The Collector 01

"Show me how defenseless you really are."

I cringed at the sound of his voice, at the feel of his hands as they crawled over my stomach. There would be no avoiding this, of that I was certain.

"You can't hide anything from me you know. Why bother trying?" I watched him tread carefully forward.

I stayed silent among the beating red objects that lay all around me, shivering from the coolness of the room. It seemed as though the room went on for ages. There were no walls and no ceiling and so I felt as though I was hanging by a rope tied to nothing, my arms bound helplessly above me. I could move my legs, but couldn't see what good it would do me and so I stayed motionless, my body prisoner of the motions of the wind. It sometimes came as nothing more than a light breeze, and in other moments in vicious, freezing gusts.

"So the heartless warrior has found her feelings?"

The quiet thudding and rythmic beating were unnerving. I closed my eyes to avoid looking at them, as though avoidance would save me. Naked with only the hair on my head to keep me warm, a violent series of chatters erupted in my mouth, stopping as suddenly as they had occured and starting up again.

"Might we here be seeing the shivers of guilt?"

No response. I would not let him get the better of me. I couldn't.

"You will speak."

I opened my eyes only to see him standing barely inches from my face. He smiled at me, teeth glistening menacingly in the apparent darkness of the area.

"My warrior princess could it be so?"

The breeze made my body sway, bumping my knees against his legs.

"Revolting."

It seemed like nothing more than a punch to face upon contact. Then I felt it. I could smell it. The warmth and wetness of it trickled down my forehead, over my eye and down to my lips. The relief it brought me was surreal.

"So it's true, you've found one. It won't last. Look at how many you've collected already! There will be no salvation, no hope for this supposed special one. You will do as you always have done."

He ran his fingers down my body, hoping to get a reaction out of me.

"You are weak." He whispered in my ear. "Perhaps I should lay yours to rest among the others?"

I took one final look around the room, finally ready to pronounce the deadly words.

"Perhaps you should... I won't take that one."