Chained(winny) “Move! Faster!” the man’s voice boomed across the small market.
It was blistering even though the wind was wreaking havoc, bringing along sand and small stones that could be carried away. The weather was harsh but it was expected as it was a common reoccurrence in the Arabian Desert. Everyone was wearing clothes that could protect them from the sandstorm but us. The man kept yelling at us, his voice was muffled but it could still be heard. The clanking of chains as we walked through the stares from inhospitable eyes was surely loud and clear in everyone’s ears. Everyone. But not even one of the hundreds of people, who stopped whatever they were doing to stare at us, was brave enough to stand against the injustice in front of their eyes.
Soon enough, the weather became calmer and everyone’s visions became clearer. I could see that fingers were pointed at our chained limbs and shabby clothes and critics were thrown at our freedom and fate. I looked down in shame, feeling extremely inferior and hid my complexion. I could never get used to this feeling even though I had felt like this for as long as I could remember.
“Mom, what’s with them?” I could see, through my peripheral vision, a little girl tugging her mom’s clothes and the lady just gave her an unknowing shrug, followed by an “I don’t know”. Liar. It had always been like this. No one wanted to acknowledge slaves like us and no one had ever told their children as they were scared the little kids would speak up against the injustice and would be punished.
Now I wished that we had reached our destination because I couldn’t stand the walk of shame anymore. Unfortunately, we hadn’t eaten anything for the past couple of days so we could only drag ourselves with the few amount of energy left in us. My head felt heavy and I couldn’t stand the weight of my body on my feet. Suddenly, I could hear screams and cries erupting at the back, it was like a dreaded symphony of horror piercing my ears. The man who was leading us, Samir the slave trader, turned his face to look at whatever it was behind us. I looked at him as his eyes grew wider and the fear painted in his features was unmistakable. I didn’t dare to look back. Samir was now running away, along with other slaves who were trying to escape. I should be following them. I commanded my feet to run but they didn’t move at all. It seemed like everything and everyone around me were moving in fast motion but I was stuck in the middle. Everyone was running around, some people were shouting harsh words and others were begging for mercy. Mercy? What was happening? The chaos made me dizzy; I could feel my blood draining; my hearing went as the noises seemed to drown; little black blotches swarmed my vision and I could hear someone shouted, “Raid!” before the world tilted and everything faded to black.

***

I opened my eyes and blinked several times to adjust them. I was lying on the ground. The first thing I saw was the sky, which was a mixture of orange, red and purple. The sun was setting. But where was I? What happened to me? I couldn’t remember a thing and the more I tried to remember, the harder my head pounded. I placed a hand on my head to massage it as I sat up and took in my surrounding. I was in a small alley and no one was around even though there were a couple of stands that were messy. Everything looked messy. There were apples, oranges, some cloths and even slippers scattered on the ground. They were from the stands. Who did this?
“You’re awake,” I jumped in surprise at the sound of the voice behind me. It was a guy. He was staring at me with his brown eyes, which were twinkling with a glint of amusement. I didn’t say anything and just looked at him. He had thick, black hair and a prominent, perfectly straight and narrow nose. His jaw was strong and his eyebrows were thick. He had sun-kissed tan skin.
“Come,” he said. He was offering his hand to help me up. “Let’s get you something to eat, you look like you haven’t eaten for days.”
I didn’t take his hand and got up by myself. He sighed and placed his hand on his side. I was not going to let him, or anyone, help me. I didn’t like accepting help. For me, it was a sign of weakness and inferiority. I was already a slave and I wouldn’t want to stoop lower than this and feel even more inferior to others. Eighteen years of being a slave had taught me that I couldn’t trust anyone at all. This world was too cruel. Each time I decided to trust someone, they would always break it and betray me. I thought I needed help but then I realized that no one would want to do anything for a slave like me because I was the lowest and help was something I didn’t deserve. I knew exactly where I stood in this hierarchy of life.
“Okay, you don’t want help. I see,” he mumbled awkwardly.
After a moment of silence, he decided to speak again. Ugh, why couldn’t he just leave me alone and let me figure out what was happening?
“Umm, can I ask you something?” he asked hesitantly. I nodded curtly and he continued. “Are you, perhaps, a slave? You know, I don’t mean to offend you or anything but your hands and legs were chained when I found you and I thought that only slaves were chained like that. Anyway, I helped you to get rid of those chains. Do you feel weird? Did I do the wrong thing? Because it seems that you ha-“
“Please, stop talking,” I cut his rambling off. I tried to maintain an expressionless face but deep inside, I felt extremely confused and happy at the same time. I had just realized that my chains were removed when his words were registered to my brain. I was free. There was nothing to hold me back anymore. I could run away from those Samir and his friends, who were also slave traders, and live a happier life. After eighteen years of being chained to slavery, I could finally get rid of them. But I was sure that I wouldn’t live happily when my thoughts would be filled with those slave traders trying to find and kill me. Anyway, how did he destroy the chains? He wouldn’t be able to do that unless he was a slave trader or a-
“Thief. I am a thief. My job is just as embarrassing as yours, you know,” he muttered and laughed humorlessly. It was as if he could read my mind.
“I didn’t ask you,” I blurted. And I instantly regretted it.
His jaw was clenched and anger was flared in his cocoa brown eyes. “Can you please stop being so offensive?” he was not shouting but there was something in his low and deep voice that made me shudder. He was clearly infuriated.
I was slightly scared but I wasn’t going to let this stranger see, or sense, my fear. I tilted my chin upwards so that I could look at him and held my glare on his eyes. “I am not being offensive. It’s called defensive, Sir.”
“Defensive,” he scoffed with disdain. “In fact, you should be grateful that I have saved you from your demise and free you from those chains. A ‘thank you’ would have been appreciated. Besides, there’s no reason for you to be so defensive with me. I saved you, remember?”
I scowled at him. “Oh, I do. It’s people like you that I do not trust. You act like you care about me right now then when I decide to trust you, you’d take advantage of it and sell me to those slave traders or anything just as bad. People like you are such -”
“Please, stop being a hypocrite,” he cut me off before I could even finish my rant. “I know that you’re secretly grateful that I have helped you. You are so full of pride and hard-headed, aren’t you? And you don’t have to classify me like that when I was just doing you a favor,” he hissed at me. His voice was brittle with annoyance. A muscle ticked under his right eye and I just realized how angry I had made him. I swore he was barely restraining himself from shredding me to pieces.
“You’re deluding yourself that you are doing me a favor. I admit that I’m happy about my chains but now, you are making my life even more miserable. For one, those slave traders will find out that I have escaped and they will try to find me again or even kill me. I have to live a life full of terrors,” I spoke with a hint of menace. “Thank you very much,” I said with sarcasm dripping in my tone. I knew that I should have been grateful to him but I just couldn’t bring myself to accept the fact that I had received his help or that I had needed him.
He opened his mouth and was about to say something when someone suddenly shouted. “Ali! Where are you?” Ali. His name was Ali.
He quickly ushered me to a nearby stand and asked me to stay low. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is here but listen to me. This town is robbed so you can get nothing from here. You need to escape this town anyway, the slave trader might be searching for you after my friends let him go. But for now, stay here until my friends and I are gone.”
I nodded at him and he smiled. He smiled for the first time. “See you, Myra,” he said, looking at the name woven on the fabric of my clothes; it was my previous master’s rule that every one of his slaves should have their names woven on their clothes. Then he went after giving me some dates.

***

I had eaten the apples that Ali gave me and they were enough to make me full. When nighttime came, I immediately came out of my hiding place and made sure that the group of thieves was gone. I was still at the market and I was all alone so I decided to take the things that I needed before my journey. I took some dates, pomegranates and other fruits, some clothes and drinks from the abandoned stands and put them in a sack that I found at one of the fruit stands. After I had everything that I needed, I walked across the town to the gates leading me to the Arabian Desert, making sure that no slave trader would see me. Everyone in town had just been released by the thieves and they were now mourning over their treasures that were gone or making sure that their loved ones were safe. It was easy to get away from these people and I reached the gates, the threshold of the city, in no time.
Before I left the town, I looked back and hesitated whether this was a good idea. I had escaped from the evil clutches of Samir or his friends for a couple of times but I never went this far and always failed. I had never tried to cross the desert by myself because whenever I ran away, someone would try to get me back to Samir just to get some silvers from him. That was why I was one of the few slaves who were chained. Samir’s business was quite different from other slave traders. He didn’t sell his slaves but he let others hire them for the amount of time that his clients had agreed on. He thought that that was the best way to make use of a slave. He didn’t have to find other slaves because he was able to make a lot of money from different people out of one slave. They were like his investments.
Samir's face appeared in my mind and I instantly felt nauseous. Samir had threatened me and said that if I tried to escape again, he would find me even if it was to the ends of the Earth and wouldn’t hesitate to murder me. I swore he hated me with a passion and had been restraining himself from killing me just because I was one of his “investments”. For one, I had given him a lot of hard times by escaping and he had lost some clients because of me. By the time he realized that I was gone, I was pretty sure that he would be searching the whole country for me. And I wasn’t exaggerating.
At the thought of Samir bludgeoning me, I immediately ran out of the gates. The desert was vast and there was nothing that I could see in the darkness, except for a few bushes and shadows of some cactuses here and there. I walked aimlessly, having no clue where I was going. I just wanted to get away from Samir and that town, I would go to any town that I could find and settle down for a whole new life.
It was cold as a ghoul’s soul and eerily silent. A blast of wind prickled my skin and chilled me to the bones as it speared me. I couldn’t stand the coldness and was soon feeling numb. I decided to take some clothes that I had stolen and wore them over the thin fabric that covered my body. I felt better but my body couldn’t stop shivering. Nevertheless, I decided not to stop and continued on my journey. Eighteen years of being tired, of being beaten, of being a slave, had helped increase my endurance to pain and hardships.
The silence was deafening and frightening. I could see nothing and that made my sense of hearing even more sensitive to the softest sounds. It felt like my eardrums could catch the vibrations of sound to the highest distinction of clarity. The silence of the wind lashing against me felt like a whisper of warnings. The shuffling of my feet as I walked felt like another person’s footsteps and I couldn’t help feeling that someone was stalking me. The constant paranoia began to threaten my sanity so I decided to send those thoughts away and just walked. I walked, and walked, and walked, under the myriad of stars and along the sand dunes, against the direction of the wind.

***

It had been two days since I left the town. Surprisingly, I was still alive. Unfortunately, my food and drink supplies were running low and I didn’t know if I could survive another day at the desert. I hadn’t found anything and I began to regret my decision. I also felt extremely exhausted. I had walked continuously for hours and only took a rest when my feet were numb. I hadn’t even slept.
Today was just like any other day at the desert. The sun was hanging on the sky in all its glory and its heat was scorching and searing. I had to endure this, I kept reminding myself.
After several hours of walking, I could hear voices in the distance. I just stood on my ground, frozen. What if they were slave traders? Or worse, what if they were Samir and his friends? There was no point in running away, the desert was vast and there was nothing but sand dunes. I couldn’t hide and my feet wouldn’t even move. As the voices became closer, I could see a caravan of camels. One of the people noticed me and pointed at me to his friends. I felt bad and a shudder ran down my spine. They were going to kill me and drink my blood. They were going to eat my meat. They were going to cu-
“As-salām 'alaykum,” a man greeted me. I supposed he was the leader of the caravan.
“Wa 'alaykum as-salām,” I replied politely.
He was looking at me and at my sack. “What in that?” After realizing that he was asking about the sack I was carrying, I answered him. “Oh, it’s just dates, pomegranates and some clothes.” He was scrutinizing me as his friend whispered to him.
“Would you like to join our caravan? You look like you’re really tired,” the man offered.
I didn’t know what happened to me. Maybe it was the scorching sun, maybe it was the thought of dying alone in the desert or maybe it was the sickly sweet tone that the man used to me that I accepted his help.
The group of people in the caravan was surprisingly very kind to me and I found myself starting to open up to them. When nighttime came, they set up tents and I helped them with it. They even let me sleep with them. I was extremely happy that for the first time in forever, I could bring myself to trust someone. No, scratch that. I could trust a group of people! That night, I slept peacefully and the idea of a new, happier life became even more realistic to me.
Or so I thought.

***

I woke up feeling all rainbows and daisies. Yes, I was extremely happy and couldn’t wait to spend a new day with my new friends. I looked around the tent and found that it was empty. Hmm, my friends sure woke up early. I tried to reach for my sack that I had placed behind me but could feel nothing. I whipped my head and looked around the tent. There was nothing. Maybe my friends put them outside.
I walked out of the tent and to my horror, the other tents were gone. And there was no one. I was left all alone. The people in the caravan were all gone with their camels. There was nothing else; nothing else but me and the small tent. And they took my sack, my only survival kit.
At that point, I broke down. I cried and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. Why would those people help me when I was no one to them? Of course they wanted to take advantage of me. Why couldn’t I just run away when all along I had believed that no one could be trusted? Why did I let them deceive me just like that?
“Hello again, Myra.”
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I knew that voice very well. It belonged to the person who had been making my eighteen years of life a living nightmare. Samir. He was here and he was going to kill me. I might as well die right now than suffer for the rest of my life. So I took no attempt to run away and just glared at him through my teary eyes.
“It’s good to see you,” he sneered at me with disdain as he jumped off his camel and walked towards me. I stayed on my place and didn’t move. “Did you have a good sleep?” I didn’t reply him.
“Of course you have! Good, because that might be the last time,” he muttered slyly as he pulled out a sword from his sheath. I flinched as he put the tip of the sword on my neck. “The people you met yesterday were my allies, you know. I couldn’t believe that you think that you can run away from me. You knew that I would kill you yet you still tried to find an opportunity to run away. I may as well fulfill your death wish, Myra.”
He spat out my name as if it was the most disgusting thing he had ever said. I didn’t dare to look at his murderous face so I just looked down on my hands. I was ready to be killed. I didn’t have a reason to live anyway. My life was going to end just like this. I closed my eyes tightly and prepared myself to feel the knife. Surely it would only sting a little before my life ended, right? I kept on convincing myself that it would just hurt a little.
How many times would he stab me? Would he skin me alive? I began to think of various scenarios of how I would die. But surely, I would die a pathetic death. And there would be no funeral. I was so ready for my life to be taken when suddenly, someone shouted.
“Stop!” someone shouted.
I fluttered my eyes open and Samir dropped his knife out of surprise. I saw someone standing in front of Samir but I couldn’t figure out who he was. I couldn’t see his face as the sunlight blinded my sight. Samir stood up and was about to take his knife but I snatched it quickly and stood up myself. I could now take a good look at my hero and realized that it was Ali. Ali saved my life again! Samir was about to wrestle me when Ali took a step forward and punched Samir’s gut. Samir might not look like it but he was a strong man. He quickly stood up and kicked Ali’s shin. Ali crouched for a moment but it was enough time for Samir to throw a punch at his cheeks. Ali groaned and stood up to give his opponent a fast and powerful roundhouse kick in the ribs. Samir howled a tormented sound and before he could get himself together, Ali threw a punch at his jaw and I could see blood from Samir’s teeth and gum. Ouch.
After punching Samir until he was lying on the ground with blood splattered all over, Ali stopped. “Don’t you ever hurt her again or even try to find her, I will skin you alive,” Ali spat out. I couldn’t believe that Ali would do such things for me.
When Ali was helping me to get on his horse, I asked him, “Why are you so kind to me? Is there something in me that you want?”
He chuckled. “No, Myra, it’s just that you remind me of my Mom. She used to be a slave too, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but now she’s living happily with my father.”
“How lucky.”
“Don’t you feel lucky too?” he smirked. I playfully smacked his head before he got on his horse on my back.
“Where are we going?” I asked curiously.
“Somewhere safe,” he said.
“What about your friends?”
“The thieves? I stopped being one so yeah, they’re not my friends.”
“Great, now we are both in danger, aren’t we? Your friends would be planning a vengeance on you just like what Samir did to me or maybe worse. I mean, you’re thieves.”
“Not really,” he chuckled. “They wouldn’t mind this kind of thing, you know. Besides, I have protected you and will protect you if they ever try to hurt you.”
“Stop being so kind! We don’t know each other yet you’re willing to help me to this extent.”
“Well, that’s how people become friends, right? They start at being strangers who are kind to each other, I guess,” he trailed off and I smiled at that. “You trust me, right?”
I didn’t know if I would regret trusting him but the sincerity in his tone felt too real to be a lie. I just had my trust snatched away but I couldn’t seem to refuse this certain man. So I said “yes” and it was the best decision I had ever made. Even if my chains were broken, I was still chained at heart.

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