novelraw Chapter 40: JACOBS POV.
Chapter 40: JACOBS POV.
Chapter 40: JACOBS POV.
"Urrgh...."
A low groan escaped my throat as I slowly regained consciousness.
My head felt like it had been used as a punching bag by a giant squid.
There was a dull throb behind my eyes, and my face felt swollen and sore from where I’d hit the ocean floor.
I tried to move, but my body felt heavy and sluggish, like I was buried under a pile of wet sand. Probably the after effects of the beating I was dished.
As my vision began to clear, I blinked in surprise.
The first thing I saw wasn’t the dark, jagged ceiling of the cave or the cold sand of the seabed.
Instead, I saw two beautiful mounds hovering just inches above my face.
It took my brain a few seconds to process what I was looking at.
My eyes drifting upward, following the curves of pale skin, until I realized where I was.
I was laying head-first in someone’s lap.
The view above me was none other than Persephone’s soft chest.
Of course I didn’t gawk like an idiot, this wasn’t the first time I was resting in her lap, rather I felt a wave of gloom wash over me.
’Why... Why did I have to come back here...’
I grimaced at my own folly. I wanted to reach up and rub my temples, but I was too afraid to move.
Of all the places in the vast, endless ocean that I could’ve accidentally swum into, why did it have to be back here with her?
I had outrun a hundred sharks, saved a village from a potential calamity.
And was in the midst of planning what scrumptious meal i’d eat on Artria’s comfortable bed.
Yet now, non of those things would ever happen again!
Because I was right back at the start, trapped in the arms of the one person who terrified me the most.
"Look who’s finally awake..."
Persephone’s voice drifted down to me. I looked up and saw her glancing down at me.
To my utter confusion, she was pouting. Her lips were turned down in a small, childish frown, and her eyes weren’t glowing with that terrifying red light anymore.
Instead, she looked just like Artria usually did.
I shivered inwardly, to think this monster could actually cause such a reaction in me.
Wait? Why was she pouting? I wondered, my mind racing to catch up.
And what on earth was I doing in her lap?
Shouldn’t she be torturing me right now?
After all, she had seemed really pissed off the last time I was conscious.
Back then, she looked ready to tear me limb from limb for staying at the village for so long.
So how come she seemed calm now.
Honestly, I couldn’t figure it out.
The shift in her mood was so sudden and strange that it made my head spin even more than the concussion did.
But since she didn’t look pissed like before, I felt a tiny bit of relief.
The crushing weight of fear in my chest loosened just a bit.
Without thinking, a light, nervous smile crept onto my face. I guess I was just happy to be alive and not currently being eaten by sharks or strangled.
"Wipe that smug grin off your face before I do it myself," Persephone said.
Of course. Good things never last. Her voice was cold again, cutting through my brief moment of relief like a shard of ice.
The pouting remained, but the temperature in the water around us seemed to drop.
"I’m still upset with the fact that you left me here alone. How could you worry your mistress like that..."
I stared at her, my jaw dropping. Was she serious? She sounded like a hurt girlfriend complaining about a late date, not a cold hearted sea witch who had left her servant for dead in the middle of some dilapidated reef.
"And after everything I did for you!" she continued
"I even went out of my way to help you, I made you into something stronger, and gave you an opportunity."
" But instead of being grateful, you ran off to that blue-haired witch! Didn’t you! Don’t even try to deny it... I can smell her foul scent all over you...." She squinted her eyes to a dangerous degree.
" I’m sure you also ate her food too, right?" She revealed a cruel smile that could easily cause ones blood to turn cold.
Normally, I would be absolutely terrified right now, stuttering out apologies, begging for her not to kill me, and promising to never see Artria again.
That was what I usually did anyway, in order to survive, I just had to do as she said, and hope to live another day.
But quite the contrary, I felt a spark of something else.
Rather than fear, I was annoyed. No, I was beyond annoyed. I was angry.
’What the hell is she talking about?!’ I thought, the heat rising in my chest. ’Running off? She was the one who almost sent me to meet God!’
The memories of the day she left me came rushing back.
The way she had beaten me until I couldn’t move.
How she had looked at me as she did it, and her swimming away afterwards, leaving me for dead.
If it hadn’t been for that random merfolk finding me in time and taking me back to Artria’s village, I would’ve been a pile of bones at the bottom of the reef right now.
And yet, she still has the gal to act like I was the one who had committed some great betrayal.
It was too irritating to stomach.
She was acting like the victim in a story where she was clearly the villain.
"If anyone’s to blame! It’s you!" I accidentally blurted out.
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
My heart stopped. My body began to shiver violently as the reality of what I had just done hit me.
My eyes widened, and I felt the color drain from my face for the second time that day.
’Fuck! What did I just do?!’
I panicked inwardly, my eyes glancing upwards at her face.
I felt even more fearful when I saw her expression change.
The pout was gone. Her cold, hard glare was fixed on me, and for a second, the water seemed to stop moving altogether.
"You’re blaming me?" she said.
Her voice was no louder than a whisper, but that sentence was more than enough to chill my spine.
The lap that had felt soft a moment ago now felt like a bed of stone.
I suddenly wanted to plead for mercy,
But then again, something occurred to me.
What’s the point of all this? Why should I continue to fear this woman?
I lay there, looking up at her beautiful, angry face, and I realized that I was tired.
I was tired of running. I was tired of being afraid.
I was tired of waking up and wondering if today was the day I’d be killed for saying the wrong thing.
It was very clear to me that she had been doing as she pleased all this time.
She treated the world like her playground and me like her favorite toy.
If I went back to being her servant, would anything change? Or would I only continue to endure under her feet, waiting for the next time she got bored or angry enough to leave me for dead again?
Is that what I wanted? A pitiful life of servitude under someone like her?
I thought about the village. I thought about Garin’s kindness and the way the mermen had stood by me even when they were scared.
Even Artria who found me irritating at first at least treated me like a person instead of a "thing."
Even if Persephone claims she was looking for me now, even if she’s acting like she missed me, it still doesn’t change the facts that she almost killed me.
I took a shaky breath, my lungs still feeling the bruise from the ocean floor. I didn’t look away from her glare. For the first time, I didn’t lower my eyes when faced with her pressure.