“I was a child like any other, I enjoyed playing, I loved spending time with my mom… and dad” Divinity stopped for a minute after she mentioned her father to Gabalawi, who went to her right after the matches to hear her out and find out what she wanted from him.

  “Our family was small, only me, my mother and my father. So, we had a comparatively good life compared to everyone else around us, who usually gave birth to as many children as they could like they were in a race. I was eating well. I dressed nicely.

  “My mom had enough time for me to teach me everything mothers taught to their daughters. I loved her very much, but she was taken from me early. Some weird illness the healer didn’t know about took her. To save his reputation after he failed, he said the spirits cursed her, but I don’t believe that. My mother was heavenly, and nobody would ever think of harming her.”

  She paused again. It almost looked like she was going to cry, but she held it back.

  “Even though I was too young to understand these things, it broke my heart. I cried every night until I fell asleep. Nothing prepares you for losing a loved one. I doubt age even matters much in that regard

  “My perfect life was over; I didn’t think any harm could befall me from my father’s side. He didn’t exhibit any harmful tendencies towards me or my mother, but it was like he was an entirely different man after she died.

  “He started drinking heavily right after she died, and came home very late at night drunk. He wouldn’t talk to me for days on end. My mother taught me how to cook, though, so I just took care of myself while he spiraled down a bottomless pit of sorrow.

  “He didn’t even eat at our house anymore, so he completely disregarded supplying the house with any food. Luckily the neighbors noticed what was happening, after all he took off each day in the afternoon when he woke up and came back in the dead of night. They kindly supplied me with some rice or vegetables they could spare, and I cooked them.

  “I didn’t know what to do; I was too young to do anything about it, not sure why I am speaking in past-tense honestly, I am still so young, but what happened made me grow beyond my years.”

  She sighed heavily and couldn’t stop a tear from falling, and said, “What happened made me lose my childhood. I feel like it was stolen from me way too early.”

  She paused and thought about how to continue her tale. “I…I got ahead of myself. Let me backtrack and tell you exactly what happened.”

  Gabalawi felt a heavy lump in his stomach and felt like his heart was being squeezed inside his chest; here was a child that probably suffered even more than he suffered. If anyone knew anything about injustice, it was him, and nobody hated injustice as much as him. He didn’t even care what she was going to say. He was going to help her unconditionally, he solemnly swore in his heart, as he gave her a reassuring look to encourage her to continue where she left off.

  “Sometimes I think that maybe I could have tried to reach out to him, and save him from that pit, but I was too young to even have such a conversation like we are having now. Advancing as a yin cultivator expands your mind, strengthens your body, and make you get in touch with things you didn’t even know existed.

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  “He went on like this for months. I didn’t even have a conversation with the neighbors that gave me food, and nobody had a conversation with him. Maybe they thought he would find his way out for the sake of his daughter, but it was like I dropped off the face of the earth for him. I ceased to exist with my mother’s passing. Until that night...”

  The sad look in her eyes changed for a second into one of hatred, anger, and ruthlessness.

  It was clear as day for Gabalawi that the memory was the most hated in her young life.

  “My father came back one night, and I was getting out of the toilet between sleep. He saw me, and he walked over towards me and extended his palm to me. That made me ecstatic; I thought I had him back. I held his hand, and he took me towards his bedroom. I thought nothing of it; he looked very normal.

  “Once inside, he closed the door and bolted it. He held me by my shoulders and made me sit on his bed and started taking off his clothes. That’s when I thought something was wrong, and I tried to leave, but he lunged at me and threw me back on the bed. He continued taking the rest of his clothes off, as I was trying to orient myself again as my body hit the bed hard. I tried to run again, but he wrestled my body back to the bed and got on top of me”

  Her expression was going to become one of sadness, but she forced herself to look aggressive and angry again; she didn’t want to look weak at this moment.

  “He raped my body repeatedly and fell asleep, but I wasn’t aware of that. I died before he had finished—a merciful death if yin cultivators weren’t a thing. It should have ended there.” At that point, Divinity couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. She wept, and kept repeating, “It should have ended there”

  Gabalawi got down on one knee and hugged Divinity. She beat on his chest as she kept repeating, “It should have ended there”

  After she calmed down, Gabalawi asked, “What happened next? When did you wake up as a yin cultivator?”

  “He woke up the next day and found me dead beside him. I don’t know what his reaction was, but he waited until nightfall, when everyone in the village closed their doors, and took me out wrapped in a dirty mat to the cemetery. The undertaker understood exactly what had happened after he saw my body. The only thing he cared about was hearing the tale of the rape in every detail.

  “I was slowly waking up, but I didn’t have any energy at all to move, let alone open my eyes, but I could hear them weakly, like they were speaking far away. As my father got to the end of his tale, obliging the perverted undertaker, answering all his questions in extreme detail. The undertaker told him he had nothing to worry about, and that he should just leave, knowing that his secret is safe with him. Especially that my father paid him well, he paid him all that he had with him at that moment.

  “The goddess didn’t think one rape was enough though, after my father left the undertaker took me down to a freshly dug up hole, and did it again, totally thinking that I was dead. After he was done, he left without filling up the grave, and an hour later I finally had enough energy to leave that hellish place.”

  Divinity looked dissociated as she told the rest of her tale, like it happened to someone else, as if there was a switch of emotions somewhere in her brain and she turned it off.

  “I try to laugh and play and act my ‘age’ as you grownups would say, but I can’t move on. I can’t continue living while these monsters are still out there alive, enjoying their lives, potentially planning their next victims.”

  She looked at Gabalawi and said, “I want revenge on both, and I want you with me. I don’t want you to kill them; I just want you there to intervene if there is any unexpected development. I’ll take my revenge on both, and I’ll come back alive.”

  Gabalawi gave her a resolute nod, and said, “No harm will befall you from the moment we leave the sect, until we come back. You will get your revenge. By this I swear.”

  Divinity smiled faintly and said, “I knew you were the right one, Gabalawi, thank you. One day I’ll repay you for this favor.”

  “You owe me nothing, but I owe you justice since you trusted me with this, and justice will be served.”