Dindi
That night, Dindi was kidnapped.
You never forget the night you are taken.
In the dark, she had heard something move—soft shuffling, then silence. She woke with her heart already pounding. Smells crowded her nose: chalk paste, feathers, sweat, beer. She could hear men breathing, slow and heavy.
Their aim is to terrify you, to disorient you.
Grotesque heads leaned over her—masks shaped like monsters. Clawed hands grabbed her and yanked her down into the goat pen, into the hay and dirt under the loft. She tried to scream, but more hands covered her mouth.
They want to take your dignity. Your comfort.
The masked shapes pushed her, passed her between them like a toy. They stripped off her outer clothes, hit her bare skin, gagged her mouth. They tied her wrists behind her back with rough, scratchy rope. Nearby, her clan-sister Jensi was treated the same way. Tibi crouched in the corner, small and quiet, but the kidnappers left her alone.
They pushed the captives into the courtyard. The white adobe walls glowed like bone in the moonlight. The painted designs on the houses had lost all color in the dark, turning the buildings into shapes that looked strangled by black ropes.
Firelight flickered over a line of prisoners. They stood like a snake wrapping around the village, monsters walking beside them. For a moment, Dindi had thought the creatures were fae—trolls, maybe harpies—but fae didn't carry torches. They didn't cast shadows. Faeries glowed with their own inner light. These things were men wearing masks and ponchos. As the enemy warriors danced and shouted, their twisted shadows sprang and spun around them.
They want to crush you, to grind you like corn meal.
Her mouth was already gagged so tight she could barely breathe. Then they blindfolded her. Real darkness, not the kind from games or hiding, but a thick cloth so tight even a torch would not shine through. Her world vanished. The fear was sharp and real.
They forced a hollowed tree drum over her head and began to pound it. The sound was so loud it seemed to fill her skull. Her balance disappeared. She could not hear anything else. Then they added a heavy basket to her back, full of stones. It crushed her down, made her knees bend. She wanted to fall, to cry—but she knew she could not show weakness. A switch whipped her legs to make her walk.
She hated the ropes, the switch, their hands on her. Yet in that moment of helplessness, she needed the touch of those things. She needed to feel anything that told her the world was still there, that she was not alone in the dark, blind and deaf.
They want to keep you so exhausted, so weak, you can't think—only survive.
They did not let her rest. They cursed, hit, and threatened her. They made her march down a narrow trail, through bushes and branches that slapped her skin. Sometimes she tripped. Sometimes she brushed against another captive. That small touch reminded her she wasn't alone. But it also made her heart twist. Her cousins. Her friends. The enemy had taken them too.
Something snapped inside of her. She was still afraid, still confused, humiliated, and panting with exhaustion. She focused only on each step, on not falling. But anger started to rise inside her. At first it was small. But when her hearing and balance returned, the anger grew. It burned hotter. It started to push away the fear.
Even with the enemy's tricks, her woodcraft whispered to her. The feel of the ground under her feet, the wind on her bare skin—these small things told her they were moving west, toward the sea.
She understood then what they planned. She would be sold as a slave... or worse, as a mariah, a slave meant to be sacrificed. Once she crossed the border of her clan and tribe, no one would be able to find her again.
Dindi had never been good at obedience. She knew she wouldn't survive long as a slave. The kidnappers told her they would kill her if she disobeyed. They said her life was worth less than a handful of seed. They called her wormbait, meat, muck.
They want you to believe you are going to die. And they succeeded.
So you have nothing left to lose.