As I was lying to the Mog, I thought I was doing it so he would spare Katarina, let her live. But as soon as I saw his knife pierce her heart I realized what I was really doing: hastening her end. I was giving him everything I knew so he would finish her off, so she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore, so I wouldn’t have to watch her suffer anymore.
I tell myself that was the right thing to do. That it’s what Katarina would’ve wanted. She was in such pain.
But I’ve been without her so long at this point that I would give anything for another moment with her, even if she had to suffer unimaginable torments for it. I want her back.
The Mogadorians continue to test the boundaries of my conditional immortality. These trials take time to plan and construct. But every week or so I am dragged out of my cell and brought to another, jury-rigged for my destruction.
The first week after Katarina’s death I was brought to a small chamber and made to stand on a sharp steel grill several feet off the floor. The door was sealed behind me. I waited for a few minutes as the room filled with noxious-looking gas, curling up from beneath the grill in green tendrils. I covered my mouth, trying not to breathe it, but I could only hold my breath for so long. I gave up, gulping in their poison, only to discover it smelled like the coolest and freshest of mountain breezes to me. Furious Mogs dragged me out of the room minutes later, pushing me quickly back to my cell, but I could see the pile of dust beside the door on the way out. The Mog who had pushed the button releasing the gas had died in my place.
The next week they tried to drown me; the week after, they tried burning me alive. None of these affected me, of course. Last week, they served me food laced so heavily with arsenic I swear I could taste each poison grain. They had brought a cake to my cell. They had no reason to treat me with dessert, and I knew at once that it was their hope to trick me with the cake—and in turn trick the charm. They hoped that if I didn’t know my life was in danger, the charm wouldn’t work.
Of course I suspected them at once.
But I ate the cake anyway. It was delicious.
By eavesdropping against the slot of my cell door, I later learned that not one but three Mogadorians perished from the attempted poisoning.
How many Mogadorians does it take to bake a cake? I asked myself later. Then, with malevolent satisfaction, I answered: Three.
I allow myself to imagine a happy outcome in which the Mogadorians, who seem to place little value even on their own lives, keep trying to kill me and end up dying in the attempt, until there are no Mogadorians left. I know it is just a fantasy, but it’s a happy one.
I have no idea how long I’ve been here. But I have grown so hardened to their execution attempts that I am fearless as they drag me through the halls to yet another. This time I am thrown into a large, drafty space with dim lights, larger than any room I’ve been in so far. I know I am being watched through one-way glass or a video monitor, so I wear my face in a sneer. A sneer that reads: Bring it on.
Then I hear it. A low, guttural moan. It’s so deep I can feel it, rattling through the floor. I whirl around to see, deep in the shadows of the room, a large steel cage. It looks familiar.
I hear jaws snapping hungrily, followed by the sounds of massive lips smacking.
The piken. The beast from our trip out here.
Now I am scared.
There’s a bright flash. Suddenly I’m bathed in strobing red lights, and the steel bars of the cage retract.
Weaponless, I fall back against the opposite corner of the room.
Clever, I think. The Mogs have never pitted me against a living creature before.
The piken steps out. A four-legged monster, it stands like a bulldog the size of a rhino: forelegs bowed, mouth all dripping, sagging jowls. Massive teeth jut from its mouth like tusks. Its skin is a putrid, knobby green. It smells of death.
It roars at me, drenching me in a spittle so thick I fear I will slip on it. Then it charges.