𝐈 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔; tommyinnit

𝐢𝐢. 𝐀𝐠𝐧𝐲

✩᯽☾︎❄︎☽︎᯽✩

"it's hard to find an end to something that keeps beginning."
-memories, conan gray

"-and do not leave this house or else!" Oriethyia, my mother, yelled with a slam of the front door, her harsh voice echoing through the halls of the castle. 

Just hurry up and get the jobs done, Khione, then you can do whatever you want. 

My motivation was constantly stooping to a new level of low, getting out of bed each morning proving harder to do as the days whizzed by. Everything was turning into a struggle, my lack of self-improvement not helping, and my laziness was beginning to show in my work. The jobs I needed to get done each day were getting accomplished both quicker and easier, but the finished product would always turn out ten times worse than the previous day.

Pulling the blankets away from my body brought a familiar wave of coldness through my body, replenishing my heated veins with the needed freezing temperature. Slowly but surely, I made my way across the grey flooring, past the concrete walls and underneath the giant icicles dangling from the ceiling like a centrepiece. The flooring felt like ice against my feet, not that it mattered to me, but sent jolts of life throughout my body with every new step I took.

I unlatched the cellar door, sending a loud creak through the air of the tunnels ahead, the loud noise bouncing off of the mud splattered walls. I reached blindly towards the lantern on the nearby shelf in my room and cautiously shut the door behind me, careful to not produce the deafening sound again.

Walking through the tunnels always brought an eerie feeling, like something I used to feel when I would walk down the streets of my old neighbourhood alone at night. It's cramped space, looming dark walls and ominously quiet aura all contributed to the uneasy feeling, even with the lantern in my hand lighting up the area both ahead and behind me. It being the only source of light often tipped me over the edge, no matter how bright it was.

The stairs at the end of the tunnel were even worse than the tunnel itself. It still had a strange feeling about it, but on top of that, it was extremely unstable and wobbled after every slight movement I would make. Each step was so close together that I could barely fit my whole foot on them. It did come with a railing, thin iron bars slithering up the sides of the staircase, but when I only had one free hand, it didn't help all that much.

I took one step up at a time, cautiously watching my feet so I wouldn't accidentally trip and tumble down the death-defying staircase. It wasn't very tall, as the tunnel was only a few metres below the castle, but that didn't make it any more safe. I could feel the staircase falter and shake after each step I took, making my stomach queasy and my head feeling nauseous. 

Light filled the top of the staircase, instantly causing the sickening feeling in my stomach to disappear. My dawdle moved to a jog, wanting ever so badly to get to the top, my mind already counting down the amount of steps I had left to scale. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as soon as my feet made contact with the safe and secure flooring of the castle's ground floor, the lantern in my hand coming to rest on top of the railing of the stairs.