every day, that I have lived in the Villa. They seem to belong to another lifetime, to another girl. Who was that Mya who enjoyed all those precious moments? Where has she gone?
My wounds are healing. I once again find myself in the position of observing the skin on my legs transforming, but this time to a very different circumstance. The new skin turns out white, patternless. The skin of a fruit.
I still have nightmares about that evening. The one I nearly died. I dream about Jull, eating my legs, tearing chunks of meat from me and then I wake up screaming. Sometimes I can almost feel him grabbing me, burying his claws into my skin. Other times there is a crowd of people that are ripping my clothes off and digging into my body, leaving holes inside of me. I wake up trembling and I can’t sleep anymore.
I’ve never seen any of the girls again, not Oleya, nor Madame or the Rands. I live in total isolation now and sometimes I’m grateful for it. Other times I get scared. It’s like my whole world has disappeared and instead I have this… blank existence that I can’t really call life.
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