238 days

238 days is how long I've been here.

5,712 hours, 342,720 minutes and 20,563,200 seconds. 20,563,201 seconds now.

My cave creaks as the wind and the rain above start to slowly shave off layers and layers of rock.

My cell- 

My cave is where I have been for almost a year. It's where I will stay for many more years.

It's been 238 days since I found out that my hands have the power to heal and to kill.

I'm a monster-

I have no hope that I will be rescued.

In the time that I have been gone, no one has found me. Not my sister. Not my friends. Not my parents. No. one.

I start to count the seconds out of habit, not because I believe they'll bring any change.

No. I don't believe that at all.

20,563,210 seconds now.

In the beginning, I used to think, 'Maybe today is the day that I'm found. Maybe today is when I will finally leave.' But I was wrong.

Hope is overrated.

After 238 days, I've learned that hope is a lie. Hope feels like a cruel joke, the universe's way of messing with me.

Somewhere along the way, in between the silence of my own thoughts and the echoing footsteps of guards outside my cell, I learned that no one is ever going to rescue me. And each second that crawls by, is a sharp and cruel reminder of the prison I've been condemned to.

Each day blurs into the next.

I'm going to die in this cell-

I hear footsteps grow closer to my cell and stop. They stop, I think, in front of my cell. I'm too scared to think of why they might be coming to me.

I'm a coward-

A key scrapes the rusty lock and I hear the audible click of the door unlocking. I keep my eyes downcast as I hear, one, no, two, sets of mechanical footsteps move towards me. They stop moving.

All I hear is silence.

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30 seconds go by.

They still haven't moved. I still haven't moved.

"Get up." The one on my left speaks, his voice deep and rough yet as menacing and mechanical as his footsteps. I don't obey him. One and then two sets of hands grab me.

Their gloved hands wrap around my arm with such a crushing force, that I'm sure it will bruise. The cold metal of the badges on their uniforms press against my skin as they drag me into the corridor, the harsh light flickering overhead.