The Waning
Page 14
I lift my heavy head from the thin blanket, prop myself up on my arm and squint up at You. Since my body started keeping track, You have never arrived early; You have never deviated from Your routine or Your plan. You move slowly and almost hesitantly but still with purpose, kneeling on the concrete beside my bars.
You take the lock in Your hand, yet it just lingers there. Your fingers dangle loosely around the shape. I hear the metals shifting against each other as Your grip bobs with Your breathing. The moment freezes around us, encapsulates us awkwardly. I feel my confusion swelling around my heart, pressing against my lungs. This seems random, spontaneous even in the way You look at me through the bars. Your eyes penetrate me, peer into me, searching for something.
My Master is not spontaneous. My Master is not random. My Master does not need to search me because He already knows.
The lack of the appearance of my Master in You now might be the most frightening of all.
The strong eye contact makes me feel vulnerable, violated. Instinctively, I curl up against the bars, avert my eyes. I cast them down in trained submission, not knowing how to engage You as an equal. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears. Yet I am intoxicated. There is a deep excitement brimming against my anxiety.
I pull a couple of slow, deliberate breaths down into my weakened lungs; then I fortify myself, dig my courage up from beneath my fear to face You. I meet Your stare gingerly and do not find the cold, unfeeling expression of my training. Instead, a questioning paints Your features, an affection hiding in the corners.
I almost recoil again from the absence of my Master. Second after second, it remains startling and unsettling. You are here at the wrong time; You are looking at me the wrong way. I have not earned that look yet today. Yet I hold true. I do not move or breathe because I trust my Master above all things.
You keep Your eyes gently on me as the gears in the lock finally shift. The door creaks open and hangs ajar. The space around it suddenly seems like a chasm. Time stutters again as You do not reach through the door; You do not guide me out. You simply continue to kneel quietly beside my cage.
I place my palms tentatively flat along the blanket in front of the cage door. I feel the thin bars pressing into my skin. I feel the pressure of my fading weight in my shoulders, my elbows, my wrists. All my follicles are standing at attention in anticipation, in curiosity, in trepidation. I want to leap forward out of the cage to find out what You want, what You mean by all this. Yet I still find myself trembling and unmoving, frozen as my mind whirls.
You wait. Your body does not tense. Your breathing does not change. There is no impatience in Your air. You just wait.
I take another deep breath, with no care that the sound of it echoes against the dank concrete walls. I can see no reason to hide my apprehension, as if stifling an exhalation would be enough to do so. I feel my perplexity and bow my head as I wait for any signal from You.
“Stay with me,” You say simply.
It is the first time I have heard Your voice in however many months or years spent in this room.
It is not gruff and unpracticed as I imagined. It is not deep and ominous as I imagined. It is not warbling psychotic as I imagined. It is plain, peaceful, as methodical as Your nature. Somehow, it just sounds like You.
I had spent endless hours imagining what You might sound like, what You might say to me. I would fantasize conversations and interactions between us. You would scream what a disappointment I was, or You would softly coo how pleased You were with me, but You would speak to me in the hours I was alone.
Your voice touching my ears, at last, is beautiful.
I close my eyes to let the sound truly resonate through my skull. I wrap my brain tightly around the waves and bury them in the safest, most trusted part of my memory. I secure the instance so that I can replay it again and again while I lay alone in the dark.
My eyes begin to tingle; my sinuses prickle. Such a rage of emotion roars up at Your words that I cannot even distinguish what it is. I am so lost at the sound of Your speech that I completely neglect to interpret Your words. As the shock dissipates over me and I quiver panting in the wake, I actually hear it.
Stay with me.
My uncertainty flashes again. What does that mean? Stay with me? Is there any choice? Was there ever any choice? You never asked me anything. You only commanded nonverbally. What could You mean by stay with me?
I look up to You with tears in my eyes, but You are no longer kneeling and waiting for me.
You walk out. I hear Your footsteps break heavily on the concrete as I watch Your figure grow smaller against the light and eventually disappear.
You have left me alone with my cage unlocked.
The light continues to pour into my room. The anticipated seconds pass, but the square does not collapse. I hear Your footsteps completely disappear. I wait and continue to wait. I feel my eyes shifting back and forth in my skull; I hear my breathing fall rapid and shallow. My pulse throbs in my palms still cemented to the blanket.
Nothing.
You have left me with my cell open.
What in the fuck?
You have left me with my cage still gaping open, with my room seized by light, with the outside world spilling in all around me and freedom licking at my heels. And a choice.
Stay with me.
A choice? What the fuck is a choice anymore? Maybe this is a test. All another test to see what picture graces my results page in the book.
Finally, it makes sense. Finally, I see the request; I translate the appeal laid at my feet by Your strangely questioning eyes.
For a second, out of dead habit, I see Lei’s face. Her hair wraps around her face in the wind as she reaches down to grasp McAllister’s dripping and slobbery tennis ball. She grimaces and laughs as it saturates her hand. I hear her awkward throaty laugh fade off into the distance. Some faint instinct struggles deep inside me, leaps into my heart and starts pounding. I feel adrenaline surge through my body, the same adrenaline that raged at the thought of shoving You aside and sprinting to my liberation.
Before all those dreams died in this room.
I smile, knowing You think I am complete, knowing I have made You proud, knowing that You know I am Yours. I am finally Your success. I will be the last in the book, and there will be no mutilated picture of my disobedient remains. I am Your realization.
Maybe I feel a breeze coming in through the door and swaying the door to my cage, or maybe I imagine it. I turn my back to the light and close my eyes, waiting for my Master to return.
###
FREE BONUS HORROR SHORT STORY
MALIGNANT
If you'd like the exclusive horror short by Christina Bergling, you can download it free for a limited time by clicking here or opening: http://assentpublishing.com/webforms/waningbonus.aspx
SAVAGES
Whatever the other survivors have become, they no longer speak; they only kill and live like animals. Parker and Marcus navigate through the ruins of America and battle through these lingering savages with no answers, searching for the last strain of humanity.
Buy now on Amazon
About the Author
Colorado-bred writer, Christina Bergling, sold her soul early into the writing game. By fourth grade, she knew she wanted to be an author, and in college, she actively pursued it and started publishing small scale. However, with the realities of eating and paying bills, she hocked her passion to profession and worked as a technical writer and document manager, even traveling to Iraq as a contractor. Bergling is a mother of two young children and lives with her family in Colorado Springs.
If you enjoyed reading this book, I would be grateful if you would support my work by posting a review on Amazon. I read every review personally so I can get your feedback and make my writing even better.
If you’d like to leave a review, then all you need to do is click the review link on this book’s page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?ie=U
TF8&asin=B010TX4J7C
Thank you again for your support!
Christina
Please visit Christina Bergling online
http://christinabergling.com/
http://thewaning.com/
http://savagesnovella.com/
http://chrstnaberglingfierypen.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/chrstnabergling
https://twitter.com/ChrstnaBergling
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cbergling/
http://www.pinterest.com/chrstnabergling/
Acknowledgments
My deepest gratitude to everyone who helps me succeed as an author and who contributed to my completion of this book.
To Mike for loving me in spite of my dark mind and being willing to sleep beside me after I write about torture. To my beautiful children for always inspiring me. To my family, both blood and chosen, for their necessary and motivating support.
To everyone who bought and read Savages, welcoming me to being published, making me a real author, and encouraging me to keep going.
To Assent Publishing, and in particular my editor, Les, for their continued trust and support.
And thank you to my reading committee—Demo, Christina, Trisha, Taylor, and Daphne—for giving me the feedback needed to properly mold this book.