I had never imagined I would be reunited with my mother even though I secretly longed for such a reunion every day since the morning I discovered she'd been sold. However, I knew deep in my soul that nothing good could come of this and part of me wished my mother was a thousand miles away from here - someplace safe from Master Bangkai.

My heart simultaneously swelled and broke at the sight of my mother's beautiful face as her eyes washed over me and took me in. I had never seen her look so well. Goren had never fed his slaves well or dressed them in anything but rags. It was clear that my mother's face had filled out and her complexion was made even by regular meals. How I longed to reach out and caress her soft, weathered cheeks with my hands!

However, my heart tore in two knowing full well that Master Bangkai was not a truly benevolent master. I was not fooled. She had not brought us together for my good or my mother's good. She had brought us together to use one or both of us for her advantage. I wasn't wrong either. Master Bangkai wasted no time getting to the point of this reunion.

She raised a single, delicate and beautifully manicured finger ever so slightly and I watched on in shock and horror as the unthinkable happened.

One of the security personnel standing beside my mother struck her with a batten to the back of her head and she fell onto her face with a anguished cry. I jumped to my feet instantly and reached out a hand to her. Even though she was 20 feet from me, Kinabuhi's power shot out of my hand and directly into her within seconds of her writhing on the ground.

This had never happened before. The gift had never sprung from my hand and carried itself such a distance, but perhaps, because of my connection to my mother, it was possible for the gift to travel in such an astonishing way. I didn't know if I could do it again but I was relieved, almost to the point of collapsing, when I saw my mother sit up restored and completely unharmed.

Her face lit up with recognition now. She knew who I was finally and her face shone with love and longing for me. I wanted to burn that look into my mind for now and forever because, in my heart, I knew there was only misery ahead of the two of us under Master Bangkai.

There was a general gasp of disbelief and awe among all those who witnessed the event - mostly the security personnel. Master Bangkai was not exactly surprised though. Instead, she clapped her hands approvingly and gave a low whistle just before she laughed with delight.

"Well, you have improved. Seems the good old monks taught you something after all," she said to me while grinning ear to ear in the most frightening way.

Master closed the distance between us and grasped me by my shoulders. I flinched instinctively but she gripped me hard before I had the courage to pull away from her.

Bringing her face down and in line with my own she uttered her next words to me with a pleasant smile on her face as if her words were not completely at odds with her countenance. "Dhuuni, if you do not do as I command, if you do not bring these prisoners back from death again and again as I instruct, then I will torture your mother in the same way I have tortured these prisoners you see here in this room. I will do it myself and I will keep her on the brink of death until you comply. Do you understand me?"

I did understand. My Master was as mad as they came and I would never be able to talk my way or fight my way out of this situation. I loved my mother. I would never put her in such peril. I could never choose these prisoners over her. Not now, not ever. I turned my head ever so slightly so that I could look at her - to assure myself she was really there and that she was fully recovered from the blow of the batten.

My mother, who had never been so well dressed and well fed in all the days I had known her, was staring wide-eyed at me with tears streaming down her face. She said nothing but she shook her head at me. I was gutted. How could she expect me to let her suffer? How could she put that on me. I shook my head at her in return, willing her to see how much I loved her, how much I cared for her. I could never willingly hurt her.

Her face took on a steely look and her eyes became cold, cold like a never-ending winter. She shook her head again but this time much more forcefully. She was not asking, she was telling me not to do this - not to comply with my crazed master.

My mother was asking too much of me. I had only just been reunited with her. How could she ask me to sign her death certificate only moments after we met again? It was impossible. She was asking for something I could not give. I would rather die than let her die a slow and torturous death before me.

Feeling crushed, both in heart and in soul, I turned my face from her and looked up at my Master. If I hadn't known it before, I knew it now, Bangkai was well and truly master of me. I could never defy her so long as my mother's life was hanging in the balance. For the first time in my life I felt beat and powerless despite that I had more healing power flowing through me at this point in my life than ever before.

I nodded at Master and cast my eyes to the ground as my mother let out a piercing wail I will never forget. They had not struck her. I had. By agreeing to Master's demands, I had struck and rent my mother's heart in two. I saw it in her eyes.

She was shocked and disgusted with me. No matter how much I loved her, nothing would change that now. She turned away from me and refused to look at me even though I pleaded with my eyes for her to understand I couldn't be parted with her after all this time. The security staff escorted her out of the kurku and she never once looked back at me.

My gehena was just about to begin.

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I never returned to the surface after that night. Instead, I was cast into a cell, in an empty corridor, which I discovered was rarely lit. My new home was as cold, damp and dark as any underground cave between here and Collain. And, I was utterly alone in this glorified stone coffin. The isolation and the darkness was frightening.

When I was dragged out into the light of the kurku my eyes and ears were immediately assaulted by the grotesque suffering in this place. And, just in case I had forgotten my promise, my mother was dragged out from the corridor where they kept her and forced to kneel by the door.

When Master was there mother never breathed a word to me. Her eyes burned with hatred for me as I walked from prisoner to prisoner and healed their bodies to perfection. I had wanted her to be proud of my gift and how it had increased so substantially since she'd been taken from me, but I never imagined I would demonstrate my new found power to her in such a twisted way. I could see in her eyes that she despised me and my gift. She was revolted by what I was doing to these poor creatures and her every look and snort showed it.

I begged her with my eyes to understand. Why couldn't she see my point of view? Why was she so insulted that I would chose her over strangers? I couldn't understand it and it broke my heart to see her eyes, which once looked at me with such pride, turn bitter and hateful.

She wasn't the only one who grew to hate me. The first time I healed and restored these prisoners to life they were so relieved to be free of their suffering that they cried tears of joy. However, when they came to understand, through bitter experience, that they would be forced to suffer all over again they looked on me with terror. I was not an agent of healing and restoration any more - not to these poor souls. I was now, and perhaps for the rest of my days, a harbinger of eternal torment. 

But, no one could hate me as much as I hated myself. No one was as torn and as conflicted in all this as I was. For my mother and the prisoners there was a clear delineation between what was right and what was wrong. But, for me, I warred inwardly between what I knew in the depths of my soul was right and my desire to keep my mother from a fate worse than death -perpetual torture.

I could only think of keeping her alive. My mind could not entertain anything else no matter how I wept as I brought these tormented bodies back to health. Even when I stared in the face of all my mother's hatred and fury, I could only see that see was alive and breathing and that was enough for me. I would suffer her looks, and the realization that every time I used my gift the rift between us increased ten fold, just to ensure that she was alive and well one more day.

When Master was not in the kurku with us, which was rare, my mother would speak to me. At first she pleaded with me not to do this. Not to use my gift to torture these poor people over and over again. She told me it was inhumane. She told me this was not how she raised me. She explained again and again that Dhuuni brought life and not continual cruciation.

I listened to her and I wept all the harder when I brought another poor victim back from the brink of death because I could not please her if I wanted to keep her alive.

Two months of this and my mother had stopped pleading with me. Now, when Master was not present, she berated me. She told me I was an abomination, that she regretted I was ever born, that I had brought shame and a great curse upon her for turning my beautiful gift into something cruel and gruesome. Every word she spoke was like a red hot poker to my heart. I knew she spoke the truth. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew I had become something revolting but I could not stop. I had to do it to keep her from suffering the same fate.

I hoped and prayed she would come around and hate me less when she understood I could not be a party to torturing and killing her for any reason - not even for the good of all these other people. When I thought of the good of these prisoners, my mind turned to Master Yuyo and his teachings. He would be ashamed of me too if he knew what I was doing. He, like Mother, would think I was a selfish and spineless young woman who lacked the strength of character necessary to make the right decision. Had he been here too, looking at me and scolding me the same way Mother was, I might have broken.

However, they were both freeborn (Mother had been born free even if she lived in slavery now) I reasoned to myself. They saw the world so much differently than slaveborn did. And, they asked the impossible of me. It was easy to sacrifice for others when living with the monks because everyone around me was doing the same. It was quite another thing for my mother to ask me to give up the one thing I cherished above all else - her - to save a bunch of freeborn strangers who would not lift a finger to save me if our roles had been reversed. Why couldn't she see that?

For four more months things went on like this and my mother's hatred and anger only grew. Now she berated me and cursed me even when Master was present. Master laughed openly. She was delighted with the sharp decline in our relationship. She took perverse joy in seeing my obedience to her destroy the love of the only person in the entire world who truly cared for me.

Seeing no way out, I began to beg Kinabuhi to take the gift from me. Even as I ministered her power to the prisoners I prayed under my breath for her to draw it back or to strike me dead. I didn't want myself or my mother to die at the hands of Master but I was willing for Kinabuhi to pronounce judgement on me and strike me dead for my great offenses and transgressions. It seemed only right that she should deprive me of life after what I'd been doing in the kurku these past six months.

But, she never answered my prayer.

                                                            ---------------

Something changed in my mother though. One day they brought her in and she was quiet and calm. Her eyes were not filled with hostility whenever she looked at me. Instead, they looked sorrowful and resolved. I was so relieved by the dramatic change in her demeanour that I didn't think too deeply about it.

As I worked to bring another victim back to life I heard her voice, from across the room, speak to me in a low and almost peaceful manner, "Hashy."  I didn't dare reply to her. I just kept working longing to hear her talk quietly to me and yet terrified at any moment she would turn into the violent, hateful woman I had come to know over the past six months.

"Hashy," she said again. Her voice was still surprisingly calm and I listened eagerly not knowing her words would be like a jagged rock to my already fragile heart. "Every time you use your gift in this way you kill me."

I felt a rush of nausea and my body began to tremble. She continued, unaware of the impact her words were having.

"I know you are terrified that Master Bangkai will torture me but what you have failed to see is that you torture me and desecrate the memory of my people every single time you heal one of these poor souls. Since you have not the will to make things right, I must."

She paused a moment here to take in a deep, steadying breath, which I watched her exhale slowly with her eyes shut. When she opened her eyes again and found me staring at her with horror, her expression did not change. It remained calm and almost serene. This was the look of a woman who had made up her mind and was no longer tortured by doubt and misgivings.

I suddenly felt panicky. I knew deep down that something was wrong, that I was not going to want to hear what else she had to say. But, even so, I could not drag my eyes from her. I watched and I waited while the whole room became as quiet as the grave. The prisoners and the security staff alike held their breath with me as they waited for my mother to continue on.

In the same unwavering voice she said, "I renounce you as my child. You are, from this point forward, a stranger to me. I take no delight in this Hashy. You were once a precious gift to me and a great comfort in my captivity. However, you have lost your way and become something hideous and monstrous. You are not my child, Hashy. You are not of my flesh, you are not of my bone and you are no longer Dhuuni. You have forsaken the ways of our people and our ancestors. You are an Olum Melegi  now and as such me and my people will never claim you."

I knew, from the things that Master Yuyo had read to me about my own people, that an Olum Melegi was a healer who used her gift for selfish gain or for evil purposes. Olum Melegi meant messenger of death. An Olum Melegi was considered the most vile kind of person and she would be ostracized by the entire tribe in times past. I  collapsed to my knees and burst into body-racking sobs. This was how my mother saw me now.

I felt stricken to my core and utterly hopeless but she wasn't finished with me yet.

My mother, whom I loved with all my heart and desired only to keep safe from Master, had one last nail to drive into my shattered heart.

Still, in that same calm voice, she ended her strangely emotionless speech with, "May the Creator curse you and strike you dead for the terrible crimes you have committed against your own people and these innocent victims."

That pronouncement, so clearly and sincerely given, was a death blow to my physical body. I gasped for air as I clutched my stomach and fell to the floor. The blood rushed like a tempest through my ears, my face felt flushed and clammy at the same time, and my vision began to dim.

I opened my mouth to cry out to my mother, to beg for her forgiveness, to tell her I was wrong and I would do anything to make it right. This could not be the end for us. I had to find a way to  return from this horrifying place. I would not be able to survive if I was truly dead to my mother in every way. It was too painful to even consider. I was desperate to turn this nightmare around but I collapsed into darkness before I was able to utter a single solitary word of reconciliation.