Blue Moon

C H A P T E R 34

SHADOWS

ARRAH

"Your eyes wound me, child."

An invisible power held me by my throat and forced me up. Pulling and fighting at the unseen hold was futile. Gasping, my air-deprived lungs were burning.

"Don't fight. It would only add to the pain."

Tears were rolling down from my eyes. The pools of tears stung. My head felt like it was either splitting open or imploding, either of which was comparably as agonizing as the other. My chest was extremely painful and in time, I felt my limbs grow weak and fall limp by my sides. The pressure around my neck could break it.

Just break.

Mercy. I'd rather it break. Please.

End it with a snap.

A moment of pain. Brief and then no more. Preferable than this prolonged slow torture.

No more, please.

Escalating until I wished for the end.

"I pleaded for death too." The vision of Mayari was blurred by the tears and distorted by the pain. She was floating right in front of me. Her face contorting with empathy. "A swift death that did not come."

Though my mouth was open, no words came out. In the background, Baku watched conflicted. Until she ultimately spoke, addressing her lady, "Mayari, please... She's not the enemy."

"Neither was I!" eyes glowing blood red, Mayari screamed.

Dropped down like a bag of limp bones, I hit the ground unprepared. The air rushing in once I was freed. However, I could not speak yet.

"You now knew how drowning felt like..." Noting my position on the ground and looking down at me, Mayari continued to seethe. "Not spoiling anything, you just had a tad bit of a taste."

Taking gulps of air freely, I laid there.

"There is no dignity in death and if only possible, anyone would've chosen a better way to go." Crouching, her fingers found my neck and gently squeezed. "I was hunted, cornered and killed..."

"The spear would have been mercy had it struck my heart. But alas..." This time she squeezed harder. I scratched at her cold hands but she felt nothing. She laughed bitterly at my attempts to make her let go.

"Conscious, I automatically stopped breathing underwater until I was forced to when my lungs screamed for air. The pain of water filling my airways and lungs... How fortunate was it to be able to finally breathe without inhaling water?"

Mayari died drowning. At the bottom of the cold dark lake.

"Please, let Arrah go," Baku said.

"Why?" Mayari turned to the beast but she did not let up on squeezing what little life I had in me.

"We still need her."

"Need her?" Mayari's laughter chilled me to the bone. "We don't. Not really."

Without me, Baku would have nowhere to go.

"Nowhere to go, huh?" Reading my thoughts, she pulled me up by my throat. "How impertinent! You think a deity as strong as the Bakunawa would need a measly human like you to survive. You price yourself too high, child."

She carelessly threw me so far away that I broke through another memory. A place where Búlan took shelter. Traces of her were everywhere. Back to the place where she, Haliyah and Mayari bathed and played when the goddesses descended from the heavens once in a while. A happy time for the three of them.