Desire (On Hold)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

I lay in my bed, my eyes heavy with exhaustion but unable to sleep.

I ran my fingers over the small key and took in every detail of it until I could memorise every single bump and scratch on its surface.

The clock outside the tower chimed, telling me it was midnight. As the last chime rang through the tower, sleep overtook me and I gave in willingly.

The hallway went on forever. No beginning and no end.

I looked behind me and saw only the smooth, high walls of the hallway continuing on in straight lines.

The walls were stark white, almost blindingly so. I avoiding looking at them and instead stared at the ground. It too was just as white as the walls.

“Help!” I cried out, my voice bouncing around everywhere. It seemed to be thrown back at me even louder than it had originally been. “Somebody help me!”

But nobody answered.

I began running. I just wanted to find a way out. But everything was the same, never changing as if I had stayed in the same spot, not moving an inch.

“Help!” I screamed again, more desperately this time. Again, the only sound that greeted me was my own laboured panting.

I continued running, scanning ever section of the walls for some way to get out. I ran nonstop until I got breathless and I started feeling lightheaded.

I knelt down on the ground, my head below my heart and my breathing beginning to ease. I took one last deep breath and wobbly stood up again.

On the wall to the right of me was a faint circle indent. In my excitement, I sprinted over to it, forgetting about my wooziness. I fell onto the ground but paid no attention to my clumsiness. The anticipation was taking over.

I touched the indent lightly with my trembling fingers and traced it slowly. As soon as my finger had finished tracing the full circle, a click echoed throughout the hallways and the indent widened, hollowing out.

I pressed my eye to the hole and saw the opposite of the hallway I was in.

The small and crowded room was entirely black and cluttered with odd bits and pieces. On the wall facing the hole I was looking through was a massive painting, surrounded by an intricate golden frame. I gasped in recognition of what the painting was of. The door looked so familiar but I had no idea where I had seen it before.

I shut my eyes tightly and in my mind scenes of Asteria arriving at the tower played in my mind. She was always standing on the wooden beam when I was allowed out, in exactly the same place. Her flowing skirts were always covering the background. But I remembered once she wore something less bulbous and I could see a door behind her. How could I not have seen that door before? The answer was obvious: Asteria purposefully blocked it from view with her clothing and by the time she had gotten up to the platform where I stood, I was always blinded with pain.

The door was the answer to my freedom. The key was the answer to my freedom.