Ink Stained

08: sticks and guns may break their bones*

In this small enclosed space that was just enough to keep her imprisoned, something strong and powerful hit her in full force, choking her.

Fear.

She slapped the stone above her with her hands, hitting it. "Hello?" her voice shook as much as her whole body was. There wasn't a sound to be heard except her own voice thrown back at her. "He – hello?"

She hit the stone again, and for every hit, she got louder, until she was screaming. Her own voice was deafening her, but she didn't stop. Desperation gave her renewed strength even as she hit and kicked at the walls around her, scratching her palms, arms, legs, bruising her knees and elbows.

She didn't know how long she went on. She hit at the walls around her because it was all she could do, trying in vain to find a way out. Her mind was engulfed in panic as she shouted out in the hopes that someone, anyone, would hear her, would come to help her.

"Help! Somebody help, please!" her voice was hoarse, scratching at the walls of her throat as it worked its way up to her mouth. She was tired. It hurt. Everything hurt.

She froze, heart hammering in her chest, when she heard the stone slab above her moving, felt the slabs around her grating against each other. She kept her hands on the slab above her for a second, trying to make sure she wasn't imagining it when she felt it move against her palms.

Pai pulled her hands away, clasping them to her chest as she stared wide-eyed up above her, heart in her throat. She was terrified – scared that, even though it looked like she was being freed from this stone prison, there was still the person who put her in it, chained her and left her in it. She tried to control her harsh breathing, that it wouldn't be so loud, but she was still shaking so much from the fear of being trapped in this small, confined space with no escape no matter if she beat at the walls around her until her hands were bloody.

Inch by inch, the block of concrete above her moved, revealing a barely lit space above her that she couldn't even see the ceiling of. The second there was enough space, she shot out. She scrambled up over the edge, and in her desperation to get out, she didn't notice that the enclosure she was in sat atop a sturdy metal table.

She fell over the sharp edge and landed jarringly on her back on the floor, breath knocked out of her. Black stars bloomed before her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath. She felt jittery, out of odds, completely unsure in her own body, feeling as though her bloody was vibrating in her veins, unsettling her.

When her vision finally focused, she found herself staring up at steel and metal beams with low-hanging lamps and a corrugated iron roof high, high above her. The lights were on, bright spots of illumination in what would otherwise by the complete darkness of night pressing in from the outside. She pushed herself up slowly, staring all around her, at the large coloured crates that surrounded her.

Crates.

Crates?

Am...am I in a warehouse?

By the sharp tang of the sea breeze drifting in from somewhere behind her, the warehouse must have been right by the ocean. Pai didn't know where she was, or where the warehouse was. She lived nowhere near the sea.

How the hell did she get here?

She felt so small, in this large building. There was no one around her, no hint of whoever had pushed the stone top off of her. She looked up at the high ceiling and winced as a shot of electric pain tickled the back of her neck. Her muscles locked for a brief, tortuous second, before relaxing slightly.