Grimm Fantasies: Cinder Princess

Prisoner

There's a torture scene in this, so...If your squeamish well honestly I'm not sure why your reading my stuff...But yeah just a warning.

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Ashley

   Ashley stared ahead at the grey wall in front of her, like she did most days. She'd lost count of how long she'd been held captive by the people she once called family. The days and nights stretched on, uninterrupted by anything other than the two meals a day delivered by a small opening in the door. Ashley had tried keeping count of the days when she first got there; faded tally marks marred the wall by the door, they counted up to one hundred and three. Ashley stopped counting after that, she's not sure what made her stop but the tally marks stood proudly proclaiming one hundred and three.

  Ashley doesn't remember that day.

  But then again maybe she does, they were all the same anyway.

  She knew she had to be in her late teens by now; she'd even gotten her first period in the tiny little cell she now called home. However oddly enough after her third time she stopped getting them. Maybe they'd done something to her to make sure they didn't have to worry about that sort of thing, or maybe it was just the malnutrition.

  Ashley narrowed her eyes at the tally marks reading out the number one hundred and three and tried to again recall that particular day, it was a lot like finding a slightly bent piece of hay in a hay stake. She continues to stare at the marks in the concrete as the seconds turn into minutes that soon melt into hours and then the sun once again sunk below the horizon and her second meal of the day was delivered. The metal tray slides across the cold concrete floor to come to a rest near the middle of the floor.

   Ashley, knew it was near the middle but not quite the middle because she'd carved an X into the middle of the floor and the tray was just shy of touching it.

   Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow they'll score a point.

  Ashley slowly counted out two minutes before moving. She reached out and dragged the tray closer to her and stared down at the abysmal ham and cheese sandwich with a small carton of almost room temperature milk.

   Sighing out a slow sigh, careful to keep completely silent she picked off the crust and pulled the cheese off of the sandwich before eating, leaving the milk last to guzzle it down to get rid of the horrible taste that seemed to linger despite her chugging the entire carton of milk. After Ashley was finished she stuffed the piece of cheese and crust of the sandwich into the empty carton. She then slid the tray over to the small opening in the bottom of the door so the person on the other side could collect it later.

   The sun was gone and the room was almost completely dark by the time Ashley returned to her spot in the corner of the room. She stared at the place she knew the tally marks were etched into the wall to mark the day, one hundred and three.

   Ashley let out another slow sigh, she felt a twinge of pain in her chest and memories came flooding back. Memories of that day, one hundred and three, the day she lost hope. That was the day the man she called father finally broke her.

   "Ashley," Her father spoke to her as she stared ahead, defiant. "Ashley look at me," He said again. Ashley didn't move, didn't respond. It didn't matter what she did, if she followed orders she got the iron bar it she screamed and shouted she got the iron bar. So she did neither refusing to give Eric the satisfaction. She sat up straight, stiff as a board in the chair she was tightly strapped to. Even so she expected the iron bar; there was no winning when someone was being tortured.

   "You know something." Eric said as he set the iron bar down on the table and looked over to Ashley with a sly grin. "I thought doing this would be hard, with you looking so much like my late wife. You have her eyes." He told her as he pulled out a jar that had been hidden from Ashley's line of sight. "But that's not the case, if anything." He chuckled lightly. "You looking like her remind me of what I lost because of you." He told Ashley as he set the small jar onto the table beside the iron bar. Ashley made no response, or reaction to the new object.