Imperial

Prologue

*********************************************************************

The comforting aura of the dark bedroom was quickly replaced by a sudden unnerving fear, for when the girl felt the cool air brush past her face she realized her balcony doors on the right wall of her room were wide open.  They weren’t open only a moment ago.

Her eyes grew wide as she gawked at the open doors and heard the pounding beads of rain and the distant thunder begin to initiate in the twilight.

A creek came and went at the foot of her bed, but she didn’t dare look down. And then another creek, and suddenly she found herself being forcefully dragged by her feet and off the edge of her bed, hitting the floor with a hard thump.

Small and weak, her feeble strength was forceless against the strong hands that bound her. Abruptly ripped from the sheets and blankets that had traveled to the floor with her, she was yanked and shoved faced down to the floor as her hands were tied by a coarse piece of rope behind her back and her eyes blindfolded; sending her into a realm of pure darkness. As she began to fully take in what was happening, she began to yell more legibly.

”Stop, stop!" she tried to holler, but her voice was overshadowed by the rain; now an intense storm. Her cries were futile, as the kidnapper now kept their hands firmly over her mouth. It was as if no matter how loud her screams were, they were just swallowed back into her mouth.

Everything had happened so fast. She felt the icy breeze of the night seep through her skin. The intruder quickly forced her up when they finished binding her hands; they pulled her backward toward the balcony, keeping their palm over her mouth. Suddenly, billions of freezing droplets of rain consumed her as she was taken outside. Puddles of ice water drenched her bare feet.

Another set of hands pulled her and lifted her over the balcony. She shrieked as the possibility of being thrown over came to mind, but she seemed to smoothly descend with her captor, maybe sliding down a rope.

When they touched down seconds later, she landed on her feet, but her knees buckled and she fell onto the hard cobblestone ground. The kidnapper looped their arm through hers and sprinted, dragging her along. The cold, ice, air and rain was unbearable. She heard many other quick footsteps behind her, trailing the one who pulled her along. She tried to yell for help, "Stop! Let me go!", but all that came out were garbled words.

They seemed to be dragging her along faster and faster the louder her helpless pleas got.

She fought, trying to pull her hands free of the tightly wrapped rope around her wrists, while trying to find a way to escape the arm pulling her. She kept running behind the kidnapper who caused her to run faster than she ever had before. She wanted her mother and father to pull her away from whoever was so determined to capture her, but that comfort never came. No one did.

The blindfold kept everything in the dark; she didn't even know where they were going. Her heart was in her throat, she imagined the worse.

“This isn’t happening” she told herself.

 She heard the low voices of her kidnappers. She couldn’t make out their words, but she heard the agitation in their voices as the sirens sounded. Her absence was noticed.

It seemed as if she was being dragged across the bridge now. The kidnappers seemed to only gain energy and run faster, pulling her along by her wrist.

She was bare-foot, she could feel the bottoms of her feet becoming raw from pounding against the little, sharp, rocks scattered about the cobblestone bridge. The cool wind chilled her legs and arms, as she was only clothed in a simple night gown. The vigorous rain whipped against her bare skin.

The slippery, hard stone slowly began to transform into softer dirt, they were across the bridge. She heard the rumble of a loud engine and was suddenly thrown into what seemed like a shuttle plane. She was placed onto a cold, leather seat. She kicked and threw herself around the confined space in attempt to free herself, but before she could comprehend what had happened, a piercing force had struck her head hard, as if she had been hit by a stone. The feeling was agonizing, no, excruciating. Everything inside her turned into a jumbled mess. The words of her kidnappers drifted into a haze. She heard the sound of the thundering rain subside as they secured the vertical door shut. It went quiet. The driver’s voice, a woman, in the seat in front of her muttered something that sounded like “You’ll return.”, and just as she felt herself ascend higher and higher, she couldn't hold onto herself anymore and fell limp.

Everything inside her head shut off.