Insanity

Chapter 6- Little Dove

Her throat was sore from how much she'd screamed. Her voice worn and weary, shattered at the seams, a thread breaking away until she couldn't use it anymore. Tears were hot and fresh on her cheeks as her chest hollowed out into an endless void. Her breath was rushed, sounds of remorse consuming her in the very way human emotions did. It was suffocating, she hated it, loathed it with her very being. The fact that she was so brittle ended her strong facade in the snap of a second; to think she never saw it coming was the hardest part. Scarlet couldn't bare the thought, so she released her grief in another way other than screaming. Violence, against the bars of the cell; her knuckles growing battered and broken, skin splitting, blood spilling. For those few seconds, she felt a bottomless sadness. So utterly, completely alone like a puppy left in the rain in a box for someone to find. She wasn't much, but she's all she had. And it would stay that way for as long as she survived.

The harsh feeling of her heart slowly being eaten away like moths to fabric sent her reeling as the sharp jolts of pain sparked through her hands. Eventually she fell to the confines of sleep. But the memories even tormented her in her dreams; awful, catastrophic thoughts they were. The look on her sisters face when she was taken was scarring to say the least. Every human lies after all. The nightmares were enough to make her wake up in a dangerous sweat; although she never opened her eyes until the fat lady with a large underbite came to retrieve her. Blinking, Scarlet opened her crimson eyes which were pooling with tears, the leftovers fleeing her eyes as she sat up to the loud, grating voice of Pandora. "Wake up scrap."

Scarlet wiped away at her face, to feel anything deranges you, to be seen feeling anything strips you naked. She'd rather die than be thrown to the dogs for crying, it was the most childish thing she could've done, other than beat her knuckles in from grief.

Before she could even rise, she was yanked off the floor, light as a feather to this behemoth of a woman. She wished to bash her face in, but she had the better sense to keep her life instead of trying something that would most likely not succeed. She was made of skin and bone at this point, her face gauntly enough to look skeletal, her fists wouldn't do much damage, especially in this state. They stumbled along in silence for minutes on end, each one bitterly stretched and long. Cracked walls and empty cells passed her by, her mind wandering here and there. It wasn't much different from the alley she lived in, except it was more quiet, more lonely. The emptiness echoed for miles on end, haunting her everywhere she went. Being alone wasn't something she could escape, it would stay by her forever so she had to find a way to live with it, no matter how much it hurt. She aims to be lionhearted, but her hands still shake and her voice has never been quite loud enough. Even if it was her defiant display that made it center stage, it was shut down rather quickly.

Her brow clenched at the thoughts, mouth sour with the taste of defeat, to think she'd let her guard down for nothing. Light blossomed in the tunnel, eating up the walls and floor with white as she was walked forward into the spacious hole she'd soon learn as the pit. There were a couple of children around her age there as well, ranging from different backgrounds, they must have come from all over. But one caught her eye, shiny blond hair and a face brimming with constellations of freckles. She was the most beautiful thing Scarlet had ever seen. A beam of hope as blinding as the white feathers of a dove. Her soft, long lashes fluttered like fans as her gaze shifted to Scarlet. She was tossed forward, tripping over the bony width of her own feet. She straightened, meeting the eyes of the other children with a scowl so dark it would shadow anyone with fear. Most looked away, except that young girl, and in a wild turn of events, she waved.

A sharp acid spread through her chest, her frown lines deepening as hands as soft and delicate as the rain beckoned her. A trick surely, Scarlet thought. Something as silken as down and brittle as her could be broken in an instant. And she suddenly felt fear in herself for the thought of snapping the pretty bird's little neck. She whipped her head in another direction, walking further across the sand, the blinding white granules clinging to her battered feet as she trod to the wall opposite them.