The Bracelet

Chapter Four

The pounding headache and the feeling of being moved woke me up, I wanted to open my eyes but my lids were so heavy that I couldn’t. My body felt weak and ached, all over. Painfully I decided to shut my eyes to wait for the aches to subside, but aching became the least of my worries when I saw the blurry image of wooden bars all around me. I was in a cage, a wooden cage at that and it scared me to curiosity.

"Huh!" came out as a crack in a nut and I immediately regretted it as pain shot through the nut that turned out to be my throat. The cage was on a carriage pulled by a horse, a dark shiny one that must have cursed me for my heavy weight. When I turned my face to look around, nothing appeared familiar, the people around and their attire looked nothing but weird to me because who wears armor, shield... IS THAT A SWORD?

They were dressed like soldiers in those classical movies I would always lose interest in after I made out the storyline every time. Those writers need to work harder for an audience like me. "But, what happened? Why am I here? Who are these people? Where are they taking me? Where is this bush?" At this moment I'd become the Queen of whisperers cause as it turned out, I was whispering for all the years that I didn't.

I was weak, thirsty, tired, and aching all over. What was happening? I asked myself repeatedly as I couldn’t think straight, and the last place I remembered seeing was my room, the light, and the bracelet. I checked my wrist on impulse but I couldn’t find it under these restraints that looked like gloves. If not for the aching and tiredness with the circumstances I had just found myself in, I swore I would’ve started singing, “Let it go”.

I tiredly pulled at the chains as I tried to sit up to lean against one of the bars of the cage before realizing it was pinned to the floor of the cage. Then, I looked around and one thing stood sure, I was a long way away from home but how, was another question for when I would be conscious enough to answer?  I finally succeeded in dragging myself to sit up as unconsciousness lingered at the tip of my mind with the sounds of my movements calling on the attention of the men whose undivided attention was fixed on the path we were on. I watched as they stared at me with awe, surprise, and confusion written on their faces before I  looked away and turned to where these men marched.

I focused as the men halted not understanding what was going on. However, I continued to observe with full attention and curiosity. "Suddenly, a loud sound which turned out to be a horn was heard followed by the massive victorious cheers of the soldiers.
They happily cheered and shook each other as we approached what looked like a city gate, a pinnacle of four cubits high and twenty feet wide, built with bricks. I hoped that, if the people of the city saw me in a cage, they would protest and stand against the shameless show of racism I was facing.

However, after the noise had completely died down, a soldier was assigned to throw a large purple linen over the cage and I was completely covered. How would people know I was in here because it was preventing me from seeing what was happening or what was happening from seeing me? The pressure to scream became strong but I was still weak and knew that even if I did, it wouldn’t yield any positive result because it was obvious that those men around me were awed by me and anything I'd do wouldn’t matter.

It’s just like having a mermaid that gurgled. Whatever that creature would do, you would see it as an awesome thing even when it would be trying to tell you, that it'd kill you when an opportunity arises but no, you'd just be there smiling and imitating an ambulance "Wow, wow, wow" Get the point now? I have never felt this clueless before in my life, well except, when I get a gift card however as to why these men kept me like this, I had no freaking idea!

This was not the 1300s but the 21st century, where equality and freedom were hallowed, or wasn’t it? These men looked like they were just coming back from a battle with it so obvious that they might have won, however, what does it have to do with me? What was I doing here? Only the man who held me captive would know. However, would I get any answers while being held like this?

Just then, a thought struck "Every army has a General and every General serves a leader or might be the leader.” I mentally agreed to wait until I met their leader and he would have to give me proper and legal reasons why  I was kept like some kind of dangerous psycho. “Who goes to war like this? Wait! Is this a movie set? Do I even know what one looks like if I see one?  If I am here, it has to be real because I do not remember being into acting, or if I did audition for one and it’s not my birthday for any prank to be expected. However, I thought Korea has fully developed, are people like this still in existence? Is this even still in South Korea?

What if it’s the North?  China or Japan, oh god, what the...” I quickly stopped when I realized panic rising. Oh yes, I could feel panic rise but I wanted to keep myself awake and sane when I conversed with the leader of this fleet of soldiers. After a while, I could feel the carriage halt after the army’s marching sounds stopped a few minutes prior.

“We’ve arrived?” I asked myself because thanks to the linen, I couldn’t see a fly. After what seemed to be a moment, I'd guess the same soldier decided to pull the linen and I was able to make sense of my surroundings. This was a liberal and beautiful place with traditional bungalows and verandas filled with different groups of people walking in different directions, and some just stood upright looking straightforward.

Maidens and eunuchs followed the walking people who were the ministers, while the stationed ones were guards, thanks to the traditional movies that would always bore my soul. It got me thinking that this place has to be a movie set, ancient buildings, mode of dressing, and look at their shoes. I could hide my whole makeup collection in there. I kept looking around feeding my voracious eyes until they met with two doors meticulously that led to the ‘throne room’ I assumed.  They were massive doors with engraved images that seemed to connect with the large size lion head knobs in the middle. I could feel the manacles slightly pulled to get my attention and so I turned my attention to the person who did and a young guard in front of me showed me out of the cage.

While trying to get out of the highly placed carriage, the soldier had me thinking he was a top student of the course “Gentleman 101” when he gently helped me down, and in sincere appreciation, I gave him my flirty killer smile whispering a ‘thank you’.  What I didn't expect was the soldier's facial shade to turn red like strawberry just before losing his balance with his hands on his chest to my surprise, which by the way was hilarious. I giggled before I burst out laughing hysterically just thinking how much power I had over him.

The fact was, my laughter always brought me beautiful compliments wherever and whenever because of how it made others around me, go nuts while laughing at me laughing and this was no different because my actions began to gather attention from onlookers who seemed too busy to get distracted. Who couldn’t help but look at the offender who might have forgotten, that noise made in the palace was an offense punishable by fifty strokes of the plank and that was no joking matter because it could paralyze a healthy young man. Immediately, linen was heaved over my head again - which didn't stop me but made me laugh harder - to prevent further problems and attention because people began to notice the ‘laughing offender who might be crazy’. With the chains gently pulled, I knew they were taking me to their Leader.