Enslaved

Prologue

I found myself standing in a dark void, after searching around for sometime, I saw light coming from a far. With determination, I started making my way towards it and when I reached there, I was consumed by it completely. The blinding light had me shielding my eyes, and suddenly it was gone. Blinking slowly, I looked around in confusion. The first thing that caught my attention was a floor length dressing mirror.

The frame of the mirror was rectangular, while the mirror itself was oval. Vines of gold curled around the bronze frame, it had large lilies carved on it with diamonds studded in their centre. On the boundary where the mirror and the vines met, a manuscript was engraved in another tongue. My eyes landed on its left corner which was slightly broken, causing the mirror to crack from there. Regardless, the crack in the corner could do nothing to taint its beauty.

Taking small steps, I stood few metres in front of it, only to frown when I looked in it. The mirror showed no reflection of me. Nothing at all.

Sweeping my eyes around dejectedly, I took in the dingy surroundings. The walls and ceilings had lost their colour long time back, and now all that was left were cracks and worn off plaster. There was a small bed pushed against the wall opposite the mirror whose mattress was completely moth-eaten and a thin blanket with holes was lying on the floor next to it. The room had no windows, only a small ventilator with grills in it.

The poor condition of the room made me furrow my brows. Finding the mirror completely out of place even with its crack, I wondered how it got there in the first place. It was dark outside and no means to light up the room, so the only source of illumination was the moonlight which hesitantly glided in, probably feeling out of place too. It only managed to give the room a dim lighting, leaving the corners in dark misery.

Spotting a heavy metal door to my right, I walked to it. Pressing my hands against it, I tried to push it, rattle it, all in vain. It didn't even make a single sound, turning around I leaned on it. Frowning at the ground, I tried to reason as to why I can't open it. Suddenly, my eyes widened as I realised I was in a prison. Sliding to my knees, I hugged myself and started rocking back and forth.

Why?

I pressed my brain as to how I ended here. Why I ended here. I don't know how long I sat like that rocking back and forth but it didn't stop until I heard a little squeak. I stilled, my eyes running around the room fearfully looking for anything about to pounce at me. A few minutes passed like this, me sitting still and alert, but I didn't hear anything else. Once I was starting to think it was all my imagination, I heard it again.

It was coming from the bed, snapping my neck so fast that it burned, I tried to look for its source. I saw the holed blanket shift a little, by now I was sitting on my toes, ready to jump. A second later, a small white mouse scurried from under it towards one of the dark corners. My shoulders slumped with relief. Sighing softly I collapsed against the metal door, my heart pounding loudly against my ribs from all the bottled up anticipation.

The idea of being scared of a mouse made me give out a breathy chuckle. My eyes followed the path of the moonlight entering through the ventilator as I absently traced the broken tiles of the floor with my left index finger. Being the creature of the night, I've always found comfort in it but it was my mother who made me fall in love with it. Or rather her memories.

When I was little, she used to take me on walks at nights when my father used to be busy with the kingdom and couldn't join us. She used to take me to the garden fountain and splash water at me and chase me around. The air used fill up with my laughter and her giggles. I remember gazing up at her as she carried me in her arms back to the castle because my little legs used to get tired from all the chasing. I also remember how the moonlight used to bath her in silver, making her beautiful big dark eyes twinkle with love as she smiled down at me, her long black hair slightly blowing with the night breeze and entangling with my feet making me giggle.

Smiling at the memory wistfully, I was about to go to sleep when I caught a moment from the corner of my eyes. Sitting straight, I saw someone move in the shadows of the corner opposite me. Then I saw her, a woman crawled feebly towards the centre of the room stopping barely a metre in front of the mirror. I realised she couldn't see me, so I stood and walked behind her; stopping few feet back. It was then that the realisation hit me, I wasn't the one imprisoned, she was.

Her clothes were in tatters; rags practically, she however, even under the veil of dirt and malnourishment, was gorgeous. I had never seen someone so beautiful. The mirror wasn't the only thing that seemed out of place now. Undeterred by the gloom surrounding her, she started humming softly and ran her fingers through her waist-length red hair which no doubt once glossy had now lost most of their shine, if not all of it. Trying to remove as many tangles as she could, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror allowing me to see a pair of most alluring emerald green eyes I had ever seen. Twinkling in the moonlight, all they held was strength, determination, will-power and.....hope. They were the most striking features of her oval face. Her cheeks were pinched, lips chapped and bones were protruding from her frame but her eyes? They had not lost their shine. And from the looks of it, they didn't intend to.

The way she hummed and held her head high, told me that she would not break, almost as if she refused to.

Because she had hope.....

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