Ashes

Chapter Two

            She took off running down the hall, pulling me along with her. She first passed her cell, then my own. I turned my head back enough so that I could see if anyone was behind us. I saw two men coming through the door. They looked down the hall confused, looking around to see what made the sound that they heard. Once they saw us one waved their hand at some people in the other room and yelled something. I was just far enough out of range that all I heard was a slight muffle sound. Then I saw more come out. At that point I turned around so I could run faster.

            As we ran past other cells I saw people and even animals through the tiny windows on the doors. I felt a sort of sympathy for them all, but sadly they all had to stay in their tiny rooms and hope that one day someone will come back to help them. I stopped focusing on the door and kept my eyes on the wall at the end of the hall. The hall was long but I could still just barely see the end. It had color but not very much. I could not exactly make out what the object was. All I knew was that it didn't take up the entire wall.

            The closer we got the clearer it got. It had an image at the end. From what I could tell it had four people on it. One in all white on a throne, two that looked like soldiers hold a silver looking object, and the last one looked like a peasant who had their head resting on a tree stump in between the soldiers and under the silver object. It looked like a painting from where we were, but something just told me 'that's not a painting'. We were about a yard away from it and I could finally tell that it was no painting. It was a stained glass window. I could now tell that there was nowhere to turn at the end of the hall and I started freaking out even more.

            “What are we gonna do?!” I asked panicky. Then when she didn't respond I added,” There is nowhere to turn at the end of the hall! Are you getting us cornered?!”

            “Ready?” she yelled.

            “Ready for what?” I questioned, still yelling but the confusion came through my tone.

            “Jump!” she yelled letting go of my arm and crashing through the window.

            I stopped in just enough time before falling out after her. I looked behind me and saw that the men weren't that far away anymore. I then looked down out the window, down toward the ground to where the queen went. I saw her swimming in the lake just below, about seven stories down. I turned around again to see that they were only feet away from me. Then, with no hesitation, I jumped out the window. I was looking up as I fell and I saw the men look down at me and then rush away from the window.

            I turned my body to face the ground; as soon as my body was straight I hit the lake. I sunk to the bottom at a high enough speed that I injured my wrist landing on it. I opened my eyes under the water and someone else’s eyes were staring right into mine. I screamed, letting out all of the air I had in my lungs. Then I realized that the person was dead, I was staring into someone’s cold dead eyes. I start panicking and tried to swim up, my dress got caught on a branch under the body. I yanked at the dress with all my strength. I gasped for air, slowly filling my lungs with water. As I slowly started to losing consciousness, I could see a figure at the surface of the water. I tried not to freak out, I tried not giving away my position. The figure turned around multiple times as if they were looking for someone. Then I saw their head drop, they were looking down right at me. They quickly started to swim down to me and that's when I noticed it was the queen. She was about five feet away from me when I passed out, once again seeing nothing that was going on around me.

~~~

            I woke up in a room that only featured three colors; red, black, and silver. The walls a simple crimson, the bed covers a dark red and black diagonal stripes with silver stripes about half the size of the other stripes, the floor a black carpet, and the door and window trim nice clean silver. I was lying in the bed, covered by a blanket, looking around the room until the door opened. The queen looked in at me, the look on her face showed confusion and the fact that she was clearly surprised. She then opened the door all the way and walked in.