Rapunzel, Rapunzel

Chapter Two

TRIGGER WARNING- SELF HARM/ SELF HATE

A flicker of hope kindled in my dying heart, sharply blown out by the thought of reality. My face fell as I glance at my wounds all along my arms. No one wanted to tolerate someone who did that. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.

'I... I can't.'

I whispered, my voice thick with guilt. He frowned, confused.

'Why not?'

He asked softly, looking up at me.

'Someone as beautiful as you doesn't deserve to be locked in a tower.'

'I can't get down. And even if I do escape, heaven knows what she'll do to me...'

My shame-ridden voice was almost snatched by the light breeze teasing me closer to the edge of the building. In that moment, I realised how easy it would be to end all of this pain, to just take a step off and land in the thick bramble fifteen metres below. The man's sweet voice shocked me from my thoughts once again.

'Whatever a woman would lock you in this tower?' He asked, a confused yet slightly protective look on his face. 

'The... the Dame. Oh, she's horrible.' A tear trickled down my face as I continued. 'She's kept me in here as long as I can remember... h-her long claws and her voice, her raspy, cold voice...'

I started to slip into a delirium, crouching into a foetal position on the large windowsill and curling my thin arms around my figure. The man watched with an almost scared expression, emotion welling in his eyes as I continued to sob quietly.

'She's locked me in here and I can't get out unless I die... she's starved me, and... and I see her everywhere, she's in my head...'

From his spot on the ground, the man called up to me, rope in his hands.

'I'm getting you out of here. When I say, catch the rope that I'm going to throw you, okay?'

He still looked slightly perturbed, however, he threw one end of the rope up to me and I caught it obligingly. 

'Now, I need you to find something to tie it onto!'

I walked from my perch on the window to a table, nailed to the ground in the small tower chamber. After I tied it on, I walked back to the windowsill. I grabbed the thick rope that now draped down from the window to the ground, attached firmly to the table.

'Climb down!'

He called. Hands shaking, I started to scale the rope until I was almost at the ground. The man then lifted me in his strong arms, enclosing me in his embrace, smelling of leather where I smelled like death and fresh cinnamon where I reeked of suicide. I didn't even realise I was in his arms until he pulled away, gesturing me to follow him. I took a step, flinching as my bare feet touched the sharp brambles below me.

'Who... who are you?'

I said, voice a light flutter of fear and curiosity. The man looked hesitant, but said,

'Flynn Rider. Who are you, blondie?'

My heart skipped a beat at the nickname. As we walked, I almost seemed to get lost in his deep brown eyes, in his soft and sweet tone... but at the darkened corner of my lovestruck mind, there was a creeping thought. He'll never love someone like you. I swallowed, eyes flicking to the blood still coating my wrists, then the scars all up my arms. That was true. 

'I'm Rapunzel.'

He smiled, almost slyly, the abruptly stopped walking and put an arm around me. Electric shocks of excitement sparked up my body, but something wasn't quite right. Something at the bottom of my stomach, a pulling in the back of my mind as he leaned in, our faces hardly inches apart. Flynn's warm, caramel-scented breath brushed against my lips, but I didn't melt into his arms. I stayed tense. Sensing this, he pulled away, brushing a strand of my slightly dirty hair from my bruised face.

'What's the matter, buttercup?'

His warm embrace around me slipped away like a dwindling breath as a voice pierced the clear, calm night. That's when the realisation settled over us, both turning our heads as our unheard gasps hung in the silence. The Dame's reeking perfume dribbled down the air, my stomach churning.

'I see we have a visitor.'

Dame Gothel shot me a dark glare and I backed away, feet stumbling on the sharp vines covering the ground as my heart raced with fear. She approached Flynn as he froze, pulling a mangled, thin finger down his immaculate face, and drew her face closer. Her pearly bones were almost visible through her fine skin. Though trepidation glinted in his eyes, Flynn stood his ground as the Dame grinned malevolently and hissed in his ear,

'What are you doing here, you maggot?'

He gritted his teeth and spat back.

'Taking this poor girl somewhere away. Far away, where you'll never find her again.'

Instead of looking intimidated, the witch looked amused by the cold tone.

'Stand down, boy. Leave my garden.'

'No. Let Rapunzel go.'

Fear wrapped its icy fingers around my heart as the Dame's face darkened.

'Say that again.'

I wanted to warn Flynn, to tell him to stop, but too late.

'Let. Her. Go.'

The Dame's hand flew from his face to his neck in an instant, and I cried out as a scream flew from my mouth. The sharp vines under my feet started to slither forward, coming to wrap around Flynn.

'No!'

I yelled. Tears of panic ran down my face as the vines crawled with a spine-tingling clattering noise to secure my ankles and my mouth.

'I've given you the chance to run, boy. You stayed.'

The Dame flicked her wrist as the bramble arched upward, stabbing into Flynn's eyes. The effect was immediate, Flynn letting out a skin-crawling scream of pure agony as the vines twisted into his head. He writhed in the vine's grip, shrieking and convulsing. Blood squirted all over the dirt and chunks of flesh were ripped from his eyes. A static ringing merged with the screams as I covered my eyes, holding back vomit and tears staining my face. He arched his back as the vines continued to burrow into his head, making gruesome spraying noises that resonated with his tortured yells. A mixture of runny blood, tears and puss dripped down his cheeks as he wailed,

'Make it stop, please, make it stop! They're in my head, it's- my goddamn skull, make the pain stop!'

His words rang in my ears as the Dame made the vines twist deeper and deeper, before she ripped them out, along with the bloodied remains of Flynn's eyes.  He screamed one final time, before collapsing on the red, moistened dirt.

'Flynn!'

I cried in horror, fixated on his gruesomely mangled corpse. I wrenched inside the vine's grip, trying to twist them away.

'Let me go!'

I screamed at the Dame. She didn't, instead tightening the grip as my heart raced.

'Silence. Or I kill you, too.'

Abruptly, I stopped fussing, though silent tears still ran down my mortified face. Dame Gothel smirked, then released me, the lines where the bramble dug into me still sharp with a stinging pain. She pointed at the tower, a mixture of fury and glory on her blood-soaked face.

'Go. Now. And not a sound until I talk to you tomorrow.'