The Torn

Chapter 2

All I can see is darkness. With my cheek pressed against the floor, I peer under the door for the millionth time. I had broken the door nob far beyond repair in my vain attempts to escape this cage of a room. Even with my broken nails and splintered fingertips, it looks as if I have nothing to show for it. I rock back on my heels and squeeze my eyes shut. Frustration wells up inside me, threatening to overflow. Anger causes pinpoints of pain in my skull and an ache behind my eyes. I blame it on dehydration. A lock of my red-brown hair falls into my face. I splay my hands out on the creaking floorboards below me and push up into the air. Curse the people who abandoned me here without a single hair tie. Shifting my gaze around the room, an idea strikes me. Insane and crazed, but with my body running low on sleep and feeling rather desperate, it seems to fit my state perfectly. I walk over towards the little bedside table and pick up the lamp. I roll it back and forth in my hand testing the feel and weight of it. It looks solid enough, solid though flimsy. Hmm. Taking it over my should like a bat, I brace myself and take a swing with it. What if I was taking the wrong approach in escaping before? Maybe whoever put me here expected me to not take life-threatening risks in attempt to find freedom. Maybe they expected me to sit here and wait pleasantly for someone to come find me.

They clearly didn't know a lot about desperate people.

I wake at precisely the right time, I think. I don't sleep much anyway. Time to set my plan in motion. I feel giddy with the prospect of freedom and for the first time in days, I feel real hope. Wrapping my thin blanket around me like a cloak, I quietly stand up out of bed. Being sneaky was a strong suit of mine and I wore it well, but honestly, it isn't really necessary at the moment considering the fact that I've seen absolutely no humans or anything alive, except for a lone cockroach, which I named fuzzy (Don't ask), for about a week, but mainly, no one had stopped me from trying before. Still. As I pad barefoot quietly and slowly forward, I stop for a second to listen. Are those voices?! Coming through the thick wall over to my right, I can barely hear the murmuring of a heated conversation. My head swivels towards the sound. The first time I hear any sign of human life in my tower of doom is the night I might actually leave! Just my rotten luck at work right there, folks! It would have been nice to know humanity hadn't abandoned me, but hey, I'll be fine. Picking up the lamp as I had held it earlier, I creep over toward the oversized windows and take a breath. I waste no time. Only seconds elapse before I swing the lamp as hard as I can, smashing it into the glass, breaking my lamp. It completely shatters in my grip sending porcelain shards soaring to pierce me. I stagger backward slowly dripping in blood, but I feel nothing. The seemingly indestructible window fractures right before my eyes. Spider cracks rushing to form huge gaping canyons. I can't help my eyes from widening. The glass bulges out, chunks of glass being sucked out before the wind suddenly pops the frames, opening my room, to the world like an airtight seal. The howling current of air rushes around me, fierce and welcome but violent and deadly, chilling my spine. Blood roars in my popping ears, air bites, freezing my open face. A gaping hole stands before me, the jagged edges sparkling in the dim starlight.

I suck in a breath, preparing my self for what I'm about to do. I squeeze my eyes shut, my hair whips around me as I hold out my arms. I must look maniacal. A teenage girl standing in front of a shattered, jagged hole in the tallest tower of the city, clock tower at that, filthy clothes billowing behind her in the wind, just standing there, eyes closed, palms up. But well, here I am. I seem to be defying the laws of what's normal a lot the last few days. I wonder what my brother will think of me when I get back, my mother. A giggle erupts from my chest, I know they're gone, I know they're dead! My life is veiled in denial, practically drenched, saturated in it. I've ignored the fire that burns my village. None of this makes sense. None of this matters! Shutting out wisps of doubt, I take a step back feet skidding on shards and hurl my self out the window. Wind claws at my face, and the cold air stings like knives in my cheeks. My hair billows behind me, catching my breath, as I fall, feet first. The world is a blur around me. The icy ground coming closer second by second. I keep my mouth in a tight line closed against the scream that is slowly building inside me. I let it go but no sound comes. I get the urge to laugh. More than laugh, to burst. I close my eyes, to stop them from rolling back into my head, I feel like I'm going to throw up. Before I know it, I had fallen. The ground shatters, plunging me deep into an abyss of water. Shit, water? My breath leaves me in an instant, I feel like a dead weight. I sink. I'm too cold, why am I so cold? My world flashes as I feel starbursts of pain erupt behind my skull. All I feel is pain. Blooms and blossoms feel like whips against my bare skin, I feel so cold. I'm not sure I'm not dead. I feel like I could be dead, I really do. My bones harden, my skin thickens stretches, pulling at my lungs, ripping me apart, my body turns to ice, to stone. I shrivel in on my self, what is it they say? Fetal position? God, I'm cold. I need air, I think vaguely. I feel my body shutting down. I feel frost trying to take over, why fight? Why not let it? I know I'm slipping away. I honestly couldn't care less.
In my last thoughts, I try to pull myself together. "Bubbles flow up" I had been training for the Princess's military. I had been in command. I knew my stuff. Doesn't matter now, I can't open my eyes, I don't try. My lashes have frozen together. I'm dully shocked that I haven't breathed in water. Maybe I had. I know I won't last. Either something will rupture, or I'll get knocked unconscious from lack of oxygen, either way, H20's bound to enter my body. In life or death. Isn't that what they say at weddings? I should've fought while I had the strength. My body goes slack.