Starfall

Chapter 17 - Elyse

It's hot inside my head. Everything is dull and muted, and unwarranted heat burns into the sides of my skull, giving me an inescapable headache.

It's only me, the darkness, and all the guilt and regret I've ever carried.

Even though I can't seem to wake from my unnatural slumber, I know in my very soul that something terrible is going to happen. And it's going to be my fault.

I need to wake up.

But maybe it's better in here, where there's no reality and no time. It's just my dull, muffled thoughts that scream at me from a darkened distance. I can almost hear them now, telling me to move, to open my eyes, to wake up.

Wake up. Wake up.

The light is soft. For a moment it feels like I'm back home, in my grandmother's cottage, with the lanterns lit and the crickets chirping.

Where's my mother? I ask her as I lay in her warm, comforting embrace in the night.

She's gone, Elyse, just like your father.

I only curl further into her arms. Where did she go? Somewhere good?

My grandmother hesitates a moment too long. Maybe.

My eyes are only slits. My ears are only pinholes. My breath is like the wind, coming and going in wisps of desire.

Through my slated vision, everything is a fog. The dirty, cobbled ground feels an eternity away. My coat and boots have been taken from me, along with my socks, leaving my bare toes dangling just centimeters away from the curved ground.

My ankles hurt. Why do my ankles hurt?

Something lukewarm drips down the side of my head. It can only be one thing: blood. My blood.

A voice slips into my pinhole ears. But I can't hear it. I can only sense its presence inside me.

My vision wavers with the flickering light. My eyes struggle to focus on anything. It's dark—the space is filled with a faltering glow that's dim at the edges.

Someone says my name. I can't see them. I can only see my own barred predicament.

I'm in a cage. A cellar.

"You're one of many faces," someone says into the musty air. "But this is one I never thought I'd see again."

I shake my heavy head, trying to orient myself. My brains feel spilled out; my breath feels drained.

I look down at myself again; I stare at my shackled feet for a long, unending moment. My brain delays what I see until finally I realize why everything hurts.

I'm hanging upside down, held by metal cuffs on my ankles, and my hands are bound behind my back. I manage to look up at the true ground that's at least a foot away.

"I didn't think you'd ever come back here," says the voice again. I let my pained neck go slack, and there, on the other side of the bars, is Peter.

I can't say anything. I can only listen to my pulse that quickens with every second.

This is bad. This is absolutely no good.

"What's wrong?" he provokes, bending down and tilting his head, as if to get a better look at me. "Feeling bad for yourself?"

I can only manage to blink slowly and attempt to ignore the intense sting of the blood collecting in my head.

Straightening back into a stand, he clicks his tongue. "You know, if it weren't for you, I might have gotten to have a life." He crosses his arms and shakes his head. "But maybe I should be thanking you. After all, you are the reason I left that forsaken little hellhole of a village."