The only respite Sarena got during her gruelling day was a few hours at night, when the Wahat rested by decree. However, her captors denied her the little comforts afforded to other denizens of the dungeon. Her chains were always a little too short to allow her to rest, forcing her arms to be stretched at an uncomfortable angle. And when the warmth of the stones heated by the desert sun faded, she found herself shivering in the cold of her stone cell. The guards would not even give her rags to cover herself with. All she had in her low ceilinged stone cell was a small window near the top which gave her a little view of the clear desert night sky. And like every night since she first woke up in Wahat Muqmira, she had a guest when her eyes opened, one who always remained in the shadows.
‘I almost feel sorry for the state you find yourself in. Once so proud and now, look at you. You know this is all your own doing. All you had to do was accept my offer and you would not be rotting in a cell like this, being used by everyone in any way they wish. By now you’ve been with every guard here, so tell me, Sameera, did you find what you were looking for?’
‘Not one of them…’
‘Just as I told you on the very first day you were brought here, but did you believe me?’
‘No. I still don’t believe it myself…’
‘And yet your body is the proof.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, perhaps now you will believe me when I say that the Wahat is a pit of snake that feasts on the flesh of the powerless and the innocent that are unfortunate enough to be thrown in by people who hate them. Tell me, did any one of them stay their hand for even a moment when you begged them to stop, when you pleaded with them to give you a moment’s respite.’
‘No. Not one, not a single one. I could never imagine there wouldn’t be a single soul here that did not have an ounce of sympathy or empathy towards my plight. Did they not possess a shred of heart that told them perhaps their actions were wrong, that perhaps their deeds were vile?’
‘Ha! You expect sympathy from predators? Do you think a lion shows sympathy towards a deer?’
‘We are humans. We all are. Shouldn’t we be better than animals?’
‘There are people who live in human society, who live by the rules of society and they are human. And then there are those who forsake the rules of human society and live beneath it, in dark places of the world like here, where only the rule of animals matter, survival of the fittest.
‘And lastly there are the humans who think they are above all humans, that by virtue of the power they have accumulated, they are above society’s laws and it is these two ends that are unacceptable to the natural order that humans must follow by virtue of being human.
‘So, what would you have me do?’
‘You know the answer.’
‘Surely at least some of them have hope for repentance, for redemption?’
‘You know the answer.’
‘I have never killed.’
‘You have.’
‘Those two. They were an accident. It was their own doing.’
‘And that is why the judgement that must fall on this place must be by your own hand, one who has felt atrocities it is capable of first hand. For no judgement can come without first understanding.’
‘If I do this, there will be no heaven for me, no paradise when this is all over.’
‘Bah! If your god would choose to deny you paradise for spilling the blood of the wicked who think they are beyond the reproach of the natural order of things, then I promise you this tonight, Sameera, I will spend eternity with your soul.’
Sameera sighed and shut her eyes.
‘Steel yourself for what is to come. A reckoning.’
‘I am. So be it. Let me be the one that destroys those who would violate the order of the world.’
‘However, I have a new clause before we formally begin our arrangement.’
Sameera opened her eyes. At the same time, one of the guards rapped his baton on the door. ‘Quiet in there! Fucking lunatic. Go to sleep, you fucking freak and stop talking to yourself! Seriously, every fucking night? If it weren’t the rules, I’d come in there and fuck you to sleep myself!’ yelled one of the guards.
‘Relax,’ she heard the other guard say, loud enough so she could hear it, ‘it’s always the hot ones that are fucking crazy. We’ll fuck her first shift in the morning.’ Her door got one more whack with the stick before she heard their footsteps as they shuffled away.
She whispered to the shadow, ‘What is it?’
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