Chapter 1: Captured

Hakashima is finally inslaved.

“Huh-huh….huh,” I breathed heavily.

            My legs were wearing out. I can’t stop now. Nodding my head in agreement, I ignored the pain on my legs and continued. As I ran passed every branch, every rock and every leaf; they slapped my face, arms, legs, and feet, yet that didn’t stop me.

At the background I heard bird twerp or was it the Aztec’s signal?

Phew! Phew! Phew!

‘I’m being targeted!’ I shrieked to myself as I covered my head with my arms from getting hit by arrows while I ran.

Phew! Phew!

            Later I did my first big mistake, I looked back. There were a group of seven fierce looking Aztecs running towards me. When I turned back to my escape I didn’t see a root in the way which caught my foot and made me trip to the ground.

‘Get up! Get up!’ I heard my sister’s voice inside my head. ‘Hakashima Run!’

Hearing the voice of my sister’s brought me courage and strength to get up on my feet, I ran.

            Ahead I could see a spotlight among these covered trees. My legs were unbearable now due to the fall. I can’t, I just can’t.

‘A few more steps Haka. A few more,’ sister encouraged me.

I coughed.

            Now I could hear them closer behind me.

A gruff voice called out, in the Aztec tongue. “Get her, we can’t let her jump!”

“Ay-ya-ya-ya-yah!” they all cried.

            Finally, I reached the spotlight and stopped my pace. I’m on the edge of a tremendous waterfall cliff.

Afraid, I looked back and saw them run towards me, eyes filled with laughter.

Glaring I turned towards the waterfall and jumped.

            I knew that there is a fifty, fifty chance that I could live or die. I could die drowning, hit my head on a rock underwater, or I could be strangled by an anaconda. However, I took the risk knowing the danger.

Splash!

            Water filled my nose, ears, and some through my mouth. That’s where the image of my people came to my mind. The suffering, the cry, the fire filled my memory, mostly my sister’s death blurred in my thought. The blood streaming down the scary sharp looking obstacle brought rage in my heart.

Finally I opened my eyes.

‘I have a plan.’

            Swimming up the surface, I coughed when the oxygen reached my lungs. The minute I looked up there they were, standing before me with strong shaped legs and arms, painted and pierced skin, with the most darkest black hair in a band.

            The one that caught my attention was the man in front of me who did not show any emotions or even motives. He was a mystery indeed.

            Before I had the chance to react I felt a needle pierce on the skin of my neck and blacked out.

‘Hakashim.’

I stirred, but couldn’t move my arms.

‘Hakashima.’

“Sister?” I mumbled.

“Keep a veil over her mouth. She’s been speaking in her sleep all night,” whined a male’s voice in his native tongue.

I slowly opened my eyes, still feeling dreamy.

“She’s walking,” a man said in a excited tone.

            As the vision became clear I saw all of them sitting on the ground glaring back at me. Understanding where I was, I got up on my feet and started towards the forest with my hands tied in front of me.

            When I hurled towards my escape I felt someone stick out their foot and down I went landing on my face. The sting on my face was slowly rising to the proximity of pain, which only brought anger upon me.

            Staring at the insolent intruder, I was looking at the man who stood right before me at the waterfall, after I was drugged out. He was sitting on the ground with his back leaning on a log, appearing relaxed.

            I glared at him and was going to strangle him when apparently someone dragged me towards a group of people imprisoned. I didn’t recognize any of them; however, they seemed from different tribes. There were all kind of aged groups, from young to old, female to male. No one was left enslaved.

A woman slowly crawled towards me.

“You’re that woman. The slave who runs free,” she said in a strange voice and tongue, I never heard.

I blinked at her.

            Her hair was braided with small little hair sticking all over the place. Her breasts were covered, yet not her belly. Legs were shown not her buttocks. She had a pierced tongue and huge ear rings inside her earlobe, expanding her skin extremely. All in all, she appeared thin and dirty, the rest of the tribes physically looked the same.

“You are bleeding, the slave who runs free,” she shrieked softly.

“Hush you filth,” an Aztec growled as he pushed her on the shoulder.

That action was enough to push my anger on an edge, so I threw myself towards the man and down he fell along with me.

I raised my tied hands and punched him with all my might, not stopping.

“You don’t lay a hand on her,” I hissed at him with my native tongue.

The gruff man pushed me off of him and started kicking me on the abdomen.

I coughed, yet did not cry in pain.

“Enough!”

The man stopped. “But…Malkahola, she diserves a…”

“I said enough!” the mysterious man ordered.

The man finally gave in and dragged me by the hair towards the prisoners. My patient was wearing out, yet my strength was also weakening. How long must I bare this? How much? Giving the mysterious man, who I now know is the leader of the group, a last look and drifted off to sleep.

‘The pain must be the cause,’ I tried to convince myself.

            In my heart I knew it wasn’t, it was the exhaustion of running all my life. For the first time I can finally sleep. I’m not running or hiding, I’m now a prisoner. All in all, it is not the reason of my sleep. It is because a plan has been settled at this moment.

A plan indeed.