However, Iris’ childhood was truly cursed, evidenced by the next event in her life which saw Gilbert approaching her cell with a tray of warm food and a jovial smile plastered across his evil features.
“~Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…~” He began singing merrily as he made some dance moves. “Happy thirteenth birthday, my daughter. You’re a teenager now! Let’s celebrate this occasion by skipping today’s lectures.” Gilbert stated as he placed a plate into her cell.
Instead of a cake, it was filled with meat and rice. He brought a chair to place it facing her cell and plopped down on it, then began happily eating from the second plate which was filled with the same meal.
Iris didn’t know where to place this strange occurrence. Thus far, she’d never been served warm meals by this horrible man.
Alarms instantly went off in my head, knowing full well that she should not touch this offering, but Iris was still a naive child who was robbed of the opportunities to develop her brain. After all, she’d been depressed since two years of age, and imprisoned since four. The only person she could talk with was her torturer, but she refused to converse with him completely.
“Go ahead. I promise it’s not poisoned. If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done that a long time ago.” He briskly muttered seeing her reluctance.
After a minute of internal debate, she decided to listen. After all, she had to eat whatever he gave her, though she didn’t like watching him as she consumed the meal so Iris turned her back toward Gilbert in an act of defiance, causing him to chuckle.
“Hehe. To think you would be such a strong woman. I’m honestly impressed. You’re a wonderful creature. Maybe you should join the army, I bet you could climb the ranks swiftly.”
Iris completely ignored his ramblings as she always did, but he wasn’t bothered in the slightest as he continued. “How does it feel to be a teenager? I’m not sure when you women begin bleeding down there, but it must’ve started for you already, no? Let me know if you need some female hygiene items, I will gladly procure them for you. I’m a caring father after all.”
Silence ensued save for Iris’ greedy gobbling up of the warm meal.
“How is it to taste such a luxurious food after nine years of living on gruel continuously? I bet it must be a heavenly change, do you feel like you’ve gone from being a beggar to an empress ruling over the masses?”
“No? I guess not. Of course not, since you’ve been fed warm meals all this while.”
Iris’ frame immediately froze in place as her heart skipped a beat. Her pulse then quickened and an immense sense of dread enveloped her.
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah… What a fine woman, with the heart of an angel, no? You know, she was my mother figure back when I was a child. My biological mother refused to lower herself to parenting duties – unlike your sensational late mother – so it was left to the then young maid. She’d become old now, though, so she must not be sad by the fact that she is nourishing the newer generations, right?”
Iris’ head snapped around in his direction as she lunged at the bars that restricted her freedom. Her grip around the cold metals tightened as she gritted her teeth. “What did you do?!”
Gilbert laughed manically as he took another bite of the meat. “Me? Nothing. The cooks on the other hand might’ve served the two of us a socially forbidden meal today. One made with the mixture of a cat and a human. It kind of tastes like chicken I would say. Hmm… Yeah, definitely not beef or pork.”
Iris’s entire world crashed around her as Gilbert’s words sank in. The taste of the food – which only moments ago had brought her a rare sliver of comfort – turned to ash in her mouth. Her stomach roiled as bile rose when her mind connected the dots. Her vision blurred as every inch of her body screamed in sheer disgust against what she’d just consumed. She staggered backward and clutched at her stomach before doubling over as violent nausea clawed at her insides.
Iris then forced her trembling fingers down her throat without a single semblance of hesitation. The tortured teenager soon began gagging as she tried to purge herself of the vile substance filling her stomach. Each attempt sent waves of pain through her already battered body, but she kept going.
Gilbert watched the spectacle unfold with his laughter echoing through the cell as he observed her distress with gleeful fascination. “What’s the matter, daughter? They say experiencing new things together is a great way to bond as a family, and we’ve just become cannibals together! How does it feel? Isn’t it exciting?” he sneered between mouthfuls.
Iris’s vision blurred with tears, but behind the veil of pain and nausea, something far darker was rapidly festering. A new, searing hatred bloomed in her chest, burning hotter than any it had ever been before. This wasn’t just anger – this was an inferno, an all-consuming loathing that took root in the farthest depths of her very soul. She straightened her spine while steadying herself against the bars as her thin frame trembled with raw fury. She clutched the cold iron so hard her knuckles turned white as she spat her words at him with a coarse voice. Every syllable was laced with extremely potent venom.
“I hate you! You’re the worst human the world has ever seen! A disgrace to your species! A grave mistake of the Goddess! I’m ashamed to be of your blood more than anything!” The young teen screamed curses from the top of her lungs.
Gilbert’s laughter only grew louder with his shoulders shaking as he wiped a tear of amusement from his eye. “Oh, what a fierce little lioness you are! The world may have forgotten about you, but here you are, all grown up and making threats you’ll never be able to carry out. How sweet.”
Seeing the way Gilbert acted so nonchalantly despite her words only poured fuel on Iris’s raging fire. It was as if every scream, every tear, every ounce of agony he’d caused her was just a source of his amusement. His casual, mocking demeanor taunted her, driving her fury higher, like magma bubbling just beneath the surface, ready to erupt.
At that moment, Iris’s anger reached a never-before-seen level, burning hotter and stronger than anything she’d ever felt before as the 11 years that went by since Damian’s death culminated together to form a single emotion.
Wrath.
The desire for revenge pulsed within her so fiercely that she felt as if she would sacrifice the entire world just to see this wretched creature suffer. She wouldn’t rest; she wouldn’t stop. She’d make him pay, no matter the cost.
Fueled by this unrelenting hatred, she threw herself at the bars once again with her fingers wrapping around the cold, unyielding iron as she gritted her teeth and strained with all her might. Her small frame shuddered due to the extreme amount of effort she exerted, but the bars wouldn’t budge. Her hands trembled as she tried to pry them apart, feeling her nails dig painfully into her palms from the strain. She didn’t care if she broke her bones or tore her skin; the pain was nothing next to her desperate need for revenge.