II
Month one
I woke up in darkness so complete it felt suffocating, like the chasm itself had swallowed me whole. My head throbbed, my limbs felt heavy, and every inch of my body ached from lying too long on the cold, unforgiving ground. The air was damp, thick with a musty staleness that clung to my lungs.
I blinked several times, trying to see if it was a sight that was affected. But no. One minute, I was turning to get out of the forest and go back to my sister, and the next minute, I was somewhere else. Somewhere so dark, so still, that I can hear nothing but my own breathing and the critters of some animals around.
My heart pounded violently in my chest as I reached out into the emptiness, desperate for something solid, something real. My hands met nothing but air, the vast void amplifying the terror that coursed through my veins. I got to my feet, exploring until my hands touched a hard, rusted, cold metal. When I clasped my hands around it, I understood that they were bars. The kind that are situated in a cell.
I was locked up. In the middle of nowhere, with nothing except my clothes on me. Panic surged, and I couldn’t hold it back.
I screamed—a raw, guttural sound that tore from my throat and echoed back at me, mocking my solitude. The darkness devoured my voice, offering no comfort, no answers. I screamed again, and again, until my throat burned and my chest heaved with the effort. Finally, exhaustion and shock overcame me, and I collapsed back into the oppressive void, my body trembling and my mind spiralling into a haze of fear.
When I woke again, hoping that it had all been a dreadful nightmare, I understood that I was not dreaming. I was still in the same damp, dark cell. My breath hitched, and I forced myself to sit up, my movements sluggish and disoriented.
The movement had my foot clanging into something. My hands fumbled blindly in the dark until they found a plate. Bread. Its rough texture told me as much. My stomach growled ferociously, the hunger clawing at my insides was too much to ignore. I devoured it in desperate bites, barely chewing, the dry crumbs scraping painfully against my raw throat. My parched mouth and throat begged for water, but there was none.
The passing of time became meaningless. The darkness was unbroken, seemingly eternal, and I had no way to mark the hours or days. Food appeared infrequently and always when I was asleep. I was being watched.
Somewhere inside these dark walls was a camera that didn’t need light. The thought that someone was watching me, waiting for the moment I succumbed to exhaustion, sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t shake the feeling of unseen eyes—silent and invasive.
What did they want from me? Why am I here? Was it because I was getting close to uncovering what happened to my father? Or is it because I’ve ventured into a place I was supposed to stay away from?
The questions seemed endless, with no one to answer. Nothing but darkness and silence.
As exhaustion settled into my bones, sleep became an escape, albeit a temporary one. I would wake to find a piece of bread and a small pitcher of water in an earthen pot. The meagre portions did not quell the gnawing hunger or the unrelenting thirst that plagued me.
The isolation began to take its toll. The silence was maddening, broken only by the occasional scuttle of rats or the faint scratching of unseen creatures. I whispered to myself at first, repeating my own name, my sister's name, anything to remind myself that I existed, that I was still human. But the sound of my voice in the darkness unsettled me, and soon I stopped.
I went through countless formulas inside my head. I told myself that all of this was temporary. I told myself that whoever held me would want some money, and we had a lot. They’d eventually come, and they’d eventually contact my sister, they cannot lock me forever.
Then came other questions. Why didn’t I see anyone yet? Why didn’t I hear anything but nothing? I might not know what day or the time of the day it was, but I was sure that it had been days since I’d gone missing. I worried that my sister was going berserk in anxiousness. She was only fifteen, and we had only recently lost all our family. Vultures were looking for a place to attack, and she was all alone.
Those thoughts made things even harder.
The smell was the worst. The rancid stench of my waste and decay permeated the air, thick and unyielding. I cried when I had to finally give up and do it. It was clear that I wasn’t being let out of this cell anytime soon. No amount of beating the cell door or yanking at it pried it open. One day, I had to finally give up and take the dump. In a corner of the cell, I was just thankful that the cell was big. I didn’t have to sleep right next to the place I defecated.
I didn’t think I could ever stoop lower than that. I gagged often, my stomach churning with nausea that had no release. The filth clung to me, a constant, inescapable reminder of my captivity. It seeped into my skin, into my very being, until I could no longer distinguish where it ended, and I began.
I lost track of how long I had been there. Days, weeks, months—they all blurred together into an endless stretch of darkness and despair. My mind played cruel tricks on me, conjuring memories so vivid I could almost taste them. The warmth of sunlight on my face, the scent of fresh bread from the bakery near our home, my sister’s laugh. Each memory was a double-edged sword, a fleeting comfort that quickly turned to anguish as I realised how far away those moments were.
Sometimes, I heard my mother’s gentle voice. An eerie sound coming from somewhere out of the cell. Sometimes, I felt as if my father was rubbing my hair while I cried myself to sleep. I clung to those moments. Until I started to rely deeply on them. I started seeing corporal things a while later. That had been the slap to the face I needed.
Hallucination is one of the disorders a person might develop when in captivity. And I understood that my mind was slowly trying to take me into the distorted version of reality to cope. I wasn’t able to cope with the stress being put on it, so it made me delusional. I forced myself to shake out of it. I forced myself to face the reality. No matter how painful and scary it was, it could not be more scary than losing my own mind. The one thing I depend on.
I held on. Somehow, I clung to the fraying threads of sanity with sheer willpower. I whispered my sister’s name like a prayer, her face the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. I didn’t know if I would ever see her again, but the thought of her was enough to keep me alive. The hope, the zeal to see her again. I cannot leave her alone, not to the people who would eat her alive.
And then, one day—or maybe night—I woke up somewhere else.
It looked like an abandoned house or part of a large hall. The roof was missing, and portions of the walls were missing. The pillars stood though, with ivy and moss covering them, they stood erect, looming above me.
The ground beneath me was rough, covered in damp leaves and patches of cold, wet earth. The air was different, less suffocating, and though the space was dimly lit from the grey clouds above, it felt blinding compared to the pitch-black cell I had known. My body trembled as I pushed myself up, my muscles weak and uncooperative from disuse.
Footsteps echoed in the space. My heart clenched as I looked up, my vision swimming with disorientation. A figure emerged from the shadows, the sharp click of polished shoes on the ground sending a jolt of fear through me. As he stepped closer, the dim light revealed his face.
Vir.
The hatred was immediate. Despite the exhaustion, I couldn’t hold back the glare that I threw him. I knew he was a bad man. I knew he had something to do with my father’s and grandpa’s deaths, but I never thought he would kidnap me. Was I really making some rifts among the officials? Enough to take such drastic measures?
He was immaculate, clad in a suit that reeked of wealth and power. His beady brown eyes gleamed with a wickedness that sent shivers down my spine. He crouched in front of me, his face unnervingly close to mine.
His nose-numbing scent of something spicy hit me hard, throwing me into a light fit of cough. I could feel his breath against my skin, warm and invasive, as he whispered, his voice dripping with malice. I recoiled, my heart pounding even harder.
“You survived.”
His words were soft, almost reverent, but the twisted smile on his lips matched his madness.
“He chose you.” He whispered, looking like a deranged lunatic.
I stared at him, my body frozen in fear, exhaustion and confusion. His presence was suffocating. And I had no idea what he was rambling about.
“Bapo,” Vir called out, his voice commanding.
His eyes never left me. They gleamed with something I couldn’t quite place, but it made my stomach turn.
A figure emerged from the shadows. My breath caught in my throat, my heart hammering as the man stepped forward. He was a giant—tall, broad, and utterly terrifying. His skin was pale, nearly sickly, and his bald head was covered in a black tattoo, some ancient rune that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. The sight of him made my skin crawl.
Vir didn’t waste any time. “Take care of her.”
The man, Bapo, smirked. It wasn’t a smile. It was something far darker. His yellowing teeth gleamed as he crouched in front of me, his beady eyes narrowing with a predatory gleam.
“With pleasure, master.”
I shuddered at the sound of his voice. It was like he was savouring every word, relishing in the terror that was building in my chest. And then Vir spoke again, his voice cold and commanding.
“Remember,” he warned, “She cannot be sullied. Not by you.”
Bapo nodded dutifully, bowing to his master. What the hell was happening here? What did he mean by that? Am I hearing things now?
Before I could even process what was happening, Bapo’s hands were on me, grabbing my hair with such force that it sent a jolt of pain right through my skull. I gasped, my breath catching in my throat as I was yanked forward, my body stumbling with each step he forced me to take. My limbs felt weak, and uncooperative. I couldn’t move fast enough to escape.
“Stop,” I begged, my voice trembling, but it was useless.
My words were swallowed by the silence of the forest as he dragged me. He didn’t care that I could barely walk; he didn’t care that thorns pricked my skin or I was clawing at his hands to let his grip loose. He dragged me like a rag doll down towards a sunken water body.
He then tossed me into it. The cold water hit me like a ton of bricks, my lungs constricting painfully as I accidentally sucked some of the water in. The pond was so cold that I felt my teeth chattering from being inside just for a minute. The scary man then got in and tore at my clothes.
None of my screams or my lousy attempts to push him away worked. He was bigger and stronger, and his limbs cooperated, unlike mine. One of his hands held both of mine behind me, the grip twisting some crucial bone in my shoulder beyond pain. My cries of pain petrified a nearby flock of birds, and yet, it didn’t haze him.
“You and I,” he said, his hands grabbing at my breast as he pushed his erection inside his pants to rub on my back, “are going to have fun, little one.”
He laughed at my whimper, his hands ripping away at my remaining clothes. My throat was raw from screaming, and I couldn’t overpower him. He washed me, touching, lingering in inappropriate places, humping into my back. He continued doing it until he groaned into my ear. I puked into the water, realising what just happened.
He turned me around, pushing me away from my waste and dunked my head below the surface. I heard his cold laughter as I flailed my arms and my legs as panic set in. He held me underwater, letting me fight for a while until he pulled me back. My coughing fit, and cries had him letting out a burst of maniacal laughter.
He didn’t even let me gather my breath before he started dragging me again. I tried to scream again, but his laughter only continued—a sick, low chuckle that made my blood run cold.
“Shh,” he cooed, his voice almost affectionate, like he was speaking to a child. “We’re just getting started,”
His words sent a shiver down my spine. I could feel the malice in them, feel the twisted hunger that laced every syllable. Bapo’s grip was unrelenting, dragging me across the rough ground, the sharp edges of rocks cutting into my bare skin.
I could barely think, my mind spinning, my body crying out for mercy. And then we reached the clearing. The sight of it made my stomach twist in horror.
A pit, a large one, sat in the centre of the clearing. The fire burned inside it, the flames licking the sky above us. Around the pit, different symbols were carved into the earth. I wasn’t interested in history, but I knew these were some kind of runes. There was something about them that set me on edge. Filled me with dread and terror as I saw red liquid shining inside the furrows.
My eyes followed the runes and landed on another small fire set on the edge of the clearing. A man sat in front of it. A brandishing iron was sizzling inside the embers, glowing angry red.
He was filthy. His skin was caked in dirt and ash, his hair matted and tangled. His eyes were wide, glazed over with something feral, something animalistic. He looked like a creature from a nightmare. His gaze flicked to me, his lips curling into a vile grin as he slowly licked his lips, savouring the sight of me.
I couldn’t breathe. My body locked in place, terror flooding every vein, every nerve. This was worse than anything I had imagined. This man, this place—it isn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
Bapo pinned the man with a superior look. “Master orders that no one touches her. She is blessed by our god.”
Nothing was making sense. Not his words, not that place, nor the feeling I was getting from there. More than anything, I was embarrassed to be standing in front of two bloody men without a stitch of clothing on me.
The man’s eyes flickered with fear, and he lowered his gaze as if acknowledging the power Bapo held over him. Bapo smirked, his hand tightening around my wrists, and he twisted me to face him.
“Come on, little one. It’s time to brand you,” he sneered, his grip tightening on my body, dragging me closer.
Before I could react, he shoved me to the ground, my body crashing against the cold earth. I cried out, my head spinning from the impact. I felt my heart hammering in my chest, my skin exposed and vulnerable.
Bapo’s touch was cruel and unrelenting. His hands roamed across my body, groping and squeezing again with a sick satisfaction. I recoiled, but it was useless. He was everywhere, his hands on my skin, touching me in ways that made my stomach churn. My body screamed in protest, but my voice was drowned in the sound of his laughter—low, sick, and twisted.
“Shh,” he whispered, his breath hot on my ear. “It’ll be over soon, little one. Just give in.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. His hands were everywhere, pulling, tearing, and violating. I wanted to scream, but all I could do was tremble, my body refusing to respond.
Then I felt something sharp at the base of my spine—a sudden, unbearable heat, like fire coursing through my veins. I screamed, a guttural cry that tore from my throat, overpowering Bapo’s laughter. The pain was unbearable, like every inch of my skin was on fire.
That was the first time when the truth that I might not make it alive out there sunk in. That was the first time I started praying to be let out of there.
And then, everything went black.