Sweet Isolation

Chapter 1

Ella sat on a grassy hill, viewing the landscape below her. Above the birds flew through a cloudless sky. Singing sweet morning songs as they went, Which she couldn't help but feel they sang for her. Below her lay a beautiful view of a meadow, which soil's rose dramatically to the point where she sat, sat and watched the world go by in front of her. Studying every blade of grass, every sigh of wind which swayed the trees that ran along the rim of the valley, and counting every dandelion which poked their bright yellow heads out through the green landscape, making them easy to identify. In the distance lay a clear blue lake, so still it was possible someone could mistake it for a giant mirror. Ella closed her eyes and took a deep breath, absorbing the smells of morning dew, fresh air, and something she couldn't quite identify but smelt strangely of honey-

Thunk, thunk, thunk. A noise sounded from the hallway, waking Ella from her dream. The same noise which woke her every morning. From the same dream. This was the dream Ella had had almost every night since she was ten years old and had first started getting the visions, visions which spoke of green grass, blue seas, fresh air and the ordinary life a human should experience, and every morning she was ripped violently from it with the same harsh noise, only to come to the same conclusion as always, that she would never see any such things.

It had been about seven years since the first dream, and yet each morning she found herself having believed it to be reality, and having the same aching feeling in her chest as she discovered that it had not been. This was reality. She glanced quickly around the room, dull metal walls, with a mirror hanging from one corner and a steel door at the far side with four metal bars at the top to serve as a window.

A pair of stone cold eyes glared at her through the bars. Ella, slightly confused that the guard hadn't already given her the meal he always gave her after waking her like this, let out an impatient groan as she wrestled the thin blankets to the side and flung her legs over the edge of the beds cold metal frame. She winced as her bare feet came into contact with the icy stone floor.

She made her way to the door across the room in what she hoped looked like a confident stride, catching a glance at herself in the mirror; long black hair falling down her shoulders, a plain blue dress that hung awkwardly to her small frame and ice blue eyes staring back at her.

Ella wasn't always the only one who had inhabited this cell. She remembered when she was younger, and Jason, her brother, had lived in here with her. He was the one who knew how to read and write, since he had been eleven and was taught such things before they had been taken from their family, where Ella had only been two. She remembered when he had written stories on the stone walls of the imprisonment with a stray pebble to stimulate his imagination, and whenever their captors had found out, they had taken him away for hours, and when he had come back, had been bloody and bruised. She still couldn't decide if his actions were a sign of recklessness or bravery, or a little of both.

And then one day when he was seventeen, they had taken him away and he had never returned. She had pounded on the locked door for days on end, until her fists were blistered and bruised, but no one had come. And she had been left completely and utterly alone for the past nine years. Well, completely alone if you didn't count the brute standing outside her door, there to make sure she never misbehaved and to give her her meals, until today.

As she reached the door the pair of eyes glanced down to where Ella imagined they were fumbling with the lock which concealed her from the long and dark hallway. Moments later the door swung open to reveal a man, tall, broad shouldered and all muscle, looming over her.
Ella willed herself not to tremble at the sight of him as she forced her shoulders to relax, praying her voice wouldn't waver as she spoke.
"Well?" She said simply. Her voice rough from disuse.
The guard made a sound which Ella thought sounded quite like a growl before his hand shot out, gripping her right arm painfully and began dragging her down the hallway.