Day One

Still coping with the cruel wound in her foot, the little girl, once full of fervor, sat on a rough blanket in her sleeping room. Pawing at the skin just above her knee on her right leg, she felt the pressing misery of the situation weighing her down, as though there were an adult standing on her back.

She waited close to a window hole in the wall, dragging her fingers over her skin two or three times, holding it taut with one hand while moving her other hand across it. She caught a splash of dusk sunlight on her thigh and just for a moment found herself enjoying the way it seemed to make her skin shine. She had never felt the same extreme aversion to the light as the other villagers.

Due to the position and distance from its star, the heat and light on the planet were very intense, far more extreme than that which was always so greatly revered on the Goldilocks planet of their ancestors.

Any time in the direct sunlight, unshielded was hazardous, and the boys now had been bound face-up for far too long. Both brothers were desperately squeezing their brows down to try and diminish the rising, vicious light to no avail, as the sun burnt through their lids, leaving their eyes red and swollen.

Although they were suffering, they made no sounds of protest: the only utterances being the eldest brother reinforcing his younger sibling. It was a torture that started with nothing more than what once might have been considered a sunny day.

After what seemed like endless time watching out the window, she eventually saw her brothers in the distance, slowly making their way back down the hill from the tower.

Watching them leave in the morning was the most difficult and uncertain thing she had ever faced in her short life, and not knowing what they were walking toward had grown such anguish throughout the day, that she felt it might never recede.

Having no knowledge of what had befallen her brothers, her wave of relief at seeing them alive passed all too quickly, replaced by a sharp pang in her stomach that built further and further as they limped down the hill, bringing with them the truth of their ordeal.

As she peered through the window, trying so hard to understand what was coming, the scene became clear. She could now see the two boys struggling to walk, shredded clothes hanging limply to their shoulders and hips, burnt and suffering, heads hung down and so very gradually making their way home.

Seeing the evidence made all her concerns a reality, and she felt it mass behind her eyes: the weight of it bore down on her little brow, creating an expression far beyond her cycles. As the boys drew closer to their home, her last semblance of self-control gave way to falling tears. They poured out with such intensity, it felt like they may never end. Somehow, they offered no reprieve from the reality she faced.

Her lips began to quake with the burden of a broken soul, and her mouth fell open.

“ ... Oh.”

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The front door opened, heavier than it ever had. The elder brother came through first, carefully removing his hand from the door. The pain from the action stalled his movements. As they crossed the room to the table, their process was stricken and arduous.

They sat slowly on their stools to try and finish the meal they were taken from so suddenly that morning. Having managed to sit down, they struggled through significant discomfort to use the simple wooden spoons of their daily life.

The smooth, familiar tools felt as though they were made of broken Razor Rock. There was a palpable tension of misery in the air as the boys tried their best to simply eat and feel as they once did.

Little Fawn walked softly down the stairs still tearful and trying to wipe the droplets away faster than they could gather on her flushed cheeks. Saying nothing, she walked gently across the floor to kneel down at the feet of her severely wounded brothers, taking a place between the elder at the head of the table and the younger at the side.

Sobbing despite her best efforts, she laid her head on the eldest’s knee and looked up at him with immeasurable pain in her eyes, trying to make sense of any of it. Her brother looked down at her and smiled, his face full of love through his scorched skin. He stroked her face gently.

“Hey, Fawn.”

After seeing how hard it was for her brothers to eat, she wanted to try and do something. She rose to her feet and tried her best to help the eldest with his food. As she reached over with a spoon, she came to see the true extent of the burns, pits and tattered edges in his skin, broken blood vessels and failing eyelids.

Once the terrible damage came into focus, her legs gave out and she fell to the ground. She clutched tightly at her brother’s spoon as if it might provide some comfort, and placed her free hand over her mouth as the tears started fresh.

Her brothers stood up slowly, each placing a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezing her to bring what comfort they could.

Fawn got up to sit on the stool at the head of the table, replacing her eldest brother. She looked down at the table and folded her right leg up onto the seat with her, dragging her fingers up her leg from her knee, letting her rough dress fall back along her leg.

After just a moment she glanced at the position of her hand, and with a sudden understanding, she knew the reality ... she could have prevented this egregious situation by following the expected path.

The realization took her breath, and she struggled to stifle a new wave of sadness. The limit of her understanding saved her from being utterly consumed by distress.

She still did not know the extent of what her brothers would suffer, nor had she truly a grasp on why her deviance had merited such a reaction from the Cast. She had always imagined her punishment would end at a beating, or at most the harsh wound through her foot.

As if knowing what was in her mind, both her brothers simply placed a kiss on her head as they passed, with the eldest offering further words of reassurance.

“Please regret nothing. We love you and your spirited nature. This is why we do what we do.”

With that, he started up to his bed. Sleep seemed like a hopeless task, but they had limited opportunities left now.

Lying in his bed, the eldest brother smiled through his burning pain as he thought of his sister’s determined nature and wonderful spirit.

To him, she would doubtless become a woman for whom the world would come to bend, and so he would do anything to give her the chance to see it.

The impossible situation before him was just that, in its ultimate sense.

This truly heinous and unbelievably cruel punishment was intended to carry on, and so it would. Each day the boys must rise before dawn, make their way back to the tower, climb into the boxes, lie still while they were shackled, and make no protest.

If they did not elect their own subjugation without protest, the price they paid would never amount to enough to prevent the suffering of their dearest Fawn. So, they would pay willingly, on and on, and on ...

–Garrick M Lynch–