~.✧ Ethira ✧.~ [COMPLETE]

~.✧ fourteen ✧.~

A/N IT'S HEREEEE!!! EEEE! I hope you enjoy it! Tbh I'm a little giddy rn as I'm posting it haha XD

Hands. Bruises. Stench. Laughter. Screaming. Ringing. Metal on metal. Pain. Darkness. Completely alone.

"No one will ever come for you."

"Helpless."

"Pretty little thing."

"When no one comes, we'll kill you."

"You're only useful dead."

"It's all over for you."

"Why don't you smile? Don't you love your accommodations?"

"Stop fighting, princess."

"You're completely unlovable."

The darkness was pressing in, tightening around my chest and throat as I gasped for air. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't see.

Maybe death was the better option.

Maybe it'd be easier if I just gave up.

No one would care anyway.

I thudded to the floor, my sheet wrapped around my ankles like the ropes that had once tied me to the chair. Gasping, I sat up, my mind stuck in a state between sleep and wakefulness. Memory versus reality.

I had no idea where I was. All I saw was darkness. All I felt was pain and hopelessness. I needed to get out.

Trying to stumble to my feet, my eyes were too blurry with tears to see and I fell again, the rug burning my knees. I kicked at the sheet trying to drag me away, clawing at the ground toward some semblance of safety.

I was finally able to free myself from it, though my head was spinning and my ears were ringing, making it impossible to stand or I'd tilt toward the ground again. My lungs were screaming desperately for air as I dragged myself off the carpet and onto the cold stone, trying to shock my system out of panic. Something metalicy stung my tongue and I realized I'd bit my cheek so hard, it'd begun to bleed.

The stone didn't help. I curled into a ball, pulling my knees up to my chest and squeezing my eyes shut. I rocked back and forth, not knowing how to make the world stop spinning, spinning, spinning. I was falling. The room was getting darker.

"Make it stop," I pleaded, my voice barely a whisper as sobs trembled from my lips. "Please. Go away, go away, go away."

But they wouldn't. I could feel them. I could feel they're touch. They'd been here, at the castle. Not in my room, but close enough. They'd snuck in. They could sneak in again. They could find me. They'd found me again.

"Not again," I rasped. "No, no, no, no."

Why wasn't the panic going away? It felt like an eternity as I sat there, waiting, trying to breathe but failing. Trying to stop the desperate sobs but unable to.