The rain pierced her face like a thousand needles on a comb, turning her malnourished skin into a splotchy canvas of clotted blood underneath. Her barely covered frail frame did not register the wind clawing at her chest nor did she hear the guttural breathing sounds she was making as she gasped through her mouth as well as moaned with terror. As she escaped into the gray darkness of a mouldy, smoggy early morning, she could only feel the comfortable warmth of filth squelching between her toes, wrapping around her brittle ankles, reminding her of what might be hers with each step that she took forward. Then again, she had been born into murkier surroundings, the stench was familiar, it did not revolt her. The subsuming scent of excrement mixed with rotting carcasses, perhaps, was more accentuated with the rain, carrying newer unfamiliar notes, sending shivers of exhilaration down her bony back. For a moment she paused, taking stock, she was now living her mad nightmare - the one she hadn't been able to get out of on awakening for the past several months. But try to escape she would, forever, until she had reached that place that was furthest from here - anyplace other than this.
Squeezing her eyes against the onslaught of the razor-sharp sleets of water she stumbled on, dodging the debris. The open sewers were overflowing again, spreading their mulch all across the muddy street, prodding anyone awake to move to higher, drier grounds - away from the whirlpool forming right in the center of the decrepit town. Even on a hot summer day the town would hobble awake well into daylight, it was a place were nights were reveled, days shunned. This was what she was counting on.
She felt the gusts of knee-deep gray waters ebb and flow with each frustratingly slow step that she could take, she fought getting immobilized by her darkest fear of being seen out of her hovel, the rain was bound to start thinning soon and the town would then begin to stir as the day started to break through. She was certain, however, that her absence would not be noticed until much later - she had made sure of that, she thought of it as her first victory. It wasn't what she was leaving behind that she was afraid of, what scared her most was being found by someone from a different 'home'. By stepping out she had become common property, with no protection she would be owned by the next animal that sniffed her out, someone with more muscle, more brutality than the previous, bled dry until she was nothing but a hollow tin can to be kicked around till their legs were sore.
That's what had happened with Inusha her cell mate for a few days. The thought left her weak and giving out a yell of desperation she continued plodding upstream against the now increasing currents. She dared not look at the tattered hutments lining the streets. There were hardly any lights on yet she imagined a thousand eyes on her just waiting for it to get dry enough to pounce, letting out another frightened whimper she looked back, there was not a soul to be seen, not even the mangy dogs of the town could be seen or heard, maybe the winter rains were a blessing. The windows on the establishments she passed were shuttered, as best as could be managed, against the howling wind and from a few partially shut doors to the brew houses she could see just a faint streak of pail yellow light falling on the waters, making them look deeper and more dangerous than they really were - it was just waist-deep water now, she would make it after all, all she had to get to was the narrow road on the left that led into the forests of Nenular, she thought shivering uncontrollably by now, her teeth chattering loud enough for her to force her mouth to shut. She'd get out but beyond that she did not know...
She had reached the foot of the little hillock, the one she had always eyed as she was ravaged, it had been her beacon, her escape as her imagination took her on rides beyond the hill, seeing different places - sometimes it was endless fields of rice under dreamy blue skies with sheepy clouds, other times she'd imagine a town like this one only neater, the only inhabitants being the Dhritis - as the girls of her hovel and others were called, the unacceptables. In this shady town with rejects from all across the land, they were the lowest in the food chain. The fortunate among them died or were killed during infancy for any 'defects'. The girls in her hovel kept getting replaced, one day they'd be dragged out into one of the 'special' shacks to never return from there, many had been executed in the open, in front of whistling, cheering crowds for falling ill. That had been one the reasons why they'd never been provided any dresses like she had once seen some of the women wearing in the very street she was standing in now - to ensure any signs of disease were caught instantly during their weekly showers. That the girls were disease free had been one of the reasons the charges had been exorbitant, and that they were very young, really young. She herself had barely any memories of her mother who had disappeared one day into one of the special rooms after which she had been moved into the shack and she had been there forever. Had Inusha not told her about the place beyond the hillock she would not have had found the urge to look beyond, it had been months since she had found out that there were places that were not like this, and she knew she had to get there, to survive. Being the longest surviving amongst all the girls she knew luck was taunting her - her turn to get into the special room would be up any time.
The hillock loomed larger than it appeared from her window but it filled her with hope, the higher it was the further the distance between her and her chasers, she knew there would be a chase soon, she would just need to give herself as much a headstart as possible. Gritting her teeth she looked up at the water cascading down the slopes. It was all uphill from here and she'd have to take to the footpaths, for she knew there were steps starting from somewhere there that could make it easier to cover ground instead of trudging uphill against the flooding water. She was safer in the middle of the road, from unseen predators lurking out even in this spiteful rain or worse, the overflowing sewers - one misstep and she'd be pulled under. She moved slightly to her left feeling the ground with each slide, moving only when finding a foothold. Scrambling over to the footpath she was glad to be out of the water, she looked down at her bleeding feet, she had pierced it over something, probably a broken glass and it had started to bleed heavily. Ignoring it she fumbled over to the side of a shanty, she could hear some low voices coming from within and the fact that she could hear it told her the rain was dropping, there would soon be drunkards stumbling out of the bars. Her heart almost skipped a beat when she found the steps on the side of the hillock, she had a foreboding, it had been easy this far, too easy.
Looking at the grimy steps, now as slick as oil, brought back painful memories, for she had heard that the stone slabs had been where Inusha's battered, lifeless body had been found, carelessly flung as though a dirty rag. She had overheard two guards discuss in their peculiar sing-song high pitched voice about how dogs had got to her face by the time the Bordwars, the undertakers, who were shunned, despised and feared by everyone, had found her. The Bordwars, recognized by the blood-red sigil of a jackal, were known to gleefully rescue every stray corpse, her mutilated corpse could still fetch a good amount with those who had a taste for it. Maybe they had exaggerated, she hoped so fervently.
As she started to climb the treacherous curving stairway, she realized the stairs went around, a section of it went directly in view of her room, she was stunned, why had she never noticed the stairs or seen anyone on the stairs. Even with the rains she could be clearly visible to anyone in the room. There was no way she could not take the stairs, there was no way she would be able to clamber over the slopes, she had to take the steps. She decided to cross sitting down, minimizing her exposure, she also saw that while the progress was extremely slow sitting down, she was better able to cope with the rain which was now changing directions and beating right into her face. She reckoned she had been out for an hour now, the guards would probably start on their rounds anytime now, and it would not take them long, there were only the ten small rooms and the one large dormitory housing fifteen other younger girls who were being 'groomed'. But why would they look out of the window, she reasoned with herself frantically, they'd probably want to take it out on her newest roommate , whom they had flung into her room earlier yesterday. She had been scratched all over, with purple blobs on several parts of her exposed chest. Unconscious and groaning through the night, she had finally quietened down when she had gone over and hugged her and then continued to rock her. When she'd woken up with a jolt in the middle of the night, the groans had stopped and so had her breathing. Her newest roommate had not outlived her as she had hoped for.
With the rains battering their unholy settlement through the night it had seemed a propitious coincidence, prompting her to put her plans into effect immediately. She had waited for the guard to take his last round, disinterestedly looking into each room, he had had enough of the place, after three years, he had lost his ability to be shocked, and he had seen things in the lands he had traveled earlier, this place had been something else. In all of her sixteen years she had never been unguarded and did not know the way out. She had found it as simple as unlatching the door and walking out - the latch had been a new experience and had taken time. She had expected to hear a howl and a knife in her back anytime since she had walked out of her room but in that moment of terror at the front door she preferred capture than having to step out and see her dream materialize.
Crawling slowly she circled the final steps, going over the hillock just as the rains started to thin. She hadn't known what to expect, ever since she had heard of the land beyond the hillock her imagination had taken her vanishing into the Nenular forest or running wildly through endless grass fields. She crossed over just as the rain petered away washing off grime and dust from the air giving her a perfect view. The revolting shanties lined haphazardly around a town square looked just like the street she had crossed, only edgier and more sinister; these were bigger, with tattered curtains that were flailing slightly giving her a glimpse of a town waking up. She then looked at the blood red sigil of the jackal mounted on a wooden post in the square, it was the only thing that gleamed and burned bright.
