A/n; pls vote and comment on my new book thanks.
14 years.
I had been a prisoner for 14 long years for a crime I did not commit.
The most horrible crime. The death of my parents.
Now about the crime I did commit... I set 20 guards to fire, killing 19 of them... without even meaning to... at the age of seven.
Of course you can tell... we didn't give a crap how old a criminal was. I learnt that the day they brought me in. And then was reminded of that the day they brought in a 5 year old just last year and placed her in the cell across from mine.
Amoriel.
The only way she survived was by eating off from me and sometimes the girl beside me, Zin.
The imprisonment was much worse than death.
We had no trace of the outside light. Just the dimly lit lanterns down the hallway so the guards would be able to see our faces.
Worst part was there was no breaking out. No escaping.
They had put giant strongly built enchanted metal cuffs over our hands. That stopped us from being able to use our magic. It almost made it seem like we were powerless. But we weren't.
At least I wasn't. I felt it. My cuffs had began to rust the past month. It wasn't supposed to do that. Zin's wasn't doing that. Neither was Amoriel nor the guy that stayed by the other side of me.
Either way, I was getting sick. And fast. Containing my powers for so long, especially as it grew stronger day by day, month by month, year by year, it was killing me.
My body had heated up, my head ached. My chest felt frozen. My throat felt dry.
At this point, I was prepared for what was coming next. Death.
My one and only wish. It was finally being granted.
I was finally going to die.
So these days, my eyes were closed most of the time, because at any point, I would be off to go join my parents.
"Rae," Zin called out in a whisper.
I was too weak to even open my eyes, but after her persistence and the number of times she called my name, I even had to sit up.
It meant it was an emergency.
"They're letting us out," she smiled, jittery yet filled with so much excitement. "Word from the front. Pass it on."
I chuckled and shook my head. They weren't letting us out. Either people had already started hallucinating, or if they were actually letting us out, that meant they were finally going to kill us.
Either way, I turned to my right to pass on the message to my neighboring prisoner.
"Volt," I called him, my voice was almost not there. It almost came out as silence.
He didn't look at me, but I knew he could hear me since all he did, night and day, was scratch on the ugly concrete floor with any tiny pebble he found. He hardly slept.
Then again he was new. Just two months in. Give him time, he'd eventually get used to it.
"The guards are letting us out. Pass it on," I said to him and waited to see if he would. And of course he didn't. I expected him not to. All he did was scoff and shake his head.
"Volt, pass it-"
"Do you really believe that, princess?" He asked, still not lifting his head up to look at me.
He knew I didn't. And he knew I didn't have the strength to argue with him.
"Wouldn't be the first time people thought they saw things," he added. And that was true.
Our nights were filled with screams from people who thought they saw the ghosts of dead people.
Or me, when I dreamt about the night my parents passed away.
I decided to keep my mouth shut and face forward. Amoriel was asleep.
If there was a way I could get her out of this place, I would. I had nothing to live for with us in here, anyway.
I decided to let my eyes fall back shut, but the sound of marching footsteps alerted me, especially since it was followed by cheerful noise and excitement.
I managed to push myself forward to the bars that held us in to see what all the noise was about. Where the footsteps were coming from.
And that's when I saw it for myself. Guards.
They were letting us out.
Zin turned to me, mouth agape and tears in her eyes. "We're finally getting out of here," she said.
Probably to kill us.
I opened my mouth to tell her not to get her hopes so high, but then it happened.
I couldn't breathe.
I could feel the air leaving my lungs and I still couldn't breathe. It was happening.
Zin screamed and the noise coming from the other cellmates stopped. "Rae your eyes!" She yelled to me. "You're weeping blood!"
I wiped the wetness on my cheeks and saw this to be true.
The last thing I heard were guards' footsteps rushing over to my cell and my cell gate being unlocked.
I didn't close my eyes, but my vision turned red. I couldn't see anything but red... that was until they injected me with something that caused my consciousness to leave my body.
For a moment there, I thought that I was dead.
Sadly, I woke up. Fortunately, I was on a bed.
A bed.
I forgot what it felt like. Heaven. That's what it felt like at that moment in time.
The entire room was blinding white with bright white lights, it almost gave me a headache.
But it didn't. I felt better than okay in fact, compared to how I felt the last time. I looked down at my wrists and the cuffs were still on me. Still rusted.
I had to wonder how I was alive, and why I felt ten times better. Most especially, why did they heal me?
The door opened and I gasped, sitting up and quickly scanning the room for anything I could use to defend myself.
But then an old lady came in. I mean she wasn't really old, just with really white hair and wrinkly skin. Her smile made her look young.
I didn't smile back.
"What's going on?" I asked. My voice even sounded more audible. The hoarseness wasn't there anymore.
The lady, still smiling, walked over to the counter table by the side of the bed I lay on and I watched her mix a few things together.
Probably preparing a potion or whatever.
When she was done, she turned to me, still smiling so hard it was creeping me out.
She gave me a cup of her mixture. "Drink," she said.
"Why? What's that? What's going on?"
"You ask too many questions, child," she said as she got up to go wash her hands.
"I'm not a child--"
"Drink that and I'll tell you what you need to know," she said.
I looked at her and then down at the cup. It smelled vile and looked green.
Probably herbs. She was probably a healer. And if it killed me, well, what did I have to lose?
Closing my eyes shut, I raised the cup to my mouth and downed it while holding my breath.
It took everything in me not to throw it back up.
It had a tingly effect to my tongue. And then I felt weak completely.
My body felt numb so without meaning to, I fell back to the bed.
I looked over to the woman as she scribbled down whatever into a book.
What was she doing to me?
"What's happening to me?" I asked, trying to sound stronger than I felt.
She stood up and walked over to me. "It's working," she smiled. "You will be able to attend the swearing in of the new Chancellor. You are not dying. At least not tonight."
I growled internally. Why did they want us alive?
If you get put in those dungeons, you will never get freed. They just abandoned us, but fed us everyday like they wanted us to live.
But the question was... live for what?