Peace Maker - Chapter 197

From the distance, a voice called out to him. A familiar voice, sweet to his ears and pulled him out of the sea he laid at the bottom of. It was dark down there. Dull, bland, numb. Painless.

He sat there, a shiver running through him as he slowly lifted up from the ocean’s floor. He didn’t want to. It was warm down there, cold, hot? He didn’t know. But he couldn’t feel, that was the best part about it. There was nothing but him down there, his body pressed against the ocean flow that he couldn’t even feel himself.

Somehow there he was breathing. Somehow he was living.

He wished he wasn’t.

Now as he rose to the surface, the aches that he couldn’t feel started to claw at him. Tiny scratches, tiny whispers, tiny pinches that grew into throbbing. Tiny clawing that soon dug into his skin.

He hated it. He wanted to sink back down to the ground. There there was nothing, there it was bland, there it was black. Numb.

He didn’t want to feel.

Now as he continued to rise, the pain flooded in, washing him with such a backlash that he wished he would just blank out right there and fall back to the ocean’s bottom. It was strange how it was getting harder to breathe as the grey light upon the sea’s surface grew closer. Wasn’t he supposed to feel free? To feel like he could relax now? Shouldn’t he feel… better.

So why did the air that started to fill his long sting his nose? Why couldn’t he breathe? Why was he suffering?

The voice continued to call out to him, like a siren but instead, he was rising out of the sea. Pulling him further up, drawing him out of his deep black sea. Its voice was still as sweet as a siren’s and when his heavy eyelids opened to see, it was a siren.

Pulling him to the world he wanted to escape, his hell. His death. He missed the ocean.

Nonsensical muttering came out first from his trembling lips, his entire body shaking in pain and cold. You would think with the amount of shivering and coldness he felt, he wouldn’t be able to feel the pain. But it was even more prominent, the long lash marks on his back burning, the fresh ones reminding him of their presence every time they stabbed him, replaying how they landed on his body. How they dug into his skin.

The siren in front of him began to take a better shape, long waves of hair becoming more visible as their face’s outline came into view. Slowly, it was coming back to him, slowly he felt the cold wall that he was pressed against. He couldn’t breathe, the frigid air piercing his lungs like icicles as he attempted to breathe.

“…al-mi…” the siren called out, her lips coming to view as her beautiful figure grew.

Kalmin flinched, his eyes blinking blankly. He knew that face, he knew that voice. It was coming back now, the pain he felt starting to have its clear origins. He knew where he was, what he was, who he was, and the chains that bind him. And that siren, he knew her name.

Annabeth… Annabeth… Annabeth.

Sometimes he wished he never knew it.

His quivering lips yearned to call out that name. It always did, a habit he wished he would stop having, a feeling he wished he could drown.

Along with himself.

“A…” he whispered, unable to comprehend his own voice.

It was so weak, so shaky and dull. So dead.

“An..e..h” her name formed more clearly on his tongue, his voice becoming more audible to the siren that screamed at him with such a frantic expression. ‘Why was she screaming? Why was she yelling?’ he wondered to himself as her voice repeated in his head.

“Ann…th,” he called out, getting closer to saying the name, his chest growing heavier as he felt the weight of her name. His body stung. He could probably point out that lash was hers. Which scar held her memory. That siren, that person… that woman, that lady.

“Annabeth,” he muttered. His master, his owner.

“Kalmin!” she replied, her frantic expression showing a slight bit of happiness. “KALMIN CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”

He flinched from her loud voice, his thin frame shuddering further. ‘That’s loud…’ he thought to himself. “Yes madam…?” he replied weakly, as he tried to sit up.

He watched as Annabeth pressed a key into the lock on his cage, her hand trembling as she heard the little click, her head turning back to him with a frightened expression on her face.

It was almost as if she looked scared that she had opened the cage, that she was scared to set him free. It was funny. ‘Hah… I’ll laugh at that later when I can..’ he thought to himself as he watched Annabeth shuffle quickly into his cell. ‘She’s never been that quick to let me out before..’ he thought, ‘did I do something wrong? Will I get whipped again?’

His head cocked to the side with pain as he looked at her, his eyes falling with her as she bent down and leaned forward, her shaky hand poking a key into the lock on his chains. He looked down at her head, seeing the top of her head. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her in this perspective..’ he thought to himself, ‘probably the last too…’

“K-kalmin… Kalmin,” Annabeth stuttered, “your sister Alice. She’s upstairs, in pain, crying. She’s giving birth. She’s in labor.”

Kalmin stared at her blankly, her words barely reaching his ears. He was fascinated by the view. The one glance he ever got to look down at her, a perspective he would probably never get to see again in his life. It was entertaining. He would laugh, but he couldn’t. It hurt enough.

“Annabeth…” Kalmin muttered as she threw off the chains that held him and locked eyes with him. There was panic in her eyes, she was rushing, like she needed to do something urgently or something bad would happen. “Is there… Something wrong, my lady?”

Annabeth stared at him, her eyebrows furrowing. “You- didn’t hear me?” she asked as she leaned closer to Kalmin, her arm benign placed around his neck and the other behind his back. She gave a light exhale of air as she lifted him up. She expected it to be heavier than it was. She expected him to be hard to hold but he was light. Unnervingly light.

“No… I’m sorry my lady… you can punish me in any way you want…” Kalmin muttered, his head bowing as Annabeth walked forward, pulling his body along with hers.

“No! NO!” she screamed. She let go of Kalmin’s shoulder and turned to him, anger and frustration flaring in her eyes. “THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM HERE! WAKE UP!!”

Kalmin’s head cocked to the left weakly. “Then what is my lady?”

“A-Alice. Your sister. She’s in labor,” Annabeth replied. The words went over his head, again.

“What?” he asked, his dazed eyes clearing slightly.

“I said, ALICE IS GIVING BIRTH!” Annabeth yelled, shaking Kalmin by the shoulder.

Kalmin’s eyes grew wide. It wasn’t because he heard what she said and was taken aback, it was because of the pain. It was like a sledgehammer had pounded into his body. Heavy and brutal, like how quickly he was slapped back into reality from the agony his body felt.

He staggered back and Annabeth pressed forward, her arm reaching out to catch him. She stared at him with pure fear in her eyes.

“Are you ok?!” she asked.

He looked up to her, his dulled eyes much brighter now, his ears receiving her voice in a way that didn’t make him feel like covering his ears. He could hear her. He could understand her now.

“L-lady Annabeth..” he muttered, immediately bowing his head. “What- why- I apologize for any wrong I have don-”

“We DON’T HAVE THE TIME FOR THAT!” Annabeth screamed, her voice cracking in frustration.

That was when Kalmin heard it. The scream. The wretched, strained scream of a voice that cried out in agony. The pattering of hurried footsteps. The scream, again and again. It sounded so familiar. He shuddered. It sounded too familiar.

“Is that… Alice?” he muttered, turning back to Alice with confusion and nervousness in his eyes, “is that… my sister? Why.. why is she…”

“She’s in labor Kalmin! Your sister is GIVING BIRTH!” Annabeth repeated, clearly angered. And rushed, overly rushed.

“What-” Kalmin mumbled, staggering back. It was like someone had dropped a boulder on him, a heavy weight he wasn’t executing to feel, words that were hitting him. He looked up at Annabeth, his shaky eyes barely able to comprehend the emotions in her eyes. “What?”

“I’ve said this- we need to go!” Annabeth sighed, grabbing Kalmin’s wrist and pulling him along, her hurried footsteps scrambling to the stairs as Kalmin, trudged behind, his mind in a stage of… perplexion. That was an understatement. He was lost, his ears had heard the words she said, his body having already felt the effect of those words but his mind, they struggled to understand.

“Wha-” he muttered under his breath as he barely managed to lift his feet in time for the stairs that met his feet. He looked up to Alice, his eyes widening. “Alice…. is in what?!”