APPLE WITCH (girlxgirlxgirl)

35. Her eight year courageous escape

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⚠️ violence, weapons, imprisonment of children, mentions of abuse, mentions of bullying⚠️

Escaping the tower is one thing, escaping within the tower is another.

Melora struggled for years to find a way to escape the tower, through pain and through suffering. It took her eight years before she finally figured out a way, and that was a once in a year opportunity, the spring festival. She spent hours upon hours in her cold and hard bed, thinking of thousands of different ways one could possibly escape the stone fortress prison. She studied the walls of it, every window, every door and possible way out. She mapped out the guards in her head and personalised daily routines and routes for each person who could possibly stand in her way. There were many, both witches and vampires, who would jump at the chance of ratting her out. It was always a hassle when they changed their routines, or when the doors were renovated or windows blocked. New scenery meant new plans.

Many times she came close to finding an escape route. Before then the spring witch had refused to escape with a lousy plan in mind, knowing that a single failed escape would heighten security and make it impossible for her to ever try again. They would chain her to the wall if they had to, as they often did. Melora had a few different ways of making sure that they never found out what kind of escape she was planning, and one of those ways was to never tell them how much she was already capable of. For example, how easily she could escape from her room without being noticed by a single guard.

Nobody knows the tower better than she does. Whenever she is taken from and to classes, she maps out the halls and corridors and remembers small details all over. Who stands where, what looks like what. Escaping her room and sneaking through the tower itself is no problem for her, it is the getting out part that is hard. Before she used to be so insecure, knowing that she could navigate the tower without being spotted but terrified of getting caught when escaping. It took her eight years to find a window, and even then it was based on pure luck. None of her plans that she spent years working on ever came to good use. She simply teleported away on the one day of the year when she was brought out of the tower by the guards, to the spring festival. Hadn't that worked, Melora would still have been planning her escape, and she would still have been too scared to try it out.

But today is different.

Melora ties the heavy chains together, forming one big ball of metal. Chains that have often been around her wrists, restricting her movements, will be the same chains that will liberate her from this prison. That was always a central part of her plan. A symbolic part to make up for the years of torture and horrors that she had to take in the tower. Slowly, she gets up from the bed with the chains in hand, and nears the thick wooden door that separates her from the rest of the witches. Melora smiles.

Today is different, because she is no longer afraid of messing up her one chance at freedom. Today her main objective is to get to the summer witch, who lives in the tower opposite of her. All of her previous fear is long forgotten. She lost her fear when she regained her freedom and gave it up once more. Since there is no fear, she doesn't need to plan this too much either. All she needs to do is escape. Besides, eight years of planning and hesitating is more than enough. It's an embarrassing amount of time wasted for Melora. Doing this now, without more of a proper plan, is her own personal revenge.

"Help! Please help, I'm bleeding out!"

If there is one thing Melora can hold above the vampires and witches who hold her prisoner, it's that no matter how much they hurt her, they can't kill her. They can't kill the spring witch, especially not now. Not when the emperor is so close to marching into the second world of humans and taking it over by using four seasonal witch power. Not when finding the new spring witch is both a hassle and a huge desperation whenever the old one dies. So to use that power to her advantage, Melora always knew that the easiest way to open her door was to let them open it for her. They can't leave her to die, anyway.