The Aztec Saga - Hunted Page 3

Of course I wanted to flee this place, but I knew it was a trap; I just wasn’t sure what kind of trap. I look up to the boxes. What could such small trinket boxes hold that would ensure I stay in this cell and tell them everything?

  I stand and walk to the boxes. There is nothing to distinguish one from the other, so I randomly select a box—the middle one—and unlock it. The padlock falls to the ground with ‘ting’ sound. I hold one hand around the base of the box, as I slowly lift its lid and peer inside. My heart palpitates, and my breath is stolen from me when I see what is inside. A finger with a twisted scar lies on the red velvet casing within the box. I recognise its previous owner immediately.

  Beneath the finger, is a small piece of folded paper. I grasp the very edge of the paper and pull it out carefully, trying not to disturb the dead flesh, as though its previous owner would be harmed by me altering its position. Carefully, I unfold the slightly bloodstained note. The words etched across read:

  “Not all shackles are made of iron.”

  I stumble backwards. “No! No! I won’t do it,” I scream to the empty room. I know what devastation will come about if I fill that notepad. I look at the boxes sitting on the table. I know they are not empty. I clasp my hands to my head and close my eyes. I won’t look inside them.

  The slide flies open again, and this time, a small box scratches across the floor and stops at my feet. As I pick it up, I notice it is different to the boxes on the table; this one is warm, and without a lock. I push the lid back. An eye stares back at me. It has been ripped out with such haste that the optic nerve still twitches.

  I slam the lid closed and fall back against the wall, panting for breath. How could this have happened? They had captured me, only me. My stomach knots and the room seems to spin around me. How could it be that they captured another? My stomach moves from knotting to convulsing as its contents spill through my mouth into a foul bucket, which has been left in my cell for other purposes. A person I love is being held in another cell, maimed and tortured. My love for that person is the shackle that binds me. How could I have been so stupid and naive to think that by sacrificing myself I would end this, when my captors know my weaknesses and are prepared to exploit them so ruthlessly?

  When I decided to let them capture me, I knew they would torture me until they got what they wanted from me. I had prepared myself for that—but not this. They know that I could never leave my loved one much less allow them to be tortured and killed. I just wanted to run from here and end this nightmare, but not if it meant the death of the one I loved.

  There is no choice. I pick up the notepad and pencil and sit at the table. I don’t know how they expect me to condense my recollections into this one notepad using just this pencil, but I am certain that once I’ve filled this book, another will slide through the feeding door.

  A memory has the power to move us forward, to do great things, or—to destroy us ...