My Short Stories (+ prompts for you to use!)

Prompt+ Writing Snippet: Isolation

Prompt for you: Write about a villain confining the protagonist to complete isolation. Write it in the comments or in your works and tag me.

The dark and cold were all the hero had to hold onto. That and silence. The bitter, empty silence that stretched over the entirety of the room that she was confined to. She had had no human contact in several months, maddened and restless against the never ending silence. It was always the same: Dark. Cold. Silent. Alone.

In the beginning she had passed the time by singing. Something, anything, to break the suffocating silence. But eventually, her songs grew few and far between, a sign of her well and truly beginning to crack. To give up.
Images of the outside world, memories, colors, we're all faded and dim and oh so out of reach, slipping away with every sickening moment she was kept alone.

Then the door creaked. The girl startled in surprise, a sharp gasp claiming her lips. The door whined as it opened, blinding light streaming through.

The girl squinted and shielded her eyes with her hands, deeply unaccustomed to the light. It made her head pound. Or maybe that was the adrenaline that spiked when a silhouette blocked the light and came inside, footsteps echoing what seemed like impossibly loudly.

Even before he spoke, she knew it was him.

"Hello, Darling," the also-impossibly-loud voice cut through the air. Even in its apparent loudness, the voice was soft in nature, yet chilling and dangerous as always.

The hero's breathing hitched, both excited and terrified by the sudden company.

The villain strode over to the girl, footsteps still ringing in her ears like church bells. Her eyes adjusted, focusing on the villain's smug, white-flashing smile. "Did you miss me?"

The villain reached out, fingers brushing over her cheek, feather-light. The girl jumped, startled by the now-unfamiliar sensation, not to mention, her enemy's closeness. All instinct told her to jerk away, but she was so exhilarated by the sensation of being touched that she had been deprived of for so long that she stayed where she was.

Of course, he was only taunting her. The soft touch was cruel in nature.

"I wondered," the villain's voice came again, as smooth and as cold as ice, "how much alone time it would take you to go insane. Seems you were just on the brink, but I thought I'd come stir things up a little."

She blinked, then swallowed, both stricken with terror and entranced by his presence. "Why?" her voice came then, now sounding so unfamiliar to even her.

"Because. If I give you a little hope only to rip it away by tossing you back in this hole, alone, you will break," the villain said in a low, serious tone.

She clenched her jaw. "Go to hell," she muttered.

He smiled again, barking a laugh.

"If you insist," he said, turning back toward the door to leave.

"Wait," she spluttered, snatching his arm in desperate panic. Her head spun. The villain stopped, his jaw set. "Please," she added in a rasp of a whisper.

Her gaze landed on her hand clutching his arm, oh-so aware of how unwise it was to touch him. Her hand trembled, but her grip remained, afraid that if she let go, he would leave.

And she would be completely alone again.

The villain turned in a sharp, graceful swoop to face her again and she tensed under his gaze, but didn't dare let go. "Please what?" he asked, taunting through those flashing white teeth.

She swallowed again. She didn't want to say it.

"Please what, Darling?" he demanded, in the same tone of voice.

She stared up at him. "Please...," she whispered, the emotions catching up with her, stifling her voice and making it catch in her throat.

"Yes?"

She ran her tongue over her desert-dry lips, willing the words to come, no matter how humiliating. Whatever it took not to be alone. "Please don't leave me," she managed finally, her voice small.

He smiled again, this time with a deceptive sweetness that set her even more on edge. "Tell me, Darling," he spat the word as if it had a bad taste in his mouth, "what does it feel like to beg for the company of the person you hate more than anything? To be so pitifully desperate?"

The hero didn't know how to respond. "...lonely," she whispered so quietly, she didn't expect him to hear it.

He caught her chin in his free hand, his hold delicate but firm. "You think you know loneliness, you have seen nothing yet. You did this to yourself. Now you must live with it."

He let go of her chin and easily yanked his arm out of her grasp, starting for the door again.

"Please, please!" the hero begged, lunging in a stumble to the villain. She tripped and fell to her knees, but clung to his arm. Her eyes burned with hot tears, her throat "Please. You win. I surrender. Whatever you want, I'm yours, just please. Please don't leave me alone." A soft sob escaped her and she clung tighter to his sleeve.

Broken.

There was silence for a painfully long time, a stale, bitter silence that stung like frostbite.

"Stand."

The hero rushed to obey.

"Come with me. I have a job for you."