A Million Pieces

Chapter 1

My name is Zoë Hartton. I am sixteen years old. I have lived my life in prison.

My parents did something illegal before I was born, and me and my siblings have spent our lives in a maximum-security prison. I have been told mum gave birth to me four years after committing the crime, and they were caught a year after that. I have lived most of my life here, and my brother, James, and sister, Isabelle, have lived all their lives here, and yet we have an unbreakable bond, not just your normal siblings bond. My parents on the other hand, they don't love me. They never have. They got desperate when they were caught and I was imprisoned along with them, despite having done nothing. I don't know what they did, but it must have been very bad, for us to end up here like this. We aren't allowed to see them, and I wouldn't want to again. I saw them just after James was born, and they have lost their minds. Years in a padded cell and questioning has taken everything they have, and they are brainless and crazy now. It's been twelve long years. I'm sick of this life. But I can't say anything. This is the only place James and Isabelle have ever known. I know they don't like it here either, but they don't know anything else, so they have no place to dream about going, and nowhere to if they ever do get out. There is nothing to look forward to here. They give us to meals a day, and the food is actually decent. But every second day I am questioned. Despite being only four when I was arrested they ask me the same questions are try to get me to answer. But I don't remember. They couldn't question me until I was ten, so I had a few years free of the pressure, but I have been sent to that musty, horrid-smelling room and talked to by a voice over a speaker every second day for the past six years.

I think about this all this, sitting in a corner on the cold hard cell floor.

"Are you okay Zoë? You look like you've seen a ghost." Isabelle is standing over me, looking worried. Isabelle is eleven, and is tall for her age. She is the only one of the three of us with blonde hair that reaches just below her shoulder blades, rather than the family brown, and it was out. Her eyes are the Hartton deep green. She is slim, but a lot stronger than she looks and her hands are slender, but thinner than they should be. She was wearing the thick, plain grey tracksuit pants we were given and a plain black short-sleeved shirt. She had the matching grey tracksuit jumper wrapped around her waist. Those were the only clothes we got, apart from some old, worn black slip-on shoes.

"I'm okay, Izzy." I reply. "Just thinking. How's James?" James is eight and has my brown hair and the green eyes. Unlike Izzy, he is quite small. He is frail and weak, but strong-willed and loves me and Izzy more than anything. At the moment, he is very sick. It's not uncommon here; the place is filthy and we are only allowed to the showers twice a week. We can often hear the coughs of our neighbouring cells at night.

"He wants to see you, actually." She nodded to the tiny room the two of then shared. This cell was one of bigger cells as there was the three of us sharing it. There was a main room, which was relatively large. Enough for us all to sit comfortably in the middle of it in a circle and eat, which we usually did. There was a bed in the right corner behind the door. That was where I slept. Through a tiny doorway on the opposite wall there was another, much smaller, room with enough rooms for two single beds with about half a metre of space in between. Unlike my room, there was a small, dirty window on the very top of the furthest wall. It was too dirty to see anything out of it, but it let in some light.

"Me? Okay. Thanks, Iz." I got up and touched her hand before walking through the tiny doorway, trying to ignore cold how I felt. It was dark in the room, the little window not giving much light. It must be overcast, I thought to myself. I sat on his tinny bed and the old springs creaked. He was facing away from me. I put my hand on his arm. "James?"

"Izzy." He turned over and faced me, rubbing his eyes. His face was too pale. "Zoë!" He tried to sit up and reached his arms out for me. I pushed him back onto the bed.

"No, James, lay down. It's okay, I'm here." I took his small, cold hand. He looked down at our hands and back at me. He smiled, a look that lit up his little face, but there was pain and misery in his eyes. "Please don't leave." He told me.

"I won't. Not ever." I smiled at him, trying to hide the sadness I felt. I would never be able to leave him, not even if I wanted to. We were stuck behind these walls.

He mumbled something and turned back over, still holding tightly to my hand. After about five minutes his grip slackened and I pulled my hand out of his. I slipped quietly out of the room, so not to wake him. Izzy was sitting on my bed. She had a paperback in her hand. While we never left the room anymore, we used to have to go to school-type lessons that had been set up just for us. They had stopped two years ago but Izzy and I had been enough times to read and write, but James had never attended. Not that we ever had the chance to write anything. But once a month the guards gave us a new book to read and took the old one. Izzy and I always shared the book, reading it and taking turns with who read it first. She looked up as I approached now and cast the book aside.

"How is he?" She looked worried. Izzy always acted older than her age. I was grateful for it. She was always ready to take care of James, or even me if I needed it. I loved her all the more for it.

"He's okay. Better than the last few days. He's still to pale, though." James got sick a lot. He was so weak, and it worried me. Izzy sighed. "Are we ever going to get out of here?" Her question startled me so much I could only stare at her for a moment. "Zoë?"

"I...I don't know, Iz." I didn't think she had ever really cared about getting out. For any other reason than being free of cold stone walls. But I could tell that that wasn't it. I voiced my thoughts.

"Well, I never wanted to for any other reason. But lately the books have been so adventurous." Her fingers brushed the cover of the book next to her as she stared at it. "This one is about a civilisation that has lived behind a massive wall for years because it's what their ancestors wanted. But some want to leave, so they do and they fall in love with this beautiful world that's outside. I want to know what it's like outside." She was thinking what I had for so many years now. Unlike me, she has never touched the outside world. We sat in silence for a moment, lost in thought. "What if mum and dad died?" She asked. I gave her a sad smile.

"I don't think that would do anything. We aren't here because they are alive. It's not that simple." She looked disappointed, but tried to hide it. "Hey." I gently took her chin with my fingers and made her look at me. "We will get out of here one day. They may realise we are innocent. They know you are. It's me keeping the two of you here. You will one day get out."

"We wouldn't leave without you. We couldn't." Her eyes hardened.

"If you had the chance to get out of here, I would not let you pass it up. With or without me, you would leave." She opened her mouth to argue when a cry came from the other room. I dropped my hand from her chin and stood up.

"The world doesn't realise how much it's missing without you in it." She dropped her head and I went to check on James.

Hello everyone. I am completely redoing this, so bear with me as I am doing random updates and changing things. Thanks everyone