A changed man - Prologue and Chapter 1

Prologue

I was alone. No one to turn to. I had to be constantly on guard. He chased me like a rabid dog. I could feel his callous, dirty hands greedily roaming around my body; I saw an evil gleam in his eyes. I knew it then: I had to escape. Running through the trees, branches scratching at my face, tearing at my lace nightdress, I daren’t stop. For I am the young leveret and he is the proud hunter, thousands of bloodhounds at his call. I fretted over what might happen if he found me as I remembered that cold night one winter’s eve, the last time I tried to escape. I removed my pale white undergarment and traced the scars across my body. Where he had used me. Where he had turned me into his own corrupted, twisted piece of art. In the eyes of men we are just objects, waiting on their call.



Chapter One - After the war.

Waiting. Not a day passed when I was not at his bedside. Watching. Observing how he jumped every time at the smallest noise. His soulless eyes. His greying hair. This is not the man I married. I remember the way, the way he looked at me, before the war that is. They way he used to subtly glance up at me, then turn away, blushing, when he noticed me looking. But now, when I come close, I know he tries, I know he does. But I can see it. I can see it in his eyes: soulless. He feels nothing for me anymore; whenever I come close he flinches, immobilised by fear. His eyes widen: that teenage smile. A shadow of his former self.

But yet, still I wait.

Finally. One spring day, when the fine mornings dew still lay spattered upon the grass outside his treating room’s window, I was briskly awoken by a stern hard faced nurse, who informed me in a eloquent businesslike tone that my husband was ready to be discharged. Yawning slightly, I got up and wandered over to the mirror. My chestnut brown hair was plastered to my face and was in serious need of a wash; a streak of grime and dust had cemented itself upon my left cheek and I had dark bags forming under my hazel eyes.

I was taken away from musing at my appearance when I heard the door creak open and found my husband staring at me. He inclined his head toward the door and I followed him for a brief walk to the car. All was silent as we drove home.

We lived not too far from the city in as small semi detached house on outskirts of Inverness. It wasn’t luxury accommodation, but it was ours. The musty smell of damp reached my nostrils as I entered the threshold. Half empty paint cans adorned the dusty floor. I was painting the kitchen. As I smiled nostalgically at my previous endeavours of a few weeks previously, I was taken out of my reminiscence by an angry utterance of vulgar language. I stood in shock. It was the first time he’d spoken since he had come back. Gushing with excitement I scrambled over the now discarded paint cans and ran into the hallway.

“It’s happening” he said a wild look in his eyes, “man the boundaries”. In a wild panic he flailed his arms cursing under his breath.

I tried to console him. Tell him that it was going to be alright. But it didn’t work. I grasped his swinging limbs in desperation and for the first time he looked me straight in the eye.

“Are you a spy” he whispered hoarsely. “Well, are you” he persisted grasping my head and slamming it against the wall.

I tried to tell him, tears streaming down my face, that it was me Kathy, his wife, but it came to no avail. Again and again he asked me if I was an intelligence officer from rival forces, come to spy on his secret plans; and again and again I denied furiously. He grabbed a chunk of my chestnut locks and pulled me up as if to examine me more closely.

From his left pocket he withdrew a short blunt object, that looked suspiciously like a knife. As I struggled against his muscular grip he brought the knife up to my jaw line and traced a around it with the blade causing a light cut to form.

“Tell the truth” he commanded “Or I’ll drag this dagger straight through your heart.

As he drew the knife to my forehead, his eyes faulted and he whispered “Kathy.”

I took my chance and sprinted out of the house, down the road to the woods that lay at the bottom of the moor. I slowed breathing heavily, until I reached the clearing that I came to as a child, to escape. I was struggling to come to terms with the events that had just taken place. The man that I loved, or at least thought I loved, had turned a knife on me. My whole world was crashing down on me. So, I did what I could only do, the same thing I did when I was a child when I felt the whole world was crashing down on me. I created a new one.

So I Imagined:

I’m walking through a snow laden forest, the low winter’s sun shines through the bare rust coloured trees creating purple shadows upon the ground, sometimes causing a phosphorescent glow to emanate from the pearly white terrain. Clan fresh snow and sappy pine fill my nostrils: I can almost taste them. I move, at a steady pace, through the maze of trees occasionally brushing against a branch causing a flurry of snow to shower down onto the back of my neck, until I reach a clearing littered with pristine cottages; behind which lays a lake with its waters eerily blue.

What is most strange about this village is that there is nothing there. No shops, no night clubs, no, nothing. The people get along with their daily routines: hunting and scavenging for food, creating ice sculptures, and chores around the house. But no one goes near the lake, and no one but the locals seem to know why. Although many a traveller who had come across the this lake have pondered why, but they could not possibly fathom the reasoning behind it. Still, not yet has there been a traveller brave enough to cross its icy waters.

The atmosphere is that of tranquillity, for there is a stress free atmosphere here in the wilderness. Tiny trinkets of chatter can be heard through the town along with the general hussle and bussle of the townsmen going about their daily routine. Although this is occasionally broken when a traveller comes from afar and the town becomes hushed and silent, as if daring the traveller to question their simplistic ways. This behaviour often scares the lowly traveller to move on to their next destination but, it is this that allows it to stay untouched.

As the sun starts to set across the land and the sky forever fades and blackens, a worried voice brings me back to reality.

I open my eyes to find I’m staring face to face with my husband.