Darkness Ethereal | K.TH

Lose Touch

"Aren't you going to eat?"

I ask, partly amazed at how he'd managed to not move a single fingertip during the entire span of the three long hours I'd watched him.

He doesn't say a word to my question.

My head had been feeling light for a good twenty minutes now, showing how the absence of steady nutrition was taking a toll on my body. If I didn't eat, then at any moment...

I will faint.

The box containing my lunch must've gone cold, having sat on the icy floor next to him for more than hours. Why wasn't he eating? Why wasn't he accepting his meal like the other prisoners?

Not being able to take the silence anymore, I finally stand and close our distance a bit further. Still no response from him, although I can see an alarmed glint in his dark eyes.

"I'm sorry if this is making you uncomfortable," I apologize before moving on hastily to his meal. "But why won't you eat? You will have to, sometime."

Relief flashes through my body when he reaches out for the box.

Then my entire mind goes blank with numbness when he hurls it between the bars, with enough force so that the container nearly shatters against the opposite side of the walls.

His eyes fix on mine, finally acknowledging my existence. His eyes- they're so dark that it could blend with the color of the night.

My breath catches in my throat, tears welling in the corner of my stunned eyes.

"Don't sympathize for me."

His voice is so deep, a rich baritone that makes shivers travel up my spine. But the hatred in the words is what I really feel, burying themselves in my heart like knives.

A normal person would cry. A normal person would stand up, spit at him and reflect the vicious hatred and contempt in his irises.

But instead, I smile at him.

It's a bright, happy smile, and it completely, absolutely throws him off. The moment my lips twist upwards is the same moment where his lips downturn into a confused frown.

"That was actually pretty cool."

Now he looks at me like I'm a deranged, crazy person that probably belonged in that cell more than he did.

But it was fine. She was fine- everything was fine.

"I'll bring you another one tomorrow when I get one. You have to eat eventually, V." I say, trying not to make the words sound like they are choked out of my throat. The tears that I'd refused to let spill trickle out of my eyes when I turn my back on him.

___________________________

The next day, my mother drops off her boxes of food. There are a total of three- for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And as if she felt guilty about shoving her youngest daughter in a prison, the food was amazing.

But today, even looking at it made me feel sick to my stomach.

It reminded me of yesterday. And although I'd hid my real emotions with a bright smile, it didn't mean that the terror and tears had ceased.

Not yet.

But hopefully today I'd forget and forgive.

Without a single moment of contemplation, I skip today's breakfast as well. Eating still didn't sound very appealing, and I was almost certain that the moment I did, my body would just reject it.