The Pet

Note: Contains mental health issues, mentions of sexual and physical violence, gore, and self-harm.

My throat ached. My stomach had quit spasming from hunger and instead appeared bloated. I’d only been offered water since the last visitor came, and even that had stopped arriving in my cell in what I was sure was at least two days.

I prayed the bowl would arrive soon. A bowl, because I needed to be reminded of my place. I was nothing more than a pet. Something to be brought out and treated however my owners and their guests saw fit.

My eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, but that was only another aspect of my punishment. The pain the light from their torches would wreak upon my eyes would blind me, make me reliant upon my owner, as Master brought me out for my next visit.

How had my life come to this? I’d wanted, more than anything, to live in the Tower of Knowledge deep in the Elvin mountain range, to learn under the tutelage of one of the Masters. The elves were the masters of knowledge. They held a written record of the secrets of every kingdom and their peoples. They knew all about all.

When I was invited to meet Master Vi, I did. He was the most well-known Master of the past century. He sought knowledge with the zeal of a predator on a hunt. I asked no questions.

I should have.

No one is able to gain so much knowledge, so much power, without sacrificing something vital. And what Master Vi was willing to sacrifice was me. Though I was not the first pet of the Tower. I was one of many he’s kept throughout the years.

How is knowledge gained from kingdoms of darkness? How is history gleaned of races who are thought of as monsters? By becoming a creature of darkness as well. By allowing one’s soul to become monstrous.

Normally, in my cell, I’m provided with a torch, three meals each day, and some sort of entertainment: a book from the Tower to read or a stack of parchment with a quill and ink pot. My drawings are always the same. Always images of the horrors the Master and his guests force upon me.

Those are the only things I see when I close my eyes. They are the hallucinations crowding me now.

Light. Pain.

I try to scramble into the corner of the cell but fail to make my body follow the order, and instead curl into a ball of beaten submission.

“Bath time, Sweetling.” Master Vi’s voice rakes against my skin. “You have visitors arriving tonight.”

If I had tears, they’d be falling. If I had strength, my fingers would gouge and scrape and hurt. As it stands, I can only manage a weak whimper as the Master lifts me into his arms and carries me from my cell, to my first time above ground since my last visitor.

“You must behave this time,” Master Vi says. “I don’t enjoy punishing you, Sweetling, but I will.”

His thumb presses into the soft flesh under my chin. My vision swirls as my gaze tries to focus on Master’s face. “You give our guests anything they ask for or I won’t just withhold. I will be forced to take a hand-on approach to your punishment this time. You must learn your lesson.”

I whimper. I would rather die than succumb to such a fate. I open my mouth, try to speak, can’t. All I manage to emit is the sound of a wounded animal.

He brushes brittle, broken hair from my dirt and sweat streaked face. “Good. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I’m placed upon a large, linen covered lounge next to a steaming tub. He’s brought me to the big room. The one I hate. The one for visitors with insatiable appetites for flesh.

Phantom pain sears through the scar along my left thigh where it’s been fileted during my second group of visitors came to the Tower.

Master Vi learned of the Dark Mages’ ability to use blood magic after the five days I’d been in this room. I assume he taught the other Master’s of the Tower. Though, after all I’ve endured here, I have learned knowledge is not just power. It’s a bargaining chip. If any other Master wanted to learn about the blood magic’s ability to cure plague victims, Master Vi no doubt forced them to hand over their own knowledge in exchange.

The Tower of Knowledge was believed to be a place of learning, a place for curious minds to live under the tutelage of the cleverest minds across the kingdoms.

It wasn’t. It was a trap for gullible scholars to be used by Masters of the Tower to learn all they could in any means they must to then be used against their enemies.

Master’s nails skim across my collarbone as he pushes the tunic’s neck opening aside to get a glimpse of the teeth marks left in my flesh. “The tonic the shifters told me about seems to be working.” He chuckles. “Though I suppose the fact that you didn’t become a raging beast in your time downstairs should’ve made that obvious.”

After removing the rough spun tunic and trousers, he lifts me and places me into the tub. Then, he holds my water bowl before me. “Drink, Sweetling.”

I do. I don’t feel the shame that blanketed me when I was first placed in my cell. Don’t care if I’m nothing more than a pet used by monsters to gain knowledge. I only care about slaking my thirst.

Master pets my head as I lap at the water. “Easy. You’ll make yourself sick if you don’t slow down.”

Footsteps sound and Master stops his ministrations. “Make sure she eats some of this while you prepare her. She’ll need energy for them. They like her when she’s energetic. They want to feel as if they’re the ones who break her.”

My pulse jumps, but quickly settles. The aroma of cured, salted meats and cheeses fill the space and my stomach convulses.

“Yes, Master.” The soft, feminine voice is not one I recognize. She must be knew. A scholar tempted here and kept as a servant. A fate better than mine, though not by much. I’ve seen the way Master treats his servants, seen the wounds upon their wrists and they make me presentable.

My bowl disappears with Master Vi. Gentle hands massage my scalp, patiently separating the matted strands of hair. My shoulders relax under the servants care, as she washes me, then washes me again. Her touches aren’t clinical. They aren’t practical like the other servants who have prepared me.

“Can you eat?” She asks me. I shake my head. The thought of food is revolting even though I know I need to eat, to put sustenance into my body.

She sighs and moves around the tub. She’s much larger than I’d expected. She doesn’t have the malnourished, broken appearance of everyone but the Masters.

“Is it okay for me to lift you from the tub?”

No one of the Tower has ever asked my permission for anything. Suspicion tickles at the edges of my mind. Even with the fuzziness of dehydration and starvation, I know this isn’t right.

She hasn’t moved, still staring at me. She’s waiting for an answer, I realize. I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

“I’m going to lift you and dress you, okay?”

Again, she waits for me to nod. I take her in as she nears me, her arms disappearing beneath me in the water. Her hair is kept long and loose, as Master Vi’s servants all keep it, but it shines. The black strands glow in the soft flames of the torches and lamps scattered about the space. Her face, though angular, isn’t slight from lack of food. Her bone structure is nearly perfect. Her green eyes sparkle when she meets my gaze. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The word comes out scratchy and weak.

When she lifts me, there is no struggle. She merely lifts me from the tub and places me upon the lounge once more.

“After I dress you, a man is going to enter. The Master believes him to be here to partake in your flesh in whatever way he wishes.”

She holds up a piece of cheese and doesn’t remove it until I take a small bite.

“Master Vi has given him permission to do with you as he wishes. He will bring in a collar and a chain. He will use it to lead you through the Tower.”

Revulsion should creep up my spine, should cramp my stomach, but it doesn’t. It isn’t the most belittled as I’ve been here.

“Okay.” I keep my eyes down.

“Once he gets you outside, he will pick you up and he will travel with you.”

A piece of sliced sausage is lifted to my lips. I take a bite, my stomach already cramping. Am I being saved? Is some finally taking a stand against the monstrous, savage fate we’ve been facing in these walls?

“You will help the Dark Mages against the Tower. Taking their favored pets will weaken them. They won’t have their means to lure others in any longer. It’s time for the Mages to hold power. Time for the Mages’ Academy to be the beacon of knowledge. We’re the ones who deserve such a destiny.”

No.

I’m not being saved. I’m still being used for knowledge and power. Still nothing more than a pet, let out to appease its masters.

Knowledge, the knowledge I’d so desperately desired only led to my pain.

When the woman sat the plate next to me and turned for the clothes Master Vi left for me to don, I muster every ounce of rage in my weak body and lift the platter. If my life, my humanity, is worth nothing to these men and women of learning, then I would teach them one final lesson: Pets are animals, and animals are feral.

I slam the plate against the woman’s head and watch in delight as she slumps the floor.

The shattered bits of the platter dig into my palms as I grip them. I will do anything to keep out of the hands of these people who taint the purity of learning, who turned me into this hollow sack of flesh and blood.

I will die tonight, but I will not die as a pet.