True Love's Curse (SwanQueen)

Chapter 20

Emma's POV:

Three days later...

Everything is sore.

My head aches because of the continuous conflict that has been at war with each other. Do I tell Regina or not? Do I save my parents or not? The lack of sleep hasn't helped either. It's very hard to fall asleep when your four limbs are attached to the same spot on the floor. The discomfort only adds when you can't tell whether it's day or night. Time doesn't exist down here. The only thing that spawns here is loneliness and dread. I've prayed and begged countless times for anyone, even a mouse to appear and keep me company but no one's heard my pleas. Only the darkness and aching answer my calls.

My mind runs havoc with my senses. Every now and then I'll hear footsteps or something else and get my hopes up that someone is here. I'd wait excitedly on my knees for them to walk into the torchlight and show themselves but they never did. I'm starting to think that I'll never see another person again. If my parents do storm the castle, they'll either die or I'll never see them again. Or they'll kill my true love and I'll never see her again. I mean my parents may not even know I'm down here if they do win! I could rot down here, with no food, no water. I'm practically a living corpse already.

Even my stomach has stopped begging for food, it now relies on devouring my muscles from the inside out. Diminishing it like flies and maggots on a piece of left-out meat. My throat has accepted its fate as sandpaper and can no longer produce any sound without immense discomfort coursing through me. My clothes are tattered and covered in dirt and hay and anything else the previous prisoner left in the dungeon.

Energy is a foreign ideology that's hard to remember.

I lay in the same position for who knows how long with the only real movement being my eyelids blinking and my lungs breathing in and out, but even that is tiring now.

I was told my entire life that hope was the strongest thing in the world and that with it, anything was possible. I think that whoever came up with that never went through this. I doubt that the person who came up with that had any real struggle in their life at all.

"Fuck!" A high-pitched voice huffed.

I don't turn to look at where the sound came from. It's probably my imagination torturing me into false hope. I stay in the same position, unmoving.

"Excuse me?" The voice says. It almost sounds real but I doubt it. "Hello?"

Wow, I never imagined that I'd hallucinate an actual person but here they are.

"Oi, you alive?" Something hard hits my back and I flinch at the feeling. My muscles tense quickly at the realization that that wasn't imagined. I actually felt it.

"Are you real?" I ask, regretting it immediately as the sandpaper walls of my throat grind against each other.

"Yes, of course I am." The voice sighed, "If I wasn't, then why the hell would I choose to be in the Evil Queen's dungeon?"

I cough, trying to get the next question out. My throat burns like I've just taken a shot of straight liquor. "What- what's your name?"

"Tinkerbell but you can call me Tink." She cheerily replied.

I'd never heard that name before, meaning that I couldn't have imagined her. She's real! I groan as I use the last of my energy to turn around and look in the cell next to mine. There's a small, young woman, looking down at me. Her blonde hair is in a messy bun. It's too dark to see the color of her eyes, but the way she stands isn't normal. It's like she's not used to her body. Her clothes are somewhat torn and dirty green. It looks like it might have been a more vibrant and colourful green once but it's worn and obviously hasn't been looked after properly. There's a dark green neckerchief around her neck, that looks like it was made out of her torn clothes. There's dirt in splotches on her hands, arms, and face but she looks friendly.