Forsaken Blood [Weekly Updates]

Twenty-two (I)

The dimness was probably what made it bearable. If the cell had been fully illuminated she knew she wouldn't have been able to stand a moment in it.

As it was, she had spent a couple of days in it already. Or were they hours? Years? Maybe minutes?

It was hard to tell when your only real company in a dark, damp and gloomy cell were unimaginable creatures that squeaked about underfoot from time to time.

Charlotte had curled into herself on the cot that was pushed into one corner. There was nothing else of any importance in the small cell. It was a few feet wide and had three walls of bare brick which in some places gave way to patches of earth.

It would've been suffocating for some people. The dampness that seeped through the bricks, the moss and algae that grew stubbornly, the pressure of being underground.

But it had the opposite effect on her.

She felt oddly calm as she looked at the discoloured areas of plant life that thrived here. Sighing she shifted her head as it rested on her knees, and turned to stare at the heavy steel bars that made up the last wall.

Charlotte found herself wondering if she could use her powers to get out. She could control the Earth after all.

But where would she go? What would she do?

Her fingernails dug into her skin and she buried her face in her arms. She wouldn't cry. She had stayed strong when the guards had lead her down to the dungeons.

She had stood by calmly when they had argued where to take her. She hadn't even blinked when one of Diego's men came down with orders. The palace guards had been shocked and insisted that they place her some place else, preferably in her own rooms.

But the man was having none of that. He overruled them all and she was led to a deep, dark, long-forgotten place in her own dungeons.

She had crossed many prisoners on her journey down, and this time she didn't have Xavier trying to protect her. Some of the men peeked out through the bars and she met their eyes without flinching. She wondered why they were there. They weren't ill-kept and the cells didn't seem very bad.

That had soon changed the further they went. The cells became emptier and emptier. The walls were crumbling and the fires burned low. Lifeless, blank eyes stared at her now as she passed. Some even reached out. The palace guards would push them back but something had made her stop. Light from the torches the guards held illuminated a prisoner.

His wiry form was clothed in mere rags and he was all angles and bones. His eyes stared hauntingly back at her. A luminous brown with misplaced warmth in them.

"What is your name?"

"Faust, your majesty." His voice was raw and scratchy but his eyes twinkled with mirth.