Sekali, "The Sister City"

 

                                Chapter 79

 

     She stood, chained and bound to a surface piled waist deep with the bones of others, slain at its hand. She did not even know she was screaming, wailing as though she were one of the slain, caught between life and death in the state of the damned. Her wrists, ever dripping with her own blood, continually contesting the unbreakable chains which held her bound. There was never rest; never peace; only a scream that never ended. Her wail ascended up into a blackened sky she attempted to see past . . . but never could.
     At times, lightning, more black than the darkness of the sky, flashed, silencing her briefly. The groaning of the earth below were the sounds which portrayed her future state. Then the panicked struggle to be free began, once again, to challenge the strength of her shackles.
     Again, her wailing screams overpowered the groaning sea of the dead she eternally waded within.
     She was damned . . .

     . . . Mabuhi shot up from her bed, landing upon her feet, sucking in precious air with ragged gasps. Spinning around, she could see only the dead about her, eternally touching her, as if groping for her own spark of life. Then, after quite some time, Mabuhi stilled and closed her eyes. She took a few deep, quavering breaths and slowly opened her eyes to her own home. An expression of regret and sorrow fell upon her countenance as she slowly fell to her knees, not believing what she had just dreamed.
     There was always a part of her that never rested, since she could recall, even as a child. This one nightmare had ever vexed her whenever she slept for more than an hour or so.
     Folding her arms about her, she began to weep silently to herself, gritting her teeth as if in terrible mental anguish.
     “Oh, Mother, will this ever stop? I can bear it no longer . . .” In the darkness, broken only by a distant lantern’s light streaming faintly through the opening in her room, Mabuhi wept bitterly, quietly, secretly.
     “I shall never be rid of this accursed dream.” Bowing her head, Mabuhi gave into a sadness which had plagued her since she was a little child long ago.
     A thought penetrated her being then . . . Sekali . . . and she took courage.

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