Relent

Your wrists burn. You know they must be purple by now. You welcome it all too willingly when he finally unties you. He’s freeing you. Freeing you to aimlessly walk around this dark hole in the ground, but it’s liberty nonetheless.

He talks. When you wouldn’t listen, the words were harsh, threatening to kill. When you gradually started to lose the energy to run, his voice softened to hush whispers. He insists that he had to do it. You’re precious. He needed you more than others did. After an eternity of hearing nothing but one voice, you have no choice but to see through their lens.

He makes himself sympathetic. He cries. He’s scared. Scared of losing you, scared of being sent to prison, or killed. You see this frightened boy, and your heart leaps.

He feeds you. Monsters and devils don’t feed others. They surely don’t do it as gently as he does. They don’t free you. They don’t rub your wrists. Their eyebrows don’t knit together worriedly. His do.

You have to accept him. With no one else around, he really is the only one who cares. You depend on him. You depend on him.

That’ll become a less frightening idea the longer you go without seeing the sun.