Falling From Darkness (Short Story)

Falling From Darkness

There was a sound in the pitch black darkness, but Rose couldn't make it out. It scurried across the darkness in the room; it's tiny paws pattered against stone. "Come into the light, Mark." She said. She laughed as it came closer. There is no light here, Rose thought. Silly mouse. The mouse came close to her, swiping its body on her hand and waited. She picked up the mouse and held it close to her. Mark was her only friend; her only companion.

There were heavy footsteps nearby. Suddenly the door of the small, dark room was opened violently. Rose held up her hand to the light; it blinding her world. The mouse hopped from her grip as this happened, hiding in the corner behind Rose. A role and chicken thigh was thrust to her from somewhere in the light and then it was dark again; door closed.

Rose began scarfing her food down. It was her only meal of the day. She gave a small piece of her roll to the mouse still hiding behind her and thought back to the day this all started. Though now that day was becoming very vague. Ten years ago Rose was at the market with her mother. Her mother was talking to a vendor of which Rose could not remember anymore and Rose's little brother was clutching her mother's dress. There was a group of children Rose's age playing a game and were singing and so she joined. "Ring around the rosy... ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" And as she fell to the ground, a man swept her up and took off towards a dark alleyway. That was the last anyone had seen of Rose, now being seventeen, and she was being kept in dark box of a room, wasting away like decaying flesh.

There were no more ways for means of escape. No one knew where she was. She was certain they assumed her dead and stopped looking. And for further obstacles, she was guarded by an evil, devilish, brawny man that took her body for what it was. There had been many times she thought to stop eating completely, and the bodiless voices in her room told her that her family was never coming, but she endured. Although she didn't believe them, she trusted something of the voices.

The mouse had now crept back into Rose's hands. Ring around the rosy, she sang to herself. She held the mouse up to her ear. "Mark? You hear something too?" She paused for a moment. "No. The voices told me that the man is talking to another man. They said that man wants me dead." The mouse scurried around the room and started scratching on the wooden face of the door. "Mark, if you open that, the light will eat you." She began to stand to grab the mouse from the door. A couple seconds later, heavy footsteps sounded and the door swung wide open. Light seeped into every corner of the room. The man with the large muscles grabbed Rose by the arm and threw her onto the cold stone floor of her room.

Rose waited for something to happen. Nothing... and then suddenly his body fell onto her, limp; dead. Blood flowed from his temple to her neck. She barely managed to scramble to her feet. Mark came near her and she scooped him up. She walked into the bright light even though the voices told her it would hurt her. It pained her head to be surrounded in white light and she stumbled and noticed she touched another wall. A voice was somewhere around her. She blinked and the brightness eventually faded into a steady light. She was able to make out basic objects in the room. A table and chairs were there in front of her. And then there was a man; much younger than her capturer... perhaps younger than her even. There was no making out his features. Everything was too bright and blurry.

The second man... She screamed very loudly and frantically looked for an escape route. There. An open window. She ran towards it. The man followed, shouting her name. "Rose!" He knows my name, she thought to herself as she got to the window, slowing. "Rose I'm your brother! It's been ten years!" She halted. Rose looked at him. No... no... no. The voices told me I was never going to be found. She mumbled to herself. She looked at him and then looked at herself. She looked at the body that had once been her own but now had no life left in it. "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." She pat her mouse and then took one step back. The window, which was open, tipped her over the edge and she fell with a snap that spread throughout her body. Rose was now heap of mangled bones on the pavement. A soulless, bleeding body.