The Haunted Memories (Forgotten Series, #4)

Memory III

Dark.

Dark.

Dark.

The word matched the steady drip, drip, dripping of water in the darkness. The sound tormented me as much as the dark did.

The darkness seeped into everything. It was in every lungful of air I took in, coating my lungs and throat so thickly I felt like I would choke.

It seeped into my eyes, coating everything in darkness, in black. It made me blind, wrapping around my vision, seeping away all colour and images. I was afraid even my tears would be black if I allowed myself to cry.

It had slid into my ears, muffling sound and made my world quiet, unbearably quiet except for the drip, drip, drip of the unknown water. It tapped on my mind, grated down my spine, and scraped across my nerves.

It leeched into my skin, coated me thickly with dredge that drug me down. It coated me thickly, as did the dirt, feeling heavy and foul on my flesh.

I never knew what it was like to be entrenched in such a suffocating darkness. It was everything to me now. It was all I had left. They had taken me away from my home, my life, my pack, and the moon and left me to rot in the dark.

I hated the dark.

I inhaled, trying not to choke on the air I was breathing. Back and forth. Back and forth. There were two hundred and forty-three steps from the center of the cell to the very edges. Around and around, I had counted them all. Two hundred and forty-three swirling steps from the center to the edges.

I was losing my mind.

I had been since the moment I opened my eyes to the dark after they saved my life. I had silently begged them to let me die and they had brought me back anyway. Scars lingered on my flesh, I couldn't see them but I could feel them. Raised ridges of flesh that I traced over and over again. A reminder of what happened when wolves tried to fly.

I sniffled. I was cold, I was damp, and I was hungry. So so hungry. I hadn't been fed properly since I had been put down here. I didn't know how long I had actually been stuck in my pit of the world for. If I went by visits from Malak then it had been merely nine days but if I went by how many pounds I had shed it had been weeks. Time was meaningless in my square stone pit.

Everything was meaningless in my stone pit.

I reached the far corner of my cell where I had been spending most of my time. I crouched next to the wall and wiped at my dry eyes. I hadn't cried in a long time. My tears had dried up when the darkness started to sink into me. I felt like I was ceasing to be as a person. That I was fading, slowly turning into the darkness until there would be nothing left of me.

There was a scrapping sound that jarred my ears and made me whine. I pressed my hands to my ears, unable to bear the sound. I closed my eyes tightly as I pressed myself further into the wall.

Which Malak was coming today?

There were so many faces to him. So many. I never knew which one I would see next. One day he would be soft and kind. The next he would be taunting and cruel before being apologetic and sweet. Then he would turn sadistic, trying his best to make me cry, leaving bruises on my skin as if he enjoyed watching them bloom like flowers on my flesh.

"Maggie?" The voice was soft and my hands slipped from my ears and I lifted my head, a smile crossing my face at the visitor.

Arlo

I couldn't help but give a happy sound in my throat. I was too weak from my continued pacing and hunger to get up to see him but I was glad he was there all the same. He was the one who came down and gave me water when Malak was busy. He also snuck me bits of food when he could, each one was like a sliver of heaven on my taste buds.