The day Sin was abducted, she found herself enclosed in mildewed brick walls, lying on a single putrid threadbare mattress. As she shifted, she heard the jangle of chains and felt the coil of thick leather around her neck. From the small emanating light from a high barred window she realized she had been chained like a mastiff, her school outfit swapped with a shabby cotton nightgown.

His abductor, however, had been gingerly obscuring himself for several days. At times she would wake up to a broad candle flickering at the corner of her room, a tin plate bearing a sizable loaf of stale bread and a pitcher of water. There were days she would oversleep to find that rats have devoured morsels from her single course for the day and she would lie crimped, her hands pressing hard to numb her stomach until she drifted back to slumber. Most times she would weep, or startle herself in the looming darkness she would inevitably befriend.

Not once did she try to scream. It was the presentiment she had for a long while that it would be to no avail. Whoever held her against her will possesses irrefutable potency he wouldn’t think twice on disposing of someone so boisterous and reckless.

The time he disclosed himself, he bore an oil lamp and bent down while she looked up and squinted at him, the way one would discern features in a half-awakened state. The man was undeniably dark-haired and Hispanic, with a narrow, arched nose and a set of eyes that seemed to have been deprived of sleep since the sixties. She did not spare on scrutinizing him closely, an enigmatic and pale classic gentleman in his long coat and turtleneck bending over to return her glare.

“Do you remember my face?” he asked.

Sin nodded.

“Then, you know why you’re here?”

Sin did not respond, but for a long while, sensed the blend of his tune against her skin. “I know you’re not here to kill me. But apart from that, I can’t tell.”

The man smiled. “I know it’s the dawn of the 21st century,” he said, placing the oil lamp by her side, “but everything in this house is old-fashioned. Except… well you’ll find out soon enough. Until now you’ll stay here.”

He stood, walked through the doorway and placed his fingers on the latch. “Rest well,” he said, as he turned to shut the door.

It lingered on for days. The desolation graced by the presence of the man once in a few days. She, at that moment, learned that the existence of regular days had been wasted to atrophy, the uncomplicated question ‘what day is it?’ has ceased to exist. She then tallied her days and months on the walls like a regular recluse in a forgotten bunker. Her identity, her birthday, is gradually obliterated, overshadowed by the disjointing blathering of emotions.

She could tell that the walls enclosed around her stood for more than a hundred years, not only from the decay it exuded. The resentment and madness bellowed and permeated into her until her own emotions were engulfed by those that were never originally hers.

One night the man entered with roasted pork loin and a pitcher of water, placed it on the floor and crouched down. She sat up and reluctantly stared despite the constant rumbling in her stomach after being starved for days.

The man frowned and benevolently asked, “What is it?”

“This food had so much fear,” she managed to say.

The man eyed his platter for a while, then gave an amused grin. “It’s butchered,” he replied, “how will you have it?”

She did not reply, but froze into suspicion she couldn’t explain. She planted both hands, tore off a chunk and chewed. The emotions around her, the turbulent fury and terror, it seemed like digging into it. She despised it, but there’s no other choice. What would then be more important than to have your stomach filled?

The man, in palpable gratification, cocked his head as he watched her consume a sizable chunk of meat in her bare hands. “I’m Wrath,” he spoke, “or to be precise, that is what I’m called. How are the walls treating you?”

She only looked at him, docile and taciturn. She had been that way, soaking up into sentiments that weren’t hers. The stranger before her can distinguish that. He had been reading his books as she did.

He watched her until the plate was empty. It didn’t take much of his time, with hunger clamoring like an enraged chimp on her shoulder, she hadn’t even noticed she was savagely tearing her dinner and swallowing to the last shred. Even the water was chugged to the single drop.

“Here, you are mine,” he said, “and your name will be irrelevant. I know you hated it, that world you lived in. Those boundaries, how you lived up to everyone’s expectations, they are no different than these walls. You see through them the way I do.”

He gathered the platter and pitcher and locked her door. Sin, left in isolation, was again crushed by the overwhelming darkness. Yet on that night, the solitude seemed more bearable.