Chronicles of Araxx - Forever Broken

The floor of the cell was cold, cold and hard as ice.

It hurt to sit on but Annaleah had sat on it for so long she no longer felt the pain nor the cold.

Her clothes were too big for her, ripped and tattered. Her feet were bare, and the grime that covered her was from years of imprisonment.

The walls surrounding her were grey, the floor was grey, everything in Annaleah’s cell was grey.

The only bright colour in her life was red.

First was her matted, messed-up red hair even though the guards kept it short, cutting it when it grew longer than her shoulders. The other thing she saw every day that was red, was blood.

Whether it was her own blood from the constant beatings or that of the many rats which made their way into her cell, Annaleah could always count on seeing the colour red every day.

A squeaking noise from the other side of her cell caught her attention.

She lifted her head from her knees and looked across the room, trying to find the location of the sound.

A single solitary rat ran across the floor. Its sharp claws scratched on the ground as it chased a large spider. It crossed the room and escaped through a crack in the wall, followed closely by the rat, although the rat did not get through the gap as easily as the spider did.

The insect and the rodent escaped the prison, something Annaleah had often attempted to do.

All attempts had failed.

Now, even the rats didn’t stop to look twice at the small girl.

A cold breeze blew across the room, causing the hair on Annaleah’s arms to stand on end. The air smelled fresh and cool, like freedom and dreams.

Annaleah stood up from her seated position and walked over to the far wall. She placed her hand on the cold stone and looked up.

On this wall, there was a window.

A small barred window, high up against the wall. It was close to the ceiling of the cell, level with the ground outside, and Annaleah had to stand on her tip-toes to look through it.

Tonight, the sky was black. Only a few stars were visible from where she stood, but there was no moon in the sky.

It had been three days since they brought her any real amount of food, and she was feeling weak from it.

The cycles of the sun and the moon weren’t the only way of telling how long she had been in the cell, there were the guards too. Sometimes they would talk when they were outside standing guard. Now and then, Annaleah would catch a date or a time. It was all pretty meaningless to her, though. What did time matter when she had nothing to look forward to except her next scraps of food.

Loud footsteps sounded in the passage outside her cell. Annaleah could hear someone walking down the corridor.

She knew the drill by now and moved to the back wall, the one furthest from the door. If she stood at the back of the room with her head down, the guards were likely to leave her alone. Of course, that depended entirely on which guard was coming. If it was Kane or Jacob, she would not get away without a beating.

A few of the others found joy in hitting her, although she never took the time to remember their names. She hoped it would be one of the new guards walking down the passage. They left her alone. It was almost as if they were frightened of her. Usually, footsteps meant only two things. Either another beating or food. Annaleah hoped it would be the latter. Her stomach grumbled loudly and angrily. She definitely hoped it would be food.

Annaleah listened carefully to the footsteps. The sound of heavy boots on the stone floor of the corridor echoed in the silence. The footsteps did not sound familiar, which was a blessing. Or, Annaleah hoped it would be.

The new guards were always too scared to get close to her and Annaleah got good at learning which footsteps belonged to which guard, and which ones to be wary of.

She heard the guard, who was already standing guard at her door, greet the newcomer.

The sound of the heavy wooden door unlocking was loud in the echoing silence of her cell.

With a loud creak, the door opened and the light from the corridor filled the gap, silhouetting the man in the doorway, the man who was bringing her food.

She could smell it as soon as the door opened. Annaleah allowed herself to smile a little.

“I don’t know why Kane keeps you alive, why he keeps you fed, but here you go.” The guard threw the food to the floor. The plate clattered as it hit the ground, spilling some of its contents.

Annaleah’s stomach complained at the waste, but she kept still, not wanting to move just yet. She did not know this guard, and for all she knew, one move could mean a beating and the food being taken away. She did not want to risk that.

Annaleah waited until the guard left the room before she lifted her head to collect her scraps. There was an old, stale bread bun and bones from what looked like lamb chops. They still had a little meat on them.

Annaleah ate greedily, savouring every mouthful, every taste as if it was the last thing she would ever eat. One of these days, it could well be.

Silence once again fell in Annaleah’s cell and she returned to the place where she usually sat.

She sat on her haunches, chewing on the bone in her mouth as she stared up at the window to the world outside.

The taste of meat boosted her mood, and even though the meat was cold and had a greasy texture, it was also the nicest thing she had eaten in a long time.

She’d been living in the cell for so long, she’d almost forgotten what the outside world looked like.

From what she could deduct, Annaleah determined she’d been captive for about nine years, and in this cell for the last four.

She was seven when she was taken from her home, so that would make her sixteen, perhaps nearly seventeen.

She did not remember much of when she was taken. All she remembered was fire, burning and death, then waking up in this castle. She imagined it to be a castle, although she did not remember ever seeing it from the outside. The walls reminded her of castles she’d seen in films before she was taken, although there was no prince charming on his way to save her.

The reason for Annaleah being taken and kept prisoner was unclear to her. She had been taken from her home by a man called Kane, although she had no idea why.

When she was first taken, Kane kept asking, “Where is it?”.

Annaleah didn’t know what he was looking for.

Kane told her, her parents hid something, and it was his. He wanted it back, and Annaleah had to find it for him, but he didn’t seem to know what he was looking for either.

The beatings started after a few weeks of questioning. When Annaleah couldn’t answer Kane’s questions, he became angry. The angrier her got, the more he hit her.

Eventually, he gave up, leaving her to his guards. They used her as their plaything for many years. They beat her, made fun of her, tortured her, and from what Annaleah knew, there was no reason for any of it.

The questioning had stopped years ago.

Since then, they’d just beat her until she was bloody and unconscious, throw her in her cell, then do it again the next day.

Annaleah was thankful when the beatings became less frequent but still, they did not let her go.

Every once in a while Kane would come back, and Annaleah would get a frightful beating, but it had been weeks since this had happened last.

Many times she wished for freedom, but it never came.

Annaleah had searched many ways to escape her prison, but could never find any.

After years of wishing she was free, wishing her parents would come back and save her, she gave up. Instead, she simply started wishing it would all end soon. Maybe one day a guard would hit her hard enough to kill her, or they’d forget to feed her for a couple of weeks, but that never happened.

Eventually, Annaleah laid down on the cold hard ground.

She had been given an old dog bed by one of the newer guards who felt sorry for Annaleah and pitied her. The dog bed smelled old and damp, but it was better than sleeping on the cold, hard floor.

Soon, she found the most comfortable spot on the dog bed and curled up against the cold. Darkness took over her thoughts.

That night she slept with a full belly, as full as possible for someone trapped in perpetual starvation.

Annaleah found herself in a house.

It was a beautiful house with old wooden beams on the ceiling and pretty bricks surrounding an old fireplace. The walls were a warm cream colour and there were flowers in a vase on the mantelpiece. There was a painting above the fireplace of the family who lived in this house.

Annaleah could see herself in this painting, the bright red hair of the small child gave it away. The happy child that Annaleah had once been, was smiling.

The other two people in the painting must have been her parents, although she could not remember them clearly, and their faces were not in focus. It was as though someone had painted over the faces to cover them.

She could see their bodies, holding her in the picture. The man had short brown hair, and the woman had long, straight, red hair like her.

Annaleah focused on them, but the more she focused, the blurrier they became.

Annaleah looked over to the window. It was a large bay window with pale brown curtains framing it. She could see grass and trees outside. It looked as though the house was in a forest, or, at least, not the city. The sky outside was orange too, it must have been sunset. It looked beautiful out there, and Annaleah wanted nothing more than to play outside.

A voice from behind her brought happiness, although she couldn’t quite make out what it was saying. The voice was muffled and sounded as though it was underwater. The woman the voice belonged to moved quickly towards her. Annaleah assumed it was her mother by the colour of her hair. She picked her up and held her tight. Too tight. It hurt, but the hold her mother had on her felt familiar. Annaleah remembered it, and it didn’t matter if she was holding too tight. She breathed in deeply, and a familiar smell filled her nostrils. It smelled like roses and oranges. It smelled like her mother, like home. The smells made her woozy and light headed.

Although Annaleah could not hear what the woman was saying clearly, she could tell the words were said in panic and fear. The woman moved quickly with Annaleah in her arms, but the fire was quicker.

Annaleah had not noticed the blaze burning around her before, but the orange glow filled the house. Smoke filled the space above her head, and she began to cough.

The woman ran with her in her arms, out of the door and down the cobbled path. She smelled nice, sweet and familiar, but the smell was short lived, soon replaced by the smell of smoke and burning.

Annaleah peeked over the woman’s shoulder through the tangle of red hair that cascaded down her Mother’s back.

What she saw was the house she had grown up in ablaze. The windows were shattered, and the flames were climbing ever higher, burning her home to the ground. The thatched roof had caught quickly, and soon there would be nothing left. She reached a hand out towards the building to stop the flames, but nothing happened.

Annaleah did not understand. Why was her home burning? Why was this woman running with her in her arms? And who were all the strange people who surrounded them?

She had not noticed these people before, distracted by everything else. It was as though they had just arrived in the garden. The thought crossed Annaleah’s mind that the people might have been there to help tackle the blaze, but the looks on their faces changed her mind. Their faces were twisted into angry snarls. They did not look human.

Annaleah’s mother, the woman who was running for her life with the small red-headed child version of Annaleah tripped on something on the ground, She fell fast and dropped Annaleah at the same time. She instinctively reached out for her fallen daughter, but one of the men surrounding them grabbed her.

He picked her mother up by the throat.

Annaleah called out the only word she could bring to her lips, “Mother!”

It was too late.

The man squeezed his hand around her throat tighter.

Annaleah’s mother struggled against the force, but the man was too strong and she grew weaker.

Annaleah stood up from the ground, aware of the pain in her legs, the burning sensation on her arm and the tears clouding her vision. She briefly looked down at herself, seeing her scuffed knees and a burnt right arm.

She focused herself and attempted to charge the man strangling her mother, but someone picked her up as if she was a rag-doll before she could even get to them.

After the big man had squeezed every ounce of life out of her mother, her body dropped to the ground, lifeless and cold.

Annaleah stared into the wide, dead eyes of her mother, still open and looking right at her, but there was something wrong. The face was twisted and didn’t look human any more.

Annaleah screamed in terror, but her voice was silent.

“What do we do with the child?” A clear voice asked.

Annaleah could not say anything. She saw her mother die, and she was too young and too small to do anything about it.“Boss wants her alive,” another said. The man came into view, blocking Annaleah’s mother from her sight. “What’s this?” He asked as he took Annaleah’s burnt arm in his hand.

“Looks like she was burnt in the fire, Sir.” The man holding her answered.

“Well. I guess the boss didn’t say anything about not hurting her.” He squeezed the burn on Annaleah’s arm.

The pain was excruciating and she cried out.

“He only wanted her alive.” The man brought up his hand, bunching it into a fist. With full force, he punched Annaleah in the face.

She winced in pain.

Awoken with a deep breath and pain in her arm, Annaleah looked around her cell.

The dream was over, and she was once again in the present.

It was not really a dream. It was a memory, clouded and blurred, but clear as day at the same time.

She looked down at her arm, the burn scar throbbed a little. It no longer hurt, but would be forever a reminder that she lost her mother in a fire caused by the men who now held her prisoner.

Annaleah had this dream many times, almost every time she dreamt.

She could never see her mother’s face, nor that of her father, and it haunted her.

Why could she not remember the faces of the people who brought her up? Why could she not hear her mother’s voice clearly? And why did she not know what had happened to her father?

Darkness still surrounded Annaleah, but she was far too awake to sleep again.

She stood up from her makeshift bed, rubbed her sore back, and made her way over to the bars on the wall which lead to the outside world.

Using small footholds, she climbed up the wall and used the ledge to hold onto.

Her arms strained to keep her there, but Annaleah was determined to finish the job.

A week earlier, Annaleah had started working on loosening the bars in front of the little window. There were six bars in total, and so far four of them were loose enough to push them free from their concrete slots.

This was not the first cell she had been a prisoner in. In fact, Annaleah could not remember how many cells she had been held captive in. It must have been well into the double figures by now. She had escaped a couple of times before, using weaknesses in the doors, or managing to get around a new guard who had not been warned about her, but this cell proved harder to escape from.

It had taken several months’ worth of strength training for Annaleah to be able to hold her own body weight up for long enough to work on the bars.

She had been twisting, pulling and pushing at the bars, loosening them from their fixings, and then she would put them back into their rightful places so none of the guards ever suspected anything when they scrutinised her cell.

Since she escaped the last time, using a small drain in her cell leading into the sewers below, the guards kept a closer eye on her. They assumed, however, the bars on the window was too high to be an escape risk. How wrong they would be?

The bar Annaleah had been working on for the last hour or so eventually came free. This one had been the easiest so far. The others normally took a few hours or more to pry loose from their concrete anchors.

“It might be enough,” Annaleah muttered to herself.

She couldn’t risk escaping yet, though. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and there would be a change of guard soon. She needed to wait until nightfall, just after the guard changed again. That way she could guarantee no one would check on her for a good few hours, which would give her enough time to make a break for it.

Annaleah looked out over the land that stretches from her cell. There was a clear break to the tree line about half a mile away. If she could get there, she might have a chance.

This was her first chance at hope in a long time.

She could hear birds chirping from somewhere, but she could not see from where.

Annaleah allowed herself to drop down from the wall, landing with a soft thud on the ground. The impact sent shooting pains up her legs, but she soon recovered.

The sound of approaching footsteps and voices indicated the guard change was due.

Quietly, she walked over to the door to get a better place for listening to their conversation.

During the handover, sometimes Annaleah could hear bits of useful information. It was in these short conversations she would hear about the outside world she could no longer remember, and she would also find out if she were to be questioned that day or not.

“Are you asleep? On your feet boy!” The approaching guard ordered.

From the noise and shuffle outside, it seemed Annaleah’s night guard had fallen asleep on duty.

“Sorry Sir,” he said firmly as he snapped to attention.

“No need to be sorry. I’m not going to tell anyone you fell asleep,” The approaching guard said.

“Quiet night, I take it?”

“I didn’t hear a sound from inside,” Sleepy said.

“She’s often quiet.” By the sound of the metal clang on the floor, it seemed the new guard had placed something on the ground.

It sounded like a bowl maybe.

Annaleah hoped it would be more food for her. The thought made her stomach grumble.

“Can I ask you something, Sir?”

“Go for it lad.”

“Why does the boss keep her locked up? What good is she to him?”

All these years, it was the only unspoken question on Annaleah’s lips as well.

“Truth is, I really don’t know,” the guard answered. “We’ve had her locked up so long now, I think the only person who remembers why is the boss. He still makes us ask her where ‘it’ is, but none of us knows what it is, and I’m not sure she does either.” He paused before he continued. “Do me a favour lad, before you clock off.”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Take this in for her. The boss will be in later today. The kid will need her strength.”

Then Annaleah’s cell door opened.

She stepped away from it too late and looked at the man standing in front of her with a bowl of hot soup. Her mouth started watering instantly, and the aroma coming from the soup made her stomach growl even louder than usual. Panicked, she looked at the man holding the bowl, waiting for him to put it down.

He couldn’t have been older than her, and he looked terrified seeing her standing so close to him.

Why would he have been scared of her? She was just a tiny thing with no muscle and weak. Or that’s what everyone thought. She knew her oversized baggy clothes hid a toned body, and although she was underweight, she was strong for her size.

The man was visibly shaking as he stood in front of her and Annaleah couldn’t help thinking how easy this man, no boy, would be to overpower. She could rush him, and no doubt he would drop the bowl and let her escape.

If it weren’t for the other guard now in the corridor, she might have considered it. Instead, Annaleah simply stood in her cell, keeping her head down but her eyes on the door.

The young man put the bowl of soup on the ground and closed the door again.

Annaleah picked the bowl up from the floor and drank greedily. The soup was hot, but it was a pleasant feeling after cold meat and stale bread from the night before.

Annaleah listened until the guard change was over, and decided she would rest for now, but not sleep.

If Kane was coming later, she’d need to be wide awake.

The bars were not ready for her to escape, and she would not fit through the gap as it was.

Annaleah prayed the guards were mistaken and Kane was not on his way to see her.