What Night Is It?

Far away, across many seas, there stood a hospital for the sick, depressed, and anxious. A place where people were brought in because their family either didn't want them, or didn't know what to do with them. Most people would spend money to their child, friend, or loved one "healed", and the doctors promised that, but lied through their teeth. Instead of helping the patients, they make it worse. Those kids whom the doctors thought would never get healed were thrown in a basement jail cell, to slowly rot and die.

I am one of those few unlucky survivors, but the story is not about me, it's about my neighbor named Bella. Bella was a little girl that looked around the age 11. She had long black ratted hair and empty blue eyes. Bella wore a dress of just old holed rags. Her voice was not of an angel but a raspy growl. Bella never slept on the bed, and who would? The mattress had holes and it stunk of the of the original dead corpse that died and rotted there. Instead she grabbed the old dirty sheet and lied down on the cold stone floor, crying herself to sleep every night.

Everyone that is thrown down here have their own demons they're fighting. Whether it be through non-stop screams from night terrors, or beg the guards for any sort of attention, or the cries of betrayal or loss, or the drowning sounds of those taking their last breathe, whether it be through prayers, cries, screams, or chokes. Bella on the other hand was silent. She never spoke, nor moaned a word. Instead she looked empty, lost, dead. Until the sun goes down, and darkness takes over, she wakes up. Her eyes shown if starlight, but the starlight were her silent tears staining her face. Every night Bella would cry herself to sleep silently, as if she didn't want to wake anyone, or anything up. Once morning came, Bella looked empty again. Crusty eyes, pale skin, broken nails, dirty old clothes lie still on the ground staring blankly into nothingness.

Bella repeated her routines every night and every day. Except when it has passed 30 days or so, Bella would hold back her tears and walk up to her cell door to ask the guard the same question. Her voice as raspy as nails on a chalk board, she spoke.

"Dear kind sir, what Night is it?"
Most of the time they would ignore her, or kick her further back in her cell, but when they did answer they said.
"What doth thou mean?"
"What moon shines tonight?"
" a full moon I see"
" may I see it?"

Either they wouldn't answer or they would beat her for asking a stupid question. This happened for years, until one winter season came.

Bella became more pale and weak than usual. She never ate anymore. Her bones show more vibrant than ever. Her eyes empty with heavy bags underneath. Her cries at night have become more like whimpers of pain instead of a silent song. She'd lie on the cold wet ground, every day and night, like a dead breathing corpse. Her thin ragged sheet is the only thing keeping her warm and comforted during the dark lit nights. As cold as it was she would never shake, unless it be of her cries of sorrow.

One night, she finally moved from her dead position and used almost all her energy to drag herself across the stone, until she could finally reach the bars. Her now pale faded eyes looked up at the new guard. Bella quietly knocked on the cold rusty bars, which got his attention. She choked out her subtle and broken words.

"Dear kind sir, what Night is it?"
"What doth thou mean?"
"What moon shines tonight?"
"A full moon I believe"
"Dear kind sir, break me, beat me, curse me of my difference, but allow me to see it one last time before I leave... I fear that it may be my last wish for breathe."

I don't know what came across the guard's mind, but I'd like to believe it's pity, because he chained her up and took her to the surface.

I never saw Bella again, but I heard rumors from passing guards that once she got outside, thin, bare feet deep in the snow, she turned her face up to the star lit sky, and for years the guards nor doctors have ever seen a bright, more innocent smile. Bella blindly watched the moon. She muttered a few apologies and thank you's before she fell backwards on to the soft flaky snow, and softly cried herself to sleep, one last time.