In a remote area of the world, there was an island that held a prison. It was home to all the convicts that were arrested by the Holy Army and the High Order. Residing in the place alone diminished their sanity; some of them were willing to break down the door, destroy the entire place, and then kill themselves. If one visited there, then one would hear the laments and wails through the wall every day and night, nonstop. It was unbearable. No use to escape anyway since storms and blizzards tend to occur, and the ocean would consume them before they could swim out of the island.

It was much of an agony for Azukunika. Under the full moon, she shivered and stared at the blank walls. Although her black-colored pajamas provided her some warmth, she could barely get over the chills in the air. Her cell was cramped and devoid of life. The gray walls leaked water through the cracks and holes, and it gave off a putrid scent as though the room had transformed into a swamp. On the other side of the place, the moonlight glimmered the iron bars and the window; a gust then flew in, making the girl beg for more blankets. Azukunika curled up on her metal bed, and she looked at the drawer behind her, which housed hygiene necessities and her undergarments.

She let out a sigh. As it came to her, she wondered what was happening back at the village. So far in her sentence, she had not heard anything about her family, her mother, and her community. She constantly wished to see them, but the wardens would reject her offer. It led to her feeling concerned for them, and for them to be quiet after the revolution against the previous regime, it was peculiar. Day after day, the absence of any news seemed to make her estranged to the world.

As the voices of the convicts billowed the hallways, Azukunika folded her pillow and covered her ears with them. She gritted her teeth, her tolerance was shrinking as she spent much of her time here. The inmates themselves, the woman never met them face-to-face. Whenever the guards released them for dinner or recreational activities, they would wear a face mask and conceal their identities, so as to not have them get either ridiculed or criticized. At one point, everybody was so wary of each other that they guessed the names, occupations, and the crimes of their peers. Some of them got it right the first try, and as for others, they were way off.

Azukunika did not participate in their charades, for she bore the shame and guilt in her wrongdoings. She remembered fresh and well of her time in the revolution. Although she was originally neutral when it came to the conflict, the family’s fear of being attacked drew her into the tension. Of course she could not ignore such fear, as she felt that fighting back of whatever threat they face would do good to her. Thus she went to the High Order to seek assistance. Ozughen, to which she supported him whole-heartedly, ordered her to assassinate Yebuka for the sake of family honor. If she succeeded, then the regime would provide her anything she wanted—or else he’d sell her into slavery. But Azukunika only sought her mother to come back from the spiritual mission and move away to another place with her. Nonetheless she complied to his order. At first the plan sounded easy; she’d go into the encampment of the rebels and murder Yebuka, nothing more than that. She was once prideful, too much to see the reality of things. When she realized how difficult it would be, it mounted a lot of pressure upon her, and she experienced a tremendous anxiety. As such, the outcome happened otherwise to her expectations. After the botched attempt, Azukunika ran away from the village, eluding from capture, and settled in the grasslands for a brief period. She hid her face and worked as a peasant, and she befriended a lot of people. Nobody was suspicious. At that point, she believed she could escape for good. But being far away from the family, it crushed her heart so much that she didn’t know what to do anymore.

It was one day that an informant from Yebuka’s posse caught her red-handed. For the whole time, the informant spied on her movements and activities, and the revolutionaries found it hard to believe that a person like Azukunika would live in the grasslands. When one day Azukunika tended to the livestock, the informant struck her down and explained the reasons for her arrest. Knowing what she did back then, she surrendered—the next thing that occurred, she was on trial. She begged to the officials to tell what had transpired at the end of the war and what had happened to her family. They said nothing about it. Instead they condemned her, even insulting her bloodline, calling her the devil’s worker, a rapist, a blood drinker, and more.

Now twenty-four years old, Azukunika could not imagine of how long she must bear her prison sentence without going insane. Not seeing her mother and her family for the rest of her life, the darkness of the jail cell was only there to draw herself into despair. As much as it was scary, it comforted her. She was used to it by now. In her tolerance, she soon regretted her actions and sins in the past; she longed to go back in time, bring her family somewhere else, and reside in peace. But the blood she had shed sunk deep into her skin, enough to make herself a heretic among the gods.

“Oh mother, if only I was there with you, then none of this would have happened. Where are you now?” Azukunika uttered, scowling and smacking her forehead. “I swear, I cannot face this without crying to myself in my sleep. I miss you so much. I want to return to the good old days, where I gave you my love and supported you on a lot of things. Dammit, I should have turned my back on those incompetent rats, and I should have helped you all.”

Something then fell from the bed. A clink she heard, Azukunika lurched at the barren, cold floor. The emerald on her necklace faded away from its color, and in an instant it turned dull and lifeless. The woman picked it up and grasped it close to her bosom. Her mother gave this to her at her high school graduation; at the time where Azukunika wore the necklace, Usheniko complimented her for being so beautiful. Azukunika squirmed around her blanket, she blushed before her face descended into gloom. All her memories with her parent, such things remained vivid in her mind, and never in her life could Azukunika forget them. After all, they were the only possessions she carried within her.

“Is my mother doing okay? I bet that she is giving out more fortunes than ever. But in this age, it seems plausible to think that she is out of business. Maybe right now, she is working as a farmer. She has the strength to do so, but her willingness to commit to a laborious task is lacking. Haha, it sounds funny anyway.” Azukunika tossed and turned, and her braided hair flicked her face. She stroked her hair, the illumination of the moon scintillated the silver strands. It was as if her hair was turning into a nebula.

As she was about to close her eyelids and sleep, a knock came from the iron door. Azukunika got up and perked her face through a small opening. Once she narrowed her eyes, she saw two guards. They giggled and nudged at each other.

“What do you want? Can’t you see that I am taking a beauty sleep here? Scram, go away.”

The guards shook their heads. One of them brought out a parchment. Under the orders of the Lama, it told them to report everything to Azukunika about the situation in the village—including the fate of her parent and family.

“What?! You’re telling me this now?” Azukunika stepped back, she kicked the back of her heels against the drawers. “Well then, don’t stand there! Say something!”

The guards rolled the paper away and stood still. In the hallway where they were, the torches on the wall burned their faces. Their lips dried up and their cheeks went limp. They set their gaze to their feet, and they coughed and sweated. Azukunika scratched her head.

It was then that they proceeded to explain. Slowly and steady their words funneled. Once she heard the first sentence about her mother, her heart shriveled. She collapsed to the bed. She kicked her feet in the air, defiant. Never could this occasion get any worse. The guards ran their mouths and continued their explanations, with every word they said came with a sneer.

“No, no!” Azukunika thrashed her limbs and clawed her nails on the walls. “Those things cannot be true! My family, my mom, they-” She choked, her face turned gray. She couldn’t believe everything they said had actually happened—she thought they were joking around to humor her from this squalid condition. But to hear her mother’s demise was something that she was not able to handle. Her family, she always knew them as resilient, stalwart, that nothing could stop them from their downfall. Such notion was by then out of the window. Everything in her mind went blank, and she could think nothing but horrendous impression of their deaths. Their necks hanging, bullets lining up their arms and legs, their bodies being thrown to the river and fishes eating them, any possible image she conjured created a storm of fright.

The guards wrapping up their statements, said all their accounts were factual, no evidence was needed. They then left the hallway. They went back to work.

Azukunika ripped her necklace and threw it to the ground. “Utter rubbish you scums are spewing! Show me my family! Bring them here!” No matter how much she begged for such a request, her loved ones would never come back to life. All that her family left behind for Azukunika was the burden of the truth. She wanted to blame them for putting themselves in a precarious position, but it wouldn’t change anything. They were forever gone.

Azukunika buried her face upon the pillow. Joining in the noises of the inmates, she screamed and sobbed. Now she had learned about their fates, she looked at her remaining part of her life as dark and futile. What was the use of living any longer? Without her parent, she had nothing to live for. Suicide seemed to be the most honorable, viable option, and it would at least give her peace she needed from the inescapable torture. But pain swelled her entire body, and soon she lacked the courage to end her life.

Azukunika capitulated to her sorrows. More than ever she missed her loved ones. She was alone in her own world. There was nobody to save her.