{Trigger warning: Torture/Trauma}

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🔥Let the World Burn - Chris Grey

****

My hand flew up to my neck to cover it, as I instantly knew what he was looking at. As my fingertips felt the scar tissues surrounding my neck, I mentally cursed myself for having forgotten about it at all.

"What happened to you?"

"D-don't worry, it's just an old scar..." I dismissed, refusing to remove my hand.

"Eli, let me see." Qimir warned as he intimidatingly stepped closer to me. I've seen him pissed, but at that moment, he was an entirely different kind of pissed. His aura was just so intimidating at that moment that I had no choice but to give in.

I averted my gaze as I dropped my hand, letting him touch my chin to lift my face and see my gruesome scars in all their glory.

I really didn't want him to see it.

I didn't want anyone to see it.

It was a mark of my ugly past that I wanted to keep buried in the dark.

"Who did this to you?" he whispered, his voice laced with pain and anger. Well mostly, anger.

"It doesn't matter anymore. I told you, it's an old scar." I dismissed once again.

"It does matter to me." He growled. "Eli, this is not something you get only once. This is a scar you get across a long period of time."

"I know that," I hissed back as I swiped away his hand. I was choking back tears as the memories threatened to flood my mind once again. Of course I knew how I got these scars.

"Eli, tell me who did this to you." Qimir's voice suddenly softened. His cold hard gaze has shifted into that of deep concern, and his hands gently cradled my face.

"Tell me who they are, and I can kill them for you."

My heart dropped at how soft yet how cold-blooded he said that. For some reason, I didn't doubt his words one bit. I knew that if he wanted to, he could snap their necks in a heartbeat, just as he did to those dock guards in Olega.

"I...I can't..." I choked out. My heart swelled at the feeling that he genuinely cared, which I hadn't felt from anyone from my entire life. This broke a wall within me, and I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. "I was too young... I don't know who they are..."

Qimir's lips pressed into a thin line as his eyes shut close, his brows furrowing in concentration. His grip on my cheeks readjusted so he was now basically gripping the sides of my head.

Before I could comprehend what he was doing, all of a sudden I felt a forceful push into my mind, and my eyes rolled back into my head.

****

The sounds of chains clanking constantly echoed across the hallways, and faint moans of pain and agony could be heard from somewhere.

A child about the age of eleven or twelve was kneeling on the cold concrete ground, halfway conscious as she leaned her weight against the metal collar connecting her to the wall.

She was hoping that the tight collar would end up choking her instead, as it would be less painful than her rumbling stomach and the whip wounds on her back.

This child was Eli.

"Get up, little rat!" A man screamed out as he banged on the metal gate of the small room. Little Eli, too weak, couldn't comply so the man threw her food across the floor and kicked her face down the floor.

Eli felt a whip across her back, making her  scream out in pain. It was becoming even more painful everytime due to fresh ones from before haven't even healed yet.

"Now if only you've been a good girl, you wouldn't have been on a leash." He spat out and left the room. Eli weakly crawled across the floor to pick up and eat what was left of her only meal for the day, fighting through the pain and tears that shook her body.

She couldn't even remember how many days she's been here, as she has been on and off conscious several times. But she did keep count how many whips had been on her back.

Fifty four.

And the one from earlier was the fifty fifth.

Eli suddenly heard several voices speaking, along with one speaking an unknown language. The group stopped in front of her cell, and she saw three humans together with one non-human.

A hutt, she recognized.

"Yeah, she's the one." The man from before answered as if he could understand the hutt.

"She's a good thief, but she tried to escape once. She's docile now, though." The second man added, whom she recognized as higher in rank than her torturer.

"You can have her for ten credits."

Ten credits.

She was being sold for ten credits to the hutts.

All of a sudden, the torturer grabbed her harshly by the hair and hissed into her ear. "Don't you dare embarrass me, little rat. You better not scream because if I don't get these ten credits, you'll be getting a hundred whips in return."

Eli clutched her hands tightly as she knew what was about to happen next. She would only be worth as many whips she could endure, and for this one, she had to endure ten.

'It's just ten,' She assured herself. If she'd been able to endure fifty five, then ten should be easy for her.

However, as the first whip landed on her back, all her self-reassurance vanished as the pain seemed to have worsened ten-fold. She bit her hand 'til it bled to keep herself from screaming.

As the next, and the next, and the next one landed, Eli could only hope for death to come save her.

***

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!" I screamed as I was finally able to free myself from Qimir's tight grasp. My body was shaking so intensely, and I couldn't tell if it was because of the tears streaming down my face or the pain coursing through my neck and back, as if my scars were fresh all over again.

I looked at Qimir with pure hatred for making me relieve those horrible memories once again.

I felt betrayed. Violated.

I hugged my body tightly as I slowly backed away from him, and he could only stare at me in disbelief and horror at what he just witnessed in my mind.

"Eli, wait--" he started to come after me, but I turned around and quickened my pace towards the shore. I didn't even care anymore if he saw my entire body once I got out of the water. If he even saw the large whip scars across my back. There was nothing else left to hide from him anyway.

I got dressed as quickly as I could and power walked away from that lagoon. I heard the water splash as he got out the water as well, and I hated how fucking fast he was.

"Eli, could you please wait--" he called out as he rushed to put his pants on, but I had no intention of stopping for him. I wanted to stay away from him. I wanted to stay away from this place.

But of course, despite my efforts, he was fast enough to reach me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a tight hug.

"Let go of me!" I screamed, pounding my fists into his bare chest. I didn't care if it hurt him. I wanted to hurt him.

"No," he said stubbornly and kept me locked into the hug, his hand tightly cradling the back of my head. Despite my punches and scratches in my desperate attempt to free myself, he didn't let go. He was pressing me so tightly against his body that I could feel both our heartbeats racing against each other.

When I ran out of energy, I finally calmed down and accepted that I had nothing against his raw strength.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. I remained silent and kept my head low, letting the tears flow down my face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"It hurts," I croaked out, realizing that I was still shaking. My scars still burned on my skin.

"I'm sorry..." He said again as he gently caressed my back, as if to ease the pain. When he felt assured that I wouldn't try and escape anymore, he slightly pulled away to look at my face.

He gently brushed away my tears, and I saw in his eyes how he deeply regretted intruding my mind like that.

"If only I knew where you were, I would've come and saved you. I would've never let anything like this happen to you."

I gently shook my head. "You couldn't have known. You couldn't have done anything."

"I could end the people who ever hurt you." He said softly as he gently touched my cheek. My eyes fluttered close at the warmth of his hand against my tear-streaked face.

"I could burn the whole world for you, if that's what it takes. All you need is ask."

And that's when I realized it. He wasn't speaking to me as Eli.

He was speaking to me as Elysia.

I realized, whoever she was, he loved her dearly. He was willing to turn his back against the whole world for her. And I just so happened to look exactly like her, his lost love, that he kept getting confused with his feelings around me.

Why he saved my life back in Olega.
Why he brought me here to treat my wounds.
Why he's so concerned of my past, and why he's so affectionate with me now.

Would he have done all this if I didn't look like her?

I gently pulled Qimir's hand away from my face as I stepped away.

"Qimir, I'm not your Elysia." I bluntly said, but I didn't expect that it would sting my heart a little. "Whatever my past is has nothing to do with you. So you could stop treating me so nicely, because I'm not her."

I watched how he blinked back into his right mind, as if he was just in a trance moments ago. And with the way his gaze dropped to the ground, I got my confirmation that my theory was right.

He was, once again, under the illusion that I was Elysia.

He finally let me walk away on my own as he pondered about what just happened. Meanwhile, I felt like I just earned another scar in my chest.

****
[A/N]:
Don't google whip scars for your own mental health. It's gnarly.