Flames of Solitude - Volume 1

Chapter 9 - One Year

Waking up to the familiar nothingness, Jess saw only a curtain of blackness. She didn't attempt to move, just lay there on the cold, hard floor. An iron taste lingered on the tip of her tongue, and she felt something dripping from her nose. Her head, stomach, elbow, shin, and back all ached. Trying to inhale, she stopped abruptly, as even breathing seemed to cause too much pain.

Shallow, erratic breathing echoed in the dark. Jessica felt miserable as she lay there, motionless. The freezing ground did little to alleviate the searing pain tormenting her. It couldn't quell the crushing sensation on her chest, as if a boulder were trying to flatten her under its weight.

After a while, Jessica moved involuntarily, her limbs trembling in a desperate attempt to generate warmth. The chilling floor turned out to be not a remedy but a poison that slowly sapped her strength. Although her small body fought to stay alive, Jessica's emerald eyes were unresponsive and unfocused.

In the void, a girl lay, pain and shadows her loyal companions. Banished from the light, she was one of the condemned — a devil, a monster, or something even more malevolent. An outcast by her own blood. In a crimson pool, her limbs seared while her skin froze. Her once playful and vivid emerald eyes darkened, as if a cloud had obscured the sun, casting an enormous shadow over the meadow. The red crown, her radiant strands of hair, extinguished in the stifling gloom.

There she lay, a lonely girl uncared for by the world. Even in her pain, time never ceased its relentless march. In the blink of an eye, what began as a day stretched into unending nights.

At first, Jessica thought her mother would release her after a while, as she always had. One day passed, and then another. For Jessica, staying that long down there was nothing new anymore; she had adapted. But on the fourth day, she reached her limit. Occasionally, she glimpsed the light when her mother brought her plates of food and cups filled with water, but most of the time, she was left to endure the silence and darkness.

In the absence of all else, Jessica had only her thoughts to keep her company — an insane psychological torture, especially for a girl her age. Humans were not made for solitude; without socializing and the warmth of others, they wilted, like flowers deprived of water.

Jessica went through many stages.

"Help me... please... someone help me," she pleaded, she cried.

"Let me out!" she ordered, she screamed.

"God... I don't want... to be alone," she prayed, she hoped.

Her words echoed back at her in the basement, reflected by those unyielding walls that kept her imprisoned. Only they heard her cries. They heard her plead for her mother, ask for her sister, pray to God, and curse her own existence, but they never spoke, only stared down at her. Cold and merciless, they showed not a hint of empathy as they held her captive. 

There was no one to rescue her; the heroes she had read about in all those books were mere fiction. Her mother wouldn't release her, her neighbors had probably forgotten her, the kind priest cared not for her, and God seemed to ignore her.

And then she stopped. Her voice vanished. She became quieter than silence itself. Only the sounds of her blood rushing through her veins, her heart pounding inside her chest, her rhythmic breathing, and swallowing remained. As if she had been born mute, she hid her voice. It couldn't help her anyway.

Time flowed by, and Jessica's days turned into replicas of each other. Each day, she sat in the darkness, waiting. At some point, the door would open, light would flood the room, and a new cup and plate would appear. The bucket would be changed, and that was it. The same cup, the same plate, the same bucket, the same cold light, and the same dark room. The only thing that changed was her thinning body, her overgrown nails and hair.