Untie My Wings

About this chapter
This is a story I've been working on for about seven or eight years now. It takes place in an Antrho setting, meaning all of the characters are anthropomorphized animals.

This story is about Alleah, a bat who was kidnapped and sold as a slave at a young age. In this chapter, Alleah must come to terms with the news she's just been given, and as slaves begin to secretly plot against Vlad, he secretly plots to thin their numbers.

Chapter 4: Boiling Point

Vlad was always careful to make sure that whatever he did, there would be no blame placed on him for the consequences. Even when he wasn't quite careful enough his reputation would be spotless to outside eyes. There was always someone to take the blame for him, often knowing that the punishment they received wouldn't be anywhere near as brutal as what Vlad would do if they didn't agree.

Vlad began to focus his abuse on a select few of us for a period of time, myself included. While he still found time to mistreat everyone, it seemed to come down heaviest on a small group of maybe ten or twelve of us. No one had an explanation, other than the suggestions for his focus on me might've been due to the fact that I'd grown bolder during the last few weeks, and had taken to talking back despite knowing the consequences.

As it happened during this time, I became very sick after I'd began training. It seemed to hit out of nowhere, no one else had been sick, there wasn't an illness going around at the time. But for three days I vomited prodigiously, much to the dismay of everyone around me.

Unfortunately Vlad doesn't care for our well-being. I still had to put up with orders and mistreatment, though he seemed delighted to finally see me showing some form of weakness. He feigned concern while I was around Alec, and while I wasn't he played my weakness for all it was worth. If I hadn't been too sick to do so, I'd have attacked him during that time.

Over the following weeks the illness worsened with no end in sight. Even Vlad was put off by my illness, and avoided me for a short time in favor of abusing others. I stayed in the communal room, not wanting to leave, and Fabiana stayed with me, doing everything she could to help me feel better. When nothing helped, several others tried their remedies as well. Still nothing helped, and my condition continued to worsen. I began to feel vaguely hopeful that my life would be over soon.

But my life didn't end, and I seemed to get better. I still felt weak, and therefore hid from Vlad for several days above the trusses. He didn't seem to notice my absence, or maybe just didn't care, seeing as he could have climbed up and retrieved me if he'd really wanted to do so.

I came down occasionally to eat what Fabiana brought me, though I usually despised anything that was brought to me from the kitchens, I found myself unable to go without eating now. My strength slowly returned and I gradually stopped vomiting, although it became harder and harder to fly up into the trusses each day. Fabiana urged me to stay down, and I reluctantly complied... she always seemed to know what was best.

I fell back into my routine of orders and abuse as though nothing had happened, Vlad seeming glad that he could abuse me again without fear of catching whatever illness I had. I could feel my strength returning ever so gradually, and resumed my training in the hopes of a day of revenge. I was joined by several others who, not surprisingly, had also had enough of Vlad's mistreatment. Our tormentor more or less oblivious, we began to plot his demise.

Fabiana began to show more concern of my health than usual. She wouldn't tell me why, but seemed to know there was something wrong and insisted that I stop training. I didn't want to listen to her but reluctantly did as she asked, instructing the others to continue without me for the time being.

It would still be a few weeks before I finally asked Fabiana why she'd seemed so concerned recently, my questions receiving only enigmatic responses in the form of requests to stand and hold my hands out to the side. I always did as she asked, unsure of what she was looking for, though each time I did so she'd tell me that it was nothing, eventually that she wasn't sure, and finally she wouldn't answer.

A few days later I insisted that she tell me why she seemed so worried about me these past two months, and why I shouldn't be allowed to go back to training. She was as reluctant to answer as always, and following her usual request that I stand up and hold out my arms at my sides she told me of her suspicions after asking me to sit down.

I felt sick, and lightheaded. I could practically feel my blood run cold as I curled my arms over my stomach, over the just slightly noticeable swelling that had suddenly become all too apparent in the time it'd taken Fabiana to answer. I don't remember if I fainted or not, but I suppose it was just a bad bout of dizziness that came over me, as I remember I needed Fabiana's help to remain upright.

I braced myself on one hand, trying to convince myself that she was wrong, though somewhere in my mind I felt that it all made sense. Even so, I told her she was wrong. I insisted that I was going to go back to training whether she liked it or not, as I began to stand up, despite the fact that I was still somewhat dizzy. At this, Fabiana took hold of my wrist and forced me to sit down, and in my poor balance she was able to do so quite easily. At the time, I still hadn't come to terms with what she'd told me, and I outwardly refused her diagnosis until the pregnancy became impossible to deny.

Fabiana began to suggest that I should talk to the surgeon, and have the pregnancy ended immediately. I refused this, and insisted that it wasn't the baby's fault it was conceived. Fabiana inquired if I really expected to be able to keep the child, and I replied that I did not. I remained set in my decision not to abort it, however, and added that if blame should be placed anywhere, it should be on Vlad. If anyone was to be destroyed, it should be him. In the meantime, I attempted to dress in a manner to hide my growing waist as much as possible.

I remember at one time when I was unable to hide from Vlad, I was puzzled by his indifference to my disappearances once again, but decided that I shouldn't stick around to see if it was a permanent thing. For a brief period of time I found myself musing over the possibility that Vlad could know about my condition, and for that reason was avoiding me. However, that would mean that he had a conscience, which is something I didn't believe about him for a second. I came to the conclusion that he just didn't know, and resolved to stay in hiding for as long as possible.

As it turns out, I was right. He didn't know. Not only that, when he found out, things took a turn for the worst. Despite the fact that he knew I was not only in poor health at the time but also with child, or rather because of that fact, in some warped parody of punishment for something that was entirely his own fault I was forced to endure more workload than anyone else, and also more abuse.

As the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, Vlad seemed to become increasingly ill-tempered with me. As time passed and the pregnancy progressed I was almost solely singled out for his punishment, something everyone around me noticed. It finally became apparent to us all that he was trying to cause a miscarriage, and was becoming more and more frustrated with my perseverance.

Much to his dismay, I didn't miscarry, and despite a premature birth a healthy son was born to me. Fabiana was right, I wasn't able to keep the child. Alec, who had since learned of the happening, and I decided that the child would be better off if placed for adoption, despite Alec's offer to care for him as his own. It was a bittersweet moment as my infant son was carried away from me. I didn't want Vlad to be anywhere near him... and so I had to let him go. I've never seen him since.

No one who knew the truth dared to lay blame on Vlad as responsible for the child, and he did everything in his own power to keep that from happening. Unfortunately, he'd found a substitute for blame in a kitchen servant by the name of Aneniah. The boy suffered untold cruelty at the hands of Vlad, literally tortured into a false confession. When Alec inquired of his poor state at the time of his confession, Vlad claimed the beating was administered as punishment for the rape of several slaves, an explanation that Alec accepted. Last I heard of Aneniah was that he was arrested, castrated, and resold a year later only to die by his own hand after several previously thwarted attempts. None of this so much as fazed Vlad, after all, so long as he was out of the fire it didn't matter to him.

After about two weeks of recuperation, or rather attempt of it that was periodically thwarted by Vlad, I was back into my routine of orders and training. I was reluctant to believe that Vlad was still more or less oblivious to our conspiracy against him, and took it as an indication that he just wasn't intimidated by us. We decided we would need more than just the five or six that had begun to train, and began to recruit more. Thus, the small cabal of slaves grew to include everyone able-bodied enough to assist.

We did notice a change in Vlad's attitude as this transpired. His normally somewhat arrogant attitude of indifference to our actions against him became more uneasy. He avoided being around groups of us as often as possible, and his visits to our room became less frequent, save for days he was feeling particularly courageous. Our day of vengeance was nearly there... but then again, perhaps we began celebrating too early.

Many of us took ill, and many weakened. No one seemed to know what was causing the apparent plague of sickness, and it appeared that even Vlad wasn't spared as he too became ill. As the epidemic worsened, and one of us died, it became apparent to us just how serious it was.

Since Vlad became ill as well, our suspicions were off of him for the time being. We were almost certain there was someone behind this that was out for our lives, and all of them at that. When even Alec became sick, everyone was nearing panic, and frantically sought what we couldn't find... everyone in the entire house had fallen prey to the illness.

One by one our numbers lessened. Servants, harem slaves, attendants, no one was spared. As our reinforcements were diminished, many of us began to feel worried that our war on Vlad would be lost thanks to our thinning numbers. Many still held the glimmer of hope that the illness would take him as well, although he frustratingly survived day after day of the mysterious sickness.

During the epidemic, blame was placed everywhere: on spies, on imagined enemies, on vengeful spirits. On the climate, on the water, on the Gods, on the materials the house was built from, on everything except where it was deserved. As I have said, Vlad had become ill as well, so no one thought it was him. Of course, that was what he wanted: as he poisoned us one by one, no one suspected he was the culprit because after all, he was a victim as well.

He didn't cover his tracks well enough. A servant by the name of Jonah discovered quite by accident that someone had been contaminating our water somehow. For some time, every servant was a suspect, as everyone began to slowly get well again after refraining from drinking any water from the house's supply well. Though his plan had been cut short, and he had to endure the illness himself, Vlad had managed to reduce our numbers by at least half.

Some of us became better, though some continued to weaken and die. Several refused to eat or drink anything in a delusional attempt at self-preservation and thus starved. I obviously survived, but Fabiana wasn't so lucky. The cemetery Alec had dedicated to his slaves filled rapidly. Funerals were cut short to allow time for many, many others that needed to be performed. It rained on the day of Fabiana's, and that rain seemed to fall hardest on me. The sky was a little darker over me, and cast a shadow over my life as I knew it. Robbed of possibly my one true friend, I didn't think I had much to live anymore.

The number of slaves in the house continued to dwindle. Thoughts of cutting my misery short by my own will came to me often, and I don't remember what stopped me the countless times I nearly ended my own life. Perhaps it was a subconscious wish to see Vlad die before I did, and thus just to spite him I forced myself to survive. That stubborn will may very well be the only thing that saved me from Death's grasp. There were now ten slaves left, five servants, and Vlad. We didn't think we numbered enough to do anything, and Vlad seemed to think so as well as his arrogant demeanor returned. Then, one cold, grey day soon after, Alec died.