To Love A Villain

Life in prison

No, it wasn't only that.

I was feeling nauseous and sick. It must have been because of the injury.

I just hope I don't end up with a fever.

I could feel consciousness slipping through my fingers when someone knocked on the door

"My Lady," I recognized the voice immediately, "Are you alright?" Hael knocked on the door again, "Lady Corvina?"

I didn't answer him

"Lady, the whole day has passed, I brought you some bread to eat."

Oh...

So, it must have gotten dark now.

"Lady Corvina?"

I turned my face in the direction where the voice was coming from. In the far distance I saw a tiny crack of light where two silhouettes of feet stood.

Oh, that's where the door is.

"My Lady, I'll push the bread through the crack, you should eat." His words stung at the strings of my heart.

Don't do this to me Hael....

I stared at the bread he threw in... Don't do this to me ... I don't want to have feelings for you... I don't want to do anything with this place...

"I'm not eating that," I said, "Leave,"

"My Lady," He refused to move, "You need to eat to survive,"

"Leave," I told him and although he didn't move, I refused to talk to him after that. He tried speaking but I closed my ears and holed myself in the corner. But try as I might, I couldn't make out the words anyway, couldn't focus through the haze of pain and exhaustion that clouded my mind and before I knew it, I passed out.

***

I don't know how much time had passed when I woke up, but I woke up feeling horrible.

I looked around, I still couldn't see anything. I looked at the crack of the door and noticed no one was there.

I wonder when he left...

I gulped, trying to lubricate my dry throat. Hael didn't come to me in the past when I was imprisoned... So why now?

I shook my head,

That's not important. What's important is the fact that in the end, my efforts bore no fruit.

It really is happening the same way.

The path isn't the same but the results definitely are. I never mentioned Hael during our meetings, yet here I am.

At the exact same dead end

Thrown in the cellar

Made fun of publicly, humiliated even, and now stuck

No one is going to come to help me here.

No one,

***

As the faint sound of footsteps approached, my heart skipped a beat, knowing it was Hael. I shrank back into the darkness, my muscles tensing with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. The cellar door remained firmly locked but his presence still managed to seep through the cracks.

For the past week, he's been coming here trying to feed me bread but I haven't talked to him. I can't even move from this place. How am I supposed to get that far and get the bread anyway?

The head maid comes in before dawn and places a glass of water by the bed frame. That's all that I've been able to get into my body so far. She must have been how badly I was injured and how badly I needed a doctor but she didn't call for one. If nothing else, she could have done something about my ankle. It still hurts like crazy.

"My Lady?" He knocked on the door, "I brought food,"

As he stealthily slid the food through the narrow opening beneath the door, I couldn't help but feel a surge of conflicting emotions wash over me. Part of me longed to refuse his offerings, to sever the tenuous thread that bound us together and banish him from my thoughts once and for all. But another part, a stubborn remnant of the feelings I had tried so hard to suppress, yearned for his presence, his touch, his warmth.

He was the only one caring for me

The only sole person who didn't want me to starve.

And thus the reason why my feelings for him just wouldn't die.

With each visit, I found myself grappling with the same internal struggle, torn between my desire to break free from him and the undeniable pull of the connection that still lingered. It was a tormenting cycle of longing and rejection, hope and despair, that played out in the solitary confines of the cellar.

Each time he offered sustenance in the darkness, it felt like a dagger twisting in my chest, a painful reminder of the emotions I had sworn to bury. After Lyal's betrayal, I was left with Hael again.

"I can't accept this," I whispered to myself, the words echoing in the suffocating silence of the cellar. But even as I said that, a part of me rebelled against the notion, craving the comfort his offerings provided despite my best efforts to resist.

I have to distance myself, I have to...

"Why can't you accept it?"

!!???

I was not expecting him to hear that but since he did, the strings of my heart were tugged at again. In this lonely confinement I wanted some sort of interaction to happen to keep me sane and when he replied to me with that one simple line, it made me feel better already.

"I can't move," I whispered

"You can't?" He paused, "Why?"

"I injured my ankle badly." I turned to look at it. After spending days in the cellar, I can now see things. I can't identify them properly, but I can see that they're there.

"...I see," He answered and walked away

!?!?!

Did-

I was shocked

Did he just lose interest and leave??