Defeat

Defeat

My mouth was dry and my heart beat so hard I thought it would burst from my chest. I pressed myself against the wall, beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I grit my teeth to stop myself from crying out. I had to endure this pain if I ever wanted to get out of here
"So," the figure in front of my sneered, "the little lamb thought she could run from the wolf, did she?"
I took in a deep breath to steady myself. "You'll never win, Durza," I said, my voice shaking.
He grinned, still slowly stepping towards me. "But I've gotten this far," he said, "How could I not win?"
"Because I say so," I growled, pressing my clammy hands against the cool, stone bricks of the wall behind me.
He threw back his head and laughed. "You can't take this torture in silence for long," he pointed out, smug, "Sooner or later, you'll have to succumb."
I bit back a scream as he turned up the level of pain he was inflicting on my mind. I wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing me in pain. Masochistic cow.
He frowned, disappointed by my lack of response (i.e. screaming, dementia, mental breakdown, etc.)
I wished someone could save me, and now. But he'd already gotten rid of my parents, tortured them into insanity, and then left them to die of starvation, locked in our home. I only managed to survive because my parents hid me, and when Durza's men found me, I was strong enough to fight back and save myself. I was six years old at the time.
Now, at the ripe old age of fourteen, I was here, sweating buckets, just because this thing that thought he was brilliant, because he was able to kill people with just his mind. Not only that, but he could attract humans to himself, like bees to honey.
He was inhumanely beautiful- tousled red hair, sparkling green eyes, his high cheekbones tinted a light pink, his thin lips stretched into a lazy smile, over glistening, razor-sharp teeth. And he only looked about seventeen years old, even though he was old enough to be a dinosaurs great-grandfather.
"So what will it be Marissa?" he asked, his face just an inch from mine, "Serve me…or death by life-long torture?"
I could smell him, his scent a sweet, alluring smell, but I ignored it. Normal humans would have fallen into his little trap so easily…but I wasn't any normal human, was I?
"I'd rather be hung by my hair from the tallest tower of this place, and be stoned to death," I spat, glaring fiercely at him.
He smiled, his eyes brightening. "You never change do you?" His long, slim fingers brushed my cheek. I pretended to snarl in disgust, feigned deepest loathing. I would have supported the act by kicking him, but I couldn't break away from his mental hold on me , just yet.
He leaned away, his eyebrows raised. This absolutely miniscule distraction, his shock from my reaction, was all I needed. In a millisecond, I had broken into the shield around his mind.
He stepped back, his lips pulling back from his teeth in an infuriated grimace. I knew he hated having his mind invaded like this. There was only one person who had ever entered his mind before- my mother.
I loved my mother; she was so cool and laid back, and took everything in her stride. I would have never known that her and my father's job had been to get rid of filth like Durza, until I had found the (very) long note explaining everything, while I'd been cooped up in the basement, hiding.
Durza tried to push me out of his mind by trying to mentally electrocute me, but only ended up hurting himself. If he had hurt me, I bet he would have wet himself laughing at the sight of my twitching body.
I became dangerously cocky, and decided to play around with him a bit, get a little revenge while I could. I probed deeper into his mind, his once powerful shields, useless. I preserved some of his dignity however; I wasn't cruel enough to go snooping through his childhood memories (which probably consisted of the times he's burnt ants with a magnifying glass and other gross/weird stuff like that).
"You…can't…win…" he panted, glaring. I was gaining strength now, while he was losing his.
A few minutes, and he was on his knees, still somehow managing to keep an expression of absolute hatred on his face. He and I both knew that he didn't have much time left.
While I watched him slowly die (thought he would have died faster and less painfully if he stopped trying to fight back), I ran through a few of my own memories.
The first encounter; when he had come for me when I was twelve, while I'd been living with my terribly strict aunt and uncle, before they were both killed. Durza had scared the life out of me, even though my parents' note had told me to expect him. Surprisingly, it was my cruel relatives who sacrificed themselves to save me.
I remembered seeing their dead bodies lying before me at my feet on my bedroom carpet, their eyes still wide, the last raps of breath escaping from their lips. By then, Durza was weak after killing two people, so he fled, lighting the house on fire on his way out. I was lucky fire doesn't burn me.
Then I remembered the other times when he’d attacked, set me up and almost killed me, and the time he had posed as my science teacher. The only reason I didn't recognize him was because due to his irritating shape-shifting powers, he disguised himself as a pot-bellied, handle-bar mustache, elderly old geyser. I only found out who he really was, because of the mirrors in his bag, and the frequent trips to the bathroom to 'inspect the mirrors'- all to admire himself. He was very vain.
I shuddered, remembering the times I had barely escaped with my life. I glanced down at the now pink, healed scar that started from the crease of my elbow, all the way down to my wrist- a souvenir of one of our battles.
I returned from my memories to the present. He was on all fours now, his hands curled on the ground, his breath coming in short, labored gasps.
"Are you…really going…to destroy…me?" he gasped, unable to look up.
I'd been expecting this question, but years of perfecting the art of blocking my emotions prepared me for this.
"If I let you live, you would just continue with your plan," I shrugged, gazing into the distance, at the bodies of the soldiers I had so easily slain.
And what was his plan? To kill half of the population of Earth, and create a new world full of perfect humans and 'Durza mini-clones', that was his plan.
"You can't…kill…me," he insisted, coughing.
"Why not?" I frowned, staring at the top of his head, feigning boredom.
He looked up, the colour from his cheeks gone, his face pale, drawn. "I waited…for you," he whispered, through his dry lips, "I only…tired to…kill you…because… I knew…no other…way-" he coughed- "it's how…I was raised…but I stopped…hating you…when I…realized…that I…couldn't…because…" He stopped, curling in on himself, coughing and coughing.
"Because what?" I was curious now, my air of fake boredom gone. I knelt in front of him, watching his face, listening in rapt attention to his last dying words.
"I realized…that I..loved you…always will."
His eyes slowly closed, his body trembling. Then, the last of his life drained away, and his head fell into my lap.
I sat, motionless, my mind frozen into a state of shock, silent tears streaming down my face. I know it's crazy, and no one will ever understand it, after what he'd done, but I'd never told him how I'd felt.


I'd never told him, that I loved him, too.