Dark Wreathe

Chapter 1

I was alone.
Darkness surrounded every nook and crevice, coiling and recoiling around itself like thousands of demons lurking in the shadows.
Maybe they were demons.
There was a putrid stench, mixed with bile and sweat, of the shit that sat in a bucket tucked away in one corner.
The only light peered down at me through a small sliver in the ceiling, and a slight musty draft of air reached down to caress my damaged body.
The only noises beyond the absolute silence was the eery screech of a door in the distance opening and closing, like the screams of a thousand wailing sirens, and the moans and cries drifting up from Below.
Every clank, every clatter, had me groping towards my corner.
A little trickle of water ran right down the walls of my corner and I'd find myself licking it up like a savage dog for a little bit of hydration.
The only thing that kept me company anymore were the Voices, but their company was always sinister, and so full of evil that I would scrape away the skin on my arms until I drew blood just to make them stop.
And yet at the same time I'd gotten so used to it that sometimes I would respond to the Voices, trying to remind myself how to speak, trying to remember words at all. I would laugh with them, and sing their deathly songs, and whisper all of my secrets.
Maybe this is how the Queen lost her senses.
I started learning how to listen past the screams of the victims being tortured down Below, and realized how many other noises I could hear.
The pitter-patter-pitter-patter of a mouse.
The scitter-scitter-scitter of a roach.
The tip-tip-tap of a spider.
But then one day, as I was dangling my head off the side of the bed that I was slowly getting more used to sleeping on, I heard the loud stomping and the clanking of metal on metal.
How long? How long had it been since anyone had come through the Tower?
No guard or sentry ever wandered through these prisons unless they were coming for someone.
Coming for me.
The terror struck me like a bolt of lightning as I threw myself off the bed and scrambled for my corner.
My safety. My sanctuary.
I could feel every bone in my body clak-clakking from the violent shivers that ran up and down my spine. A cold sweat had broken out even without a lick of water left in my system. I rubbed my clammy hands up and down my arms to try and worthlessly warm myself to no avail and quickly gave up right as I heard the scuffling of boots slow to a stop.
The jingle-jangle of keys filled my ears almost to the point of deafening until I finally covered my ears and took a big gulp to stop myself from screaming, shutting my eyes in the process.
Suddenly the clashing of keys halted, and I waited and waited and waited.
And waited, but nothing else followed.
I uncovered my ears and slowly opened and lifted my gaze towards the gnarly wooded door leading in and out of my chamber.
I swallowed again and realized I was shivering so bad that I was tapping my foot repeatedly on the ground and it was so, so-so-so loud.
The shadows that always danced along the walls seemingly grew taller, grew darker.
Grew bolder.
I snapped my eyes shut and shrank even further into my corner. My foot tapping continued on until I heard a whisper of a laugh and I was sent into panic mode.
"Let them in, Little Dove."
There, the farthest corner from me, a set of icy eyes stared back at me.
That's when the Voices took over.
They started screaming, starting speaking all at once, the Voices echoing and bouncing off the deepest most darkest pockets of my mind, murmuring to me, whispering their evils, and clawing me from the inside out.
Something inside of me told me it was happening again, that I was falling into that pit of despair and agony, that my life was not my own, that something is wrong. I tried to claw at my face, at my eyes, but instead forced myself to hug my arms to my chest, digging the jagged filthy nails into the scarred flesh of my arms.
The pain was excruciating, the pain was--
The most terrifying shriek I've ever heard rippled away from my throat in the most gruesome, violent growl.
The entire Tower went deathly silent.
The Voices subsided as quickly as they'd come, and the shadows I'd thought I imagined this whole time vanished altogether. Including the eyes of ice.
Then I heard the turn of a key in a lock and froze.
For though I'd ridden myself of the violence of the Voices, I had forgotten about the guards outside my door.
And the savage grins on their ugly, disfigured faces only promised of pain and death.