Angel of the Fallen Star

~ The Cave of Dawn ~

Chapter Four: Angelica

The Cave of Dawn

              The next thing I knew, I was fluttering my long eyelashes open. I was terribly sad, like I was weighed down with a deep despair. A burning sadness made my heart heavy. Deep inside my brain, my head hurt with an ache. My mouth felt dry and sore, like a scorpion had lived there happily for a while. I was cold, shivering and slightly wet. I knew I had been laying on something rough and hard, like rock, the floor of something outdoors. It was pitch black, and I couldn't see a single thing. My hands were crossed behind my back, and shackles rubbed my wrists painfully, and I pulled  as hard as I could, but found that there was a chain that connected the shackles around my wrists to the rock wall in back of me. Shackles? Why would someone chain me to a rock? The dank prison smelled of cold stone and rusty metal. I panicked.

              Where am I? Why am I wearing shackles? I began to scream, frustrated and confused. I frantically pulled and pulled and tried to twist my hands backwards and around to scrape at their shackles until I could feel blood dripping from the ends of my fingers. The scarlet drops plinked to the floor, slowly draining away my life force. It was no use. Where am I? I wondered again, and then everything that had happened who knows how long ago came flooding back to me in one huge, gigantic wave that overwhelmed me, drowning me in thoughts that I could never forget. Hot tears streamed down my face in boiling salty rivers.

              "Logan." I said, gritting my teeth. He tried to kill me. He KILLED ME! Wait. He didn't kill me. Why am I not dead? Is this some kind of eternal punishment or something for loving that scheming little cockroach? But yet I am alive. I know that he finally betrayed me.  I thought I was dead. Those dreams must have meant I was dead. My anger burned inside of me. Rage consumed my senses. "LOGAN! LOGAAAAN! COME OUT AND SHOW YOUR FACE, YOU COWARD! LLLLLLLOOOOOOGGGGGGAAAAAAAANNNNN!" I roared. I cursed like mad, kicking, screaming, until my voice became hoarse, and I yelled some more, until I could no longer speak.

              Then I began sobbing. Horrible, broken-hearted sobbing. My eyes were wide. I strained against the chains once more that bound me to my fate, but I was too weak with sorrow to try any more. I have to get out. I have to get out right now. I was so miserable, like the chains held me back from everything I cared about. I pleaded with the sharp metal to release me as a desperate hope, but to no avail. 

              By then the sun had risen high up into the sky which I couldn't see, but daylight flooded into the horrible cell from some unknown location somewhere along the rock wall. I saw that I was in a cave-like place. The growing sunlight brought the crash of waves and early birdsong to my ears. It shilouetted the shadowy crevices along the crude stone walls. I wondered who would keep me here, how they got me in, where the exit was. How did they have the heart to leave an innocent girl in any random cave you find on the off-chance she might, oh I don't know..... hate your guts? So evil, so cruel, so heartless. Logan is the only person with the massive lack of emotion and caring that would ever do something so devious, so despicable, so inhumane. That thieving rat! That kniving little weasel!

              I was abandoned, no idea where I was on the entire planet, what day it was, how long I had been there, and I was chained to a freaking bolder, alone! I knew nothing. Absolutely nothing except what he had done to me, and that was enough to send fiery blood burning like acid coursing through my veins.

              But there was one thing I was sure of. The ocean. I was near the ocean. I could hear it, and I felt it calling to me, it was close. But which ocean? I could be all the way on the other side of the Earth and I wouldn't know it. But some ocean. Knowing that calmed me the slightest bit. I love the ocean. My favorite place in the whole world, and I couldn't live without it. The thought was unimaginable. It's tantalizing knowing that I'm so close to something I know I can never reach, and now I'm going to die here chained to a rock.

              At least I had light. That gave me hope. I could tell it was the sweet, pure light of early dawn breaking over the unseen horizon. I yearned to walk along the edge of the water right where the waves crashed on the shore, with the sunlight bathing me in a radiant golden light that warmed my senses. I longed to walk hand in hand with......

              No! I wrenched the thought away, furiously blinking back stinging tears. I can't cry. I musn't. If I ever want to get over him, I have to stop crying. I don't love him. I don't!........ I thought, forcing the tears back, knowing if I let one single drop fall, there will be one more, and one more, and more until I'm wallowing in misery, drowning myself in the tears that told my story. What could be worse than this? What could possibly be worse? Could death be the gateway out of this? How could I end my life if I tried? If I take my own life, could that be the threshold for happiness or will it end in sadness? Would I be able to risk it, never knowing what would have been the end of my tale if I chose differently? What would the rest of my seemingly endless but truthfully short life be like? Will I even have a future to hang my hopes so heavily on?

              None of this cleared my blurry eyes that swam with the teardrops held back out of vengeance. I will get him. I will make him pay for what he did to me that is unhealable, the scars are too deep. I will never love again.

              It was when I heard the words "Do you really think that, Angelica?" that I realized two things:

              #1. I had spoken the last phrase aloud.

              #2. Logan was standing behind me.