Never Truly Lost

PROLOGUE

My arms are burning. Tiny pin pricks of pain that make my arms feel as though they are covered in fiery blisters. I try to shift to ease the pain but I only end up jarring my neck. A spasm of white hot pain shoots down my spine. With a cry my vision blurs and finally darkens into nothing...

So much pain- it consumes my whole body, my head and my thoughts.

My head is pounding. My vision is cloudy. My thoughts and actions keep fading in and out. One moment I'm holding my head in my hands and rocking back and forth and the next moment I open my eyes only to realise that my cheek is flat against the cool stone floor. I try to pull my arms out from under me. The effort leaves me breathless. But I try again. The shackles on my wrists only make this herculean task even more impossible. The feelings of wrongness, the fear and the determination are boiling inside of me. I need to get up and get out. My arms shake with the effort of trying to get into an upright position. I pry my eyes open and catch sight of my arms.

It wasn't the scrawny and sallow excuse for arms that made me fall. It was the bugs. Mud-brown worms with scale-like tales. Orange, furry round bugs with pincers climbing up and down my arms intermixed with the black ones, red and green abdomens and long legs with little spikes sticking out of them. A moth-like snake curls around my upper arm. And a tiny mouse with fangs and a hard exoskeleton looks up at me while gnawing at my wrist.

I scream and fall to the ground. All the energy that I had been searching for so that I could sit up found me as I writhed on the floor scratching at my arms and shrieking at the air. I watch as the air above me fills with all of these bugs and what seems like hundreds more. I scream even louder as they begin to descend upon me. I kick at the air, wave my arms back and forth and just scream. Tears are streaking down my cheeks and my throat is hoarse. Even with the pain in my limbs and throat, I can't stop. The fear has dulled the pain and it dominates my every thought and action.

I only vaguely notice a dark figure next to me before the side of my head explodes. Colours shatter my vision until the darkness devours me.

There is a vile taste in my mouth. Each breath is laboured and I can't find the energy to move from my slumped position much less to swallow past the horrible taste in my mouth. I'm slouched in a corner; this time my shackles are connected to a shorter chain which is attached to the wall above my head so that my wrists hang just above my head. The position should be uncomfortable but I am just so tired. My eyes are opening and closing. The time that they stay closed is getting longer and longer. I eventually fall into a deep sleep.

My hands are no longer chained to the wall but I now have the addition of ankle shackles. I'm sitting up and looking around my stone cell. I'm hungry and at the same time, everything about my prison is catching my interest. I don't know how long I've been here but it's as though this is the first time that I am seeing the room that has become my prison cell. I turn my head to look at the wall and my vision blurs. Did I turn my head that fast? I raise my hand in front of my face and wave it. It also blurs! 

Wow, the silence is so loud in here. I can feel my heart beating. It's been getting softer every time that I hear it. I think that it is starting to give up on me. Where am I? Why am I here? Where is here? Maybe I will get food soon. I am so hungry. But why would they feed me? Who are they? I should be worried about all of this. I am pretty sure that I was crying earlier about something, but right now I have better things to do. Like try to get a closer look at the ants on the opposite wall. Even these shackles can't stop me. Look at them go! Be free little ants!