A Winters Memory

Chapter Sixteen

Ara woke up to the cold empty basement, she gave a sad sigh as she stared at the empty space around her. She had hoped Alec would still be by her side when she woke up, but the sad reality of where she was, said that it was better that he had left instead of stayed.

She grabbed her dress and pulled it over her head and smoothed it out, the irritating fabric still felt scratchy and rough against her skin despite having worn the same thing for months now, she would never get used to it no matter how long it was worn and washed.

Standing up she moved over to her bed and laid down, curling up against the wall and staring out into the open space waiting for sleep to take over her again.

Time seemed to drag on as Ara tried and tried again to fall back to sleep to no avail. The sudden heavy footfalls of several feet against the floorboards broke her attention, she looked up at the ceiling wondering what was going on when the door suddenly swung open with enough force to knock it off its hinges.

She could hear several voices as they descended the stairs and tossed a large sack onto the ground with something wrapped up inside it. She looked up at the men before her then down to the sack then back up to them again.

"You've got yourself a new little friend, slave. You'll be the one to show her how everything is done around here."

A few gruff laughs echoed through the basement as they walked away leaving Ara and the bundled sack alone. She swallowed hard as she slowly made her way towards the still bundle, her hand hovering just over it, shaking.

She took in a deep breath before moving her hand over the opening of the sack, and just as she was about to peek inside, the sack began to thrust about wildly causing her to yelp and move as far away from it as she could.

She watched in horror filled silence as the sack continued to thrash about until she spotted something sticking out from the opening, she squinted her eyes as she tried to make out what it was, moving a bit closer she could finally see that it was hair poking out.

Standing up she walked over and knelt down and reached out, trying to keep her voice as calm as her shaking body would allow her.

"Shh, it's okay... I'm trying to help you, just stop moving so I can let you out..."

She pursed her lips as she reached out again towards the drawstrings and began to quickly remove the knots, the thing still moving about in the sack began to still as Ara continued to fiddle around with the knots finally getting down to the last one before pulling the fabric apart.

She took a small step back as she allowed whatever was in the sack to fully remove it from themselves. After a few moments, a young girl appeared covered in soot, her red hair wild, sticking up in different directions while other parts were matted against her head and face.

Ara swallowed hard as she stared at the girl before her, the girl's blue eyes wide, her pupils like saucers as she stared back at Ara.

Another moment of silence between the two girls before the wild-haired one spoke.

"W-who are you? Where am I?" She blinked and looked around the dimly lit basement before settling her gaze back on Ara.

"My name is Ara." She bit down on her bottom lip before speaking again.

"We're in the basement of a cabin. I'm... I'm not really sure where I just know it's somewhere in the forest away from other people..."