Hope

Chapter Eleven

I keep slipping in and out of consciousness. I don't know what's worse; my terrifying nightmares or the horrific reality that surely awaits.

I hear voices every time I regain consciousness, but that could just be my mind playing tricks on me. Where am I? I wanted to scream. I probably would if I could find my voice.

“... put too much, you idiot!” a deep voice with a strange accent said.

“No! I put a quarter of it, like you said I should,” an equally deep voice replied.

“Why isn't she awake, then?”

“I don't know. She is a skinny thing, you see? Maybe the portion was too big for her tiny body. But I put a quarter of it into her bloodstream. Nothing more.”

“Where is the boy? He came up with this, he should know.”

“Who? Harry?”

My breath rushes out of my lungs at the mention of his name, and I think someone punched me.

No, the pain is inside of my chest, hot and cold at the same time. He was there. He watched and he didn't do anything. My personal haven turned to my personal hell.

“Yes he- hear that, Duncan? Look, I think she's waking up.”

“She's been doing that everyday for the past three days, idiot,” Duncan says, “I think we should go get the boy...”

I slip back to unconsciousness.

I am fully aware of everything now. I can finally feel my body. I can hear and feel, and I feel cold and very uncomfortable. My mind, however, is blank and confused.

And then my mind is flooded with images of the last day I was fully conscious, and again my breath wheezes out of my lungs. I gasp, opening my eyes.

I find myself staring at a beige ceiling that appears to be made out of... rock. I slowly sit up, my stiff joints protesting uncomfortably.

I am sitting on top of a hard mattress that was placed on the cold crème floor.

I dig through my brain, trying to remember where I am and how I got here, but the last thing I remember is a man in dark clothing and... Harry's pained face.

“Oh, finally! She's awake,” someone says.

I look around for the source of the deep voice and my eyes land on a bulky man, not younger than thirty, looking at me with an amused expression. I am in some sort of cave-like room made out of rock and stone and he is standing outside of what would've been a door if this was a normal room.

“Hey, Princess,” he says.

“Who-” I try to say but my voice is just a faint whisper. I scramble to my feet but as soon as I'm standing, the room sways and the floor disappears beneath me and I am once again pulled into cold darkness.

I'm woken up by cold water splashed on my face. I frantically sit up, my teeth chattering violently. Why is everything so cold?

“ Our patience is wearing thin, doll. Get the fuck up,” a voice with a thick accent says. Someone kicks my feet.

I look up and see the same man who I last saw before I collapsed looking at me with a grim expression.

“W-W-Where am I?” I stutter, by body shaking violently with chills.

“You're in Prasinis, Acutus land,” he says, walking out of the small cave.

“W-W-Where?”

He rolls his green eyes. “Of course. I don't understand why they kept it from you, your parents that is. It did more harm than good.” My blood boils despite the chills that run up my spine. I bolt up, wanting to say something but my knees wobble and I'm back on the floor.

“Wh- You knew my parents?” Everything is so confusing and so cold. There are so many questions in my head and I don't know how to voice them without sounding like I've lost my mind.

“Everybody knew your parents, darling,” he says.

“How? I don't understand!” I screech.

He shrugs and slides down to the floor, raising his knee and resting his elbow on it. “Of course you don't. How could you? Living in the dark for- how old are you? What, fifteen or sixteen? Living in the dark for fifteen or sixteen years.”

“Would you please tell me what is going on!” I think of Jeff. Where is he? Is he okay? Do they have him too? Who are they? I manage to stand on my legs without getting dizzy and I walk up to the end of the small cave.

“I wouldn't do that, if I were you. Don't walk out of there,” he says, sounding bored.

“Why?” I stop waking.

His head snaps up as though someone called his name. He stands up and dusts himself off. “You have a visitor,” he says and disappears down a narrow corridor.

I hear footsteps. For a moment I think he was coming back before I notice they are coming from another corridor. I take several steps back in fear.

The louder the footsteps get the faster my worn-out heart beats.

I brace myself as the footsteps stop but I can't see who it is for I have pressed my back against the far corner of the room.

I take a sharp intake of breath as he enters.