abandoned story

I wish, I thought faintly, that I knew how to suffer.

Somewhere along the line, I had convinced myself that I knew pain. Only in that moment, faced with imminent death, did I realize how little experience I had with the world. I had been lying to myself.

Of course, I came from a long line of excellent liars. Excellent orators, too. The sort of traits that keep a family in power for centuries, but probably the same traits that make people want you dead. Or maybe it was the power itself that made me end up here.

What did it matter, really? What did I know of pain? Of fear, hunger, thirst, cold? I was going to die from my own naïveté, starved to death in the middle of nowhere.

The cold might kill me first, I thought. After all, the ice cold rain was biting into my skin. It had been pouring for hours, and even once it stopped...the desert would be cold at night. The thought filled me with a sort of dread. I did not fear the dark, but I feared what it might bring.