Severed Moonlight: Cellars and Sorcerers

Prologue, Part 1....A Cell

She sat upon the edge of her seat, squinting forward, pale arms clutched upon her lap like the tender limbs of an infant. She hummed as she waited, swinging her feet back and forth as if she alone was detached from her surroundings, her expression that of a plainly content child.

The cell was chilly--cold,like the insides of a fridge--but not the bade kind of cold. She wiggled her shoulders, stretched, tilted her head from side to side. Her spine would give a small click, a soft shift would be felt beneath the layers of satin-soft skin, and then the flutter down from the small aches that spoke in whispers to the silent embrace of total relaxation.

Still, her head would stay up; chocolate-brown plates fixed in one unwavering position upon the milky-white spheres, splashes of cherry-blossom pink softly dabbed here and there as a petty complaint on account of the child's tired body that it was, indeed, well after her usual bedtime. And yet she remained there, sitting on the uncomfortable wooden bench that was nailed to the wall, the flickering glow of a nearest torch much too far away to provide oneself with any reliable grasp of what secrets may have been playing out hidden in the darkness, beyond the steel bars.

     Finally, she'd had enough. The girl curled her petite fingers about the edge of the firm plank, pulling her body forward. With that motion, the little legs strangled beneath the stuffing of her white camisole, a little itchy beneath the worn white stockings's swinging that tittered to a stop, and her feet touched the cold ground toes-first; like a ballerina. They trembled, however, as the weight of her body was brought upon them, pins and needles stinging her insides like the little blinking dots about an old TV that had just been turned on.

CHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHK

The child tumbled, monkey-fingers gripping and tearing the first crunchy layers of rust straight off the bars. Tia froze, teary-eyed, forehead pressed against the rails as the echo cooed. Her wings did not flap to break her fall. She dared not move.

CLICK

CHHHHHKKKKKK

CHHHHHHKKKKKKCHKKKKKKK

The air in her lungs went sour and melted like hard pebbles that muscles dared send up single-file. The insides of Tia's throat wiggled, trying to set free the sour buildup of pressure at her core. She kept it in. She couldn't spare a move, not even a breath.

SSSSCCCCHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The dent of her mouth lost its grip, unraveling a cavity the size of a pin. That was enough. The girl gasped, knees slapping to the ground, hands pulling back from the rails just as an arrangement of bones clattered to the ground before the cell, an omniscient white in the dark dungeon.

SQUEAK

Tia pulled back immediately, soft whiffs of her corn-yellow hair barely missing the skeleton's grasp by a pinswidth. She looked like a little mouse running for its life as she tumbled up into the bench, sleepy and red-eyed from the hour, dry-throated from the scare. The young child closed the droopy curtains of her eyes, pressing her body tight to the cold, hard, uneven andesite wall. The scuffling and clinking of bones dragged on and on as the skeleton groped blindly towards the place where it had heard the girl, and her breaths dragged on in silent gulps and gasps as she held in tears. The skeletons of this place had long since lost their flesh, and their eyes had followed pace. Now all that remained were the ghostly cores, pinned together only by the memory of what they once had been, long before Tia and her brothers and sisters were ever born. The cell was the summoned ruins of a war and a plague, playground to the souls whose names had long since been lost to time.

"Brother!"

A small voice rung out, shaky and faulty and only a little more steady than the earlier squeak to escape the shapeshifter's mouth. She tried again, louder this time. The girl filled her lungs deep with the stale prison air..

"BIIIG BROOOOTHER!" she cried.

The tiny being pressed her body against the dark corner, her muffled sobs drowning deeper and deeper into her chest as her eyes cried themselves dry, her voice outright exhausted from just that one fierce outcry. Guilt and fear began to cloud the little bat-winged girl's thoughts. Why had Tia been so intent on marching all the way down to the cellar when it was the only place she was forbidden to go? It was a labyrinth, a actual ever-changing maze her parents had long ago summoned up with very old magic in order to keep dangerous intruders at bay. Even if her brothers and sisters came running, there was no guarantee they would end up on the same end of the puzzle–if they had heard her cries at all.

Tia realized all at once the bleak situation she'd put herself in. She'd been all too determined to win this game of hide-and-seek. For all Tia knew now, her siblings were well past all that, snuggled up and asleep in their beds without a single thought towards the one missing girl. A whimper failed in her buckled-up throat, making it even more sore.

"Brother...Sister..Anybody?" the girl breathed, her voice still raspy and frail.

Was that it? Alone and scared, would she ever be found? Did anyone even know she was gone?