Persephone

21. Fear

Seconds stretched into hours as Persephone's arms reached for support that would not come. She knew from such a height she would not survive, not without breaking a bone or two.

She had never been afraid of heights, but now as she fell through the air, fear was the only thing she felt. A different kind than what Alastair caused in her, she feared him because of an instinct inside her that told her to run and never stop running away from him. Her fear of Alastair was of intimidation and of all the possible things he could do to her. Yet here, as nothing but gravity held her body, she knew exactly what would happen, and that's what caused the tightness in her chest, the dryness in her mouth, the wideness of her eyes and the tension in her muscles.

She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Just falling with no end, not until her body hit something very hard. Her head snapped back and pain blossomed from the center of her back. But this did not hurt nearly as bad as she thought it would. Then the ground growled and drew her closer towards it.

Wait...

Persephone had shut her eyes as she fell, preferring not to see her impending doom, but now she opened them. She was not in fact laying on the forest floor, but curled into the strong arms of Alastair. The pain she felt was not her body hitting the ground, but from the acceleration of dropping. Looking down, she saw they were still in the tree, but instead of being 30 feet from the ground, they were ten. His speed surpassed what she believed it to be.

Looking up at her savior, odd to call him that, Persephone's breath caught in her chest. Alastair's eyes were pitch black and waves of fury rolled off him like steam off of hot black top, and his focus was directly on her. Tension spread down his neck, across his shoulders and down his arms, yet his grip on her was not painful. Tight, but not painful.

After one painstakingly slow breath consisting of flared nostrils and unspoken anger, Alastair looked away from her before stepping off the branch he had balanced himself on, gracefully leaping to the ground, his knees taking the impact of the jump. There was a beat before he took off running.

Persephone's head pressed against Alastair's chest, not by choice but because the speed at which he was moving pushed her into him.

In seconds they had traveled through the garden into the castle. In a few more they were whirring through the hallways descending floor after floor until they had reappeared in the place Persephone had feared only a few hours previously.

The stench hit her before the sound. The previous smell of urine, fear and the metallic quality of blood hit her in waves, forcing her to hold down vomit as Alastair slowed to a human pace, his grip never loosening. Persephone, too frightened of the consequences, did not make an effort to escape him now.

As Alastair stalked down the long, dark corridors the horrid screams and heart wrenching sobs were heard from cells as they passed. The sound of fear in the most primal form caused a tightness in Persephone's chest that she could not shake. Her breathing had become rapid and her fingers now tingly, her anxiety level spiking beyond what it had been in the past.

Finally, after what seemed like a millennia, Alastair stopped as a metal door hidden in the stone of the dungeons. Unlike the other cells, this one hid the contents of it behind the solid steel, the only view inside from a thin slit near the top of the door, a sliding metal grate stopped light from entering if someone on the outside so chose it.

Kicking the door open, Alastair slide inside. The room was small and barren except for a pair of shackles attached to the back wall. This room did not smell nearly as badly as the hallway but a large brown stain in the corner did not look promising.

Crossing the room, he placed Persephone on the floor in front of the shackles, hooking each wrist into them.

Grabbing her chin, he forced her to meet his eyes, "I'll be back."

With that, he left closing and locking the door, shutting the slat, allowing no light to enter the room.

Persephone's anxiety and fear spiked. Fat tears rolled down her face as she hiccuped with sobs. She couldn't control her breathing and she was losing feeling in her arms and legs, her face felt tingly. Her sobs were loud and panicked. Soon she was coughing from the excess oxygen, and coughing turned to heaving. The shackles in the walk allowed her almost no movement, so when she finally threw up all she could do was turn her head.

This was the final straw, the last thing she heard before her vision went black was the far off sounds of torture and death, somewhere else in the dungeon.