Dreadlocks

Dreadlocks (Still editing and looking for feedback)

"Rapunzel," the old woman cooed from below. "Let down your hair!"

Climbing up the tower was close to impossible without aid from the young maiden who resides within. Although it wasn't her choice to live there, she had no away around it. The tower was old and the only enterance was through a window 10 stories up. After the tower itself was finished, the stairs leading to the top we taken apart and used for the construction of the wall it.

The hag keeping her there possessed the power of black magic, and has shown Rapunzel enough of her evil ways to ensure that she would never betray her or question her.

"Yes... Mother," she breathed, but she knew very well that she was not her true mother. The woman appeared to be 1,000 years old, just the sight of her was ghastly. Who the hell would want to get at that ugly, wrinkly bag of bones? Just the thought of it would make anyone gag.

She knew nothing of the outside world, except what the witch would tell her. 'The world was once a beautiful place, full of life and creatures both magical and ordinary, until the man came. They had weapons and brought destruction in their wake. They hunted the creatures of land and sea, some of the time it was just for sport. Humans are cruel, disgusting and dishonorable. You're lucky to have me as your mother and not those scum.'. And it would go on like that, but she had no reason to believe her.

❖❖❖

Her legs were poised like a frog and her knuckles grounded like an ape. Rapunzel half crawled and half hopped her way to the enormous window from the far side of the tower. She drug along behind her, her filthy rat nest of hair and heaved it over the bar to the right of the window and down the side of the stone wall. When she was younger it was a pure gold, but as she aged, the more the dirt caked it, fading it to a dull brown. As it grew over the years, it became more disgusting, more matted.

She anticipated the pain that was to come from her tender, raw scalp. Preparing herself she ground her teeth together and dug her bloodied, broken nails into the crevices of the stone floor.

The preparation was complete just in time for the weight of the witch to start yanking at her roots. Rapunzel cried out, but caught herself, hastily biting her tongue and tasting the blood that filled her mouth.

The witch could not see her weaknesses ever again. The last time Rapunzel lost a few toes as a result.

❖❖❖

"Hello, Deary," the words curled in a green mist falling from her mouth. Her eyes were as black as her soul, teeth as rotten as a spoiled child. And her stench was that of a million rotting corpses in the desert heat.

"Hello... Mother." Rapunzel's words were slow, but her mind was brilliant. The hag never taught her how to speak very well. She only told her the necessities, which were nothing but obedient replies.

When the old woman was gone, Rapunzel would try and practice other phrases. The only thing she wanted was to be free from this prison, free from the damnation of seeing the world from a large stone window.

The parts of the world she could see weren't very much, mainly it was just a large cliff a little taller than the tower, some strange green climbing plant Mother called ivy, and a stream below just several yards away from the roots of the tower.

Rapunzel had a corner of the tower to herself where the hag provided her with a cot, but nothing else. There was no bath, or toilet. She lived in her filth; the gross gooey, matted feeling of her naked body repulsed her. Mother would never supply her with clothing, no matter how much she pleaded.

'You have no idea what modesty is, Deary,' was her most common retorts.

❖❖❖

The hag once told her that there were 365 days in a year, and since that day Rapunzel marked the days in her own blood so that she could know her age. The next day was going to be Rapunzel's 18th birthday, or so the wall of blood said. Mother was leaving that night to get her a present, and that was when she planned her escape.

❖❖❖

"Rapunzel, it's time for me to go!" the hag yelled impatiently.

"Okay... Mother." She emerged slowly from her dark crawling toward her mother, and threw her hair over bar and down the side of the cold wall. She braced herself once more and down the hag went.

❖❖❖

Rapunzel prepared herself a week's worth of food, putting it in a deer hide bag, and set it on a table nearby. Next she took a dull knife used for cutting any game the witch had brought home, and rubbed it back and forth between a crevice in the floor. Once it was sharp, she scuttled the best she could to the window and sliced the curtain into pieces to create a robe.

Hastily, she put it over her head and wrapped it over her frail body. Then she grabbed the bag and wrapped it tightly around her delicate hips. Rapunzel took the knife, and placed it carefully in the bag being sure not to tear it. The next step was to put her hair over the bar to the right of the large window.

She hurriedly grabbed for her hair, and jumped gripping her hair in a reverse climbing motion. Repelling down the wall, kicking back whenever she got close to it. The pain was excruciating, but was nothing compared to what she was running away from.

Every day of her life had been miserable, there was nothing more that she wanted than to be free.
Her grip faltered and she was flying in the air arms sprawled out, waving in panic. Her screams bounced off of the valley walls that concealed the tower. The wind rushed and caused her hair to wrap around her thin neck and snap it, only a few feet away from the ground. The momentum from the 80 foot fall nearly decapitated her, but in a way she was free just as she had wished to be.