And darling I would drink your poison until I die if it meant that I could taste you one last time.
Suffocating. I was suffocating. I was trapped in a box and I couldn't escape. I was afraid, my bones shivered beneath my skin. My eyes entrapped in darkness and my body strapped down with what felt like metal chains. What was going on? Why was this happening to me?
I tried yelling but a weak squeak escaped my lips. I was tired, my limbs exhausted yet I had not a single inkling of what was occurring. Survival instincts kicked into me and I tried pushing my body and yelling as loud as I possibly could, but only mu voice echoed back to me. It was pointless, I was trapped somewhere I did not know and could not see.
I layed still. No thoughts ran through my head other than to survive. Who was I? Where did I come from? None of those I had answers to. I closed my eyes calmly and didn't attempt escaping. It didn't feel like I was alive nor dead. It appeared as though I was neither I was simply between.
If there was anything worst than death it was this. Not fathoming your existence, not knowing your soul and simply being no one. There was no greater torment than to live in nothingness.
My eyes must have been closed for what felt like an eternity when I felt like my surroundings were moving but I was still enclosed in darkness. I waited and waited while feeling like the world around me was moving. My arms and legs were still shackled and I was still plunged into eternal darkness however this time I felt something. Movement, breathing. I was not alone.
Without having much time for thought my entire surroundings brightened and my eyes shut instinctively. I heard whispers surround my body and a gust of wind that shuddered my bones into an ice cold frenzy. I was too confused, too out of place, I had no idea what was happening to me.
I forced my eyelids open with great trouble. It seemed I was not accustomed to light, to anything other than the darkness that was my abode.
Blurry figures came into view towering above me as they surrounded me. I attempted to move my body but it pained as I struggled against the shackles that still confined me.
"Unchain the traitor." A voice boomed and a group of men neared me as my vision began clearing piece by piece. My eyes burned against the chandelier lights that streamed directly into me from above my head.
The men were clad in silver armour that formed one with their body from head to toe. I was frightened by their sight, who were these men and what did they want from me?
They ripped the chains from my hands and legs in one swift movement and immediately took one step back. The relief of the shackles being removed felt like taking my first breath as the door to my imprisonment opened.
My pale hands were red and bruised from the chains. My eyes travelled around my confinement. I was trapped in a coffin and now I wasn't. I placed my hands on either side of the coffin box as I struggled to lift myself up. My body was weak and my legs felt as if they had never moved once before.
I had to get up, I had to move. My legs wobbled beneath me as I forced myself up. I was in pain every inch of my body aching against me, but I did not seem to care. I was free, free from my trapped thoughts, free from what felt like a tormenting death in absolute aliveness.
Two of the guards grabbed my arms roughly as they dragged me forward. I barely had time to process my surroundings. The only thing visible was glittering black marble floors beneath me.
I lifted my head to see a court room lavishly decorated with multiple glittering chandeliers on every edge of the ceiling portraying a honey golden light contrasting the dark flooring. There were many men and women all dressed exquisitely in the finest silk with jewels dangling from their bodies. The women held feathered fans as they whispered behind it eyeing me with scrutiny.
I looked down at my own attire and it was a ragged black faded out dress that had rips at every edge. My hair was long and messed hanging past my back almost touching my thighs. I was a mess. I did not fit in with all these people. I looked like I was dragged out of the darkest pits of hell, or maybe I was.
I didn't complain, nor did I scream as they pulled me against my will. My feet could not stand, I was not used to standing, my body was weak and I dared not complain.
They threw me onto the ground and I fell on my knees with my hands on the ground and my head lowered.
"Alas we meet, traitor." It was a powerful mans voice. He spat out each word in disdain and I felt my skin jitter at the sound of his voice. It was a first hearing hatred melded into words. Or maybe I had heard it before but my memory would not serve me correctly to remember a single thing.
I did not speak, I felt like my lips had been sewn shout, all I managed to do was stare at the sparkling marbling floors that reflected my reflection back to me. I was a mess, staring back at me was a face I did not recognize. Tangled raven black hair fell down my face and my skin was pale, so pale that my shocking blue eyes seemed out of place. I felt like a stranger to myself.
"Look up, traitor and acknowledge your emperor." One of the guards besides me hissed but I could not seem to look up. Iwas terrified, scared and out of place. Why did they keep calling me traitor and what was my crime?
I didn't lift my face up but I felt it moving up by a force of some kind until I was staring at a man dressed in a thick black cloak with a black mask covering his entire face except his sharp eyes. He was seated in an enormous golden throne adorned with diamonds, rubies and gems of all kinds. The throne was big, but his figure appeared huge. He had a dagger across his waist that shone.
I wondered why an emperor of his caliber with hundreds of guards at his side that surrounded him at this moment would carry a dagger.
He was the emperor, and I was trembling and I couldn't hide it, he seemed terrifying. His eyes were soulless, cold without a hint of mercy in them.
Without thinking twice I mustered up the courage to part my lips and speak." Where am I? Who am I?" My voice shook but I couldn't be silent, I needed to know.
The guards slashed our their swords and aimed it towards me when the emperor held his hand stopping them. " You dare to deceive me?" His voice echoed throughout his throne room while all the spectators gawked in silence.
"I-I'm not. I don't know anything." I answered and immediately averted my gaze back to the ground. My knees were burning from the floors but it didn't matter, there was so much I did not know.
He rose from his throne and I could hear him near me with every step as he got closer and closer until he stopped in front of me. He grabbed a sword from his guard and pointed the tip under my chin lifting my head up.
"You seem to defy death even though it is the one thing you deserve more than ever." He said with hatred," and so I have decided you will die on my terms as I wish you to die."
I feared to gulp, to swallow the bile that seemed to form at my throat knowing that one movement and the blade would slit my throat. " What am I guilty of?"
He tilted his head and I tried to read his eyes but he would not let me. " Three games of death, survive them and you'll be banished or die trying and allow my palace to be your haunting abode where even death will be a mercy you shall only dream of until the end."
He grazed my neck with the tip and then dropped the sword walking away as the guards lifted me up once again and began dragging me out of the throne room as everyone's eyes followed me in hushed tones.
His words rang in my head over and over again. My breath hitched in my throat and I felt a lump forming. I felt at lost with not a clue about anything and yet I was expected to know everything. He called me a traitor, but even though my head was empty I did not feel within my depths that I was a wicked person who would do anything to be called a traitor.
I knew myself, I felt it in my core. I was not a bad person, so what was going on?
I zoned out as they dragged me down a flight of stairs, the floors looking dirtier, mudier and darker and the air colder than before. My thin ripped dressed didn't do much to save me from the breeze. I hardly cared about the cold in my bones, I was trapped in something that I knew no way out of.
As my feet touched the damp floors and the bars surrounded us I knew we entered the dungeons. I saw people lying against walls, I wasn't sure they were even alive anymore, half of them looked dead and those who were alive looked like they were on the brink of death.
Chills ran down my spine but the guards wasted no time as they opened the barred gate and opened the gates inside a corner cell and once again I grazed my knees as I fell to the floor. They locked the gate shut and I could have sworn if their faces were visible under their armor that they had a mocking smile plastered on.
My eyes roamed the wall of my cell, it was filled with scrapings on the walls of its previous inhibitors.
Save me
Death is far sweeter than these walls
Lets meet again in another life when Im a free man
Kill me
The voices... they never go away
I shuddered at the writings on the wall. They were dark, they were real words of people who lived and died here and it scared me. I didn't want to die, I don't know why I wanted to live, there was nothing to live for, but a feeling inside me kept telling me I needed to be strong. My story couldn't end like this, I wouldn't let it at least not without knowing the truth, my truth.
"New here?"
I perked up at the sound of another person. It was a man across me in a cell seated in the shadows, there was no natural light so it was hard to make out his figure.
"Yes, yes I am. But I don't know why I'm here."
The stranger inched closer to the bars of his gate and gripped them as I got a closer view of him. He didn't look like a criminal, he didn't look evil, he looked sweet and innocent. This place didn't suit him. His brown soft hair matched his brown eyes and soft features. He was dressed in ragged clothes, I felt less self conscious at that.
"Why would they lock a pretty girl like you?" His comment caught me off guard and I hoped he couldnt see the blush forming on my cheeks.
"Like I said, I dont know. I dont have a memory of anything."
He seemed deep int thought for a second as he held his hand under his chin. "That is odd. I wouldn't put anything past Lucius. He is as evil as evil gets. Apart from being empror he is also a sorcerer, he is capable of inflicting much damage."
A sorcerer. That made much more sense.
"He said I'm a traitor but I dont think I am, all I know is I have to escape." I spoke with urgency not knowing why I opened up to this stranger but something told me I could trust him.
"Well I am a traitor and I intend to escape." He said it so casually that my eyes began flitting around to make sure no one else had heard it.
"Shhhh what if someone hears you?" He chuckled at my words as he casually leaned against the bars and pushed his hair back from his forehead.
"He is a monster, never fear monsters. You need to learn how to ruin them before they ruin you." I gulped at his words, he might have seemed innocent but I could tell he had revenge on his mind and he wouldn't stop for nothing.
"Well... would you be willing to help this strange girl escape?"
"And does this strange girl have a name?"
"She doesn't."
"Well now she does, princess." I tried fighting the blush that once again tried to show. He had a way with words.
"And yes, I will help you escape as long as you agree to one wish of mine when the time comes, do we have a deal?"
I was elated, I was going to escape, I wouldn't die and that was enough to convince me. I didn't stop to think once and I answered him.
"Yes, we have a deal."
——
Hello everyone!!
Im so excited for this new story, its not as cliche as you may think. Be ready for mind blowing plot twists and things that cant even be comprehended.
I hope you'll support me and keep in mind updates will hopefully be made daily or every two days.
Afraa.