2253 - 2263

I was about two or three when I was thrown into that pit of darkness. Scraping by until I was around the age of twelve or thirteen. I only recall certain memories from the time we were wasting away in that dingy place.

My Arrival

2253

I was dropped like a sack of potatoes. Bound, gagged, my eyes covered by a cloth. Dumped like garbage, like a broken thing in the dark.

The basement smelled of damp stone, rot, old metal and stale piss. The air was thick, heavy, like it would refuse to move, to circulate, to give us life. This place was a graveyard of shadows, of souls. The cold stone walls and sad depressed beings, all clumped together in a corner.

I remember there was a sting in my neck, it was raw and aching. Stitches across the wound, tight beneath ragged skin. It pulled with my every breath. Someone had tried to fix the open wound, but it was still angry and fresh. A birthmark, large ad ugly, like a dark paint smear on my fair skin. It was smeared across my collarbone like a stain that wouldn’t wash away. My hair was tangled and filthy. A mess of ratty red strands that smelled faintly of sweat and dust. My clothes, if you could call them that, were torn and tattered and smelled.

They didn’t want me. That’s what I heard on the way here. Said I was just trouble.

They tied me up, sewed the gash on my neck closed like a broken doll. They didn’t seem to want me here either. Not anywhere.

Once they threw me down there, they let the others take off the binds, gag, and blindfold. They didn’t seem to know what to do with me. My eyes stayed wide, unblinking, watching everything. I didn’t speak, I didn’t cry, I didn’t flinch.

I just watched and learned.

It made them shift, they were uneasy around me. They didn’t like that I was silent.

Silence wrapped in skin. A cold thing sitting and waiting in the dark.

One day they did drag me out of that pit. The light from above burned my eyes, but I didn’t let it show. They sat me on a table and ripped the stitches from my neck. The wound was fresh and angry once again. The blade was at least quick and sharp against my neck.

I didn’t flinch, didn’t scream, didn’t move.

That made them uneasy, so they decided to try to force a response out of me.

They stabbed me harder, pinched, punched, and slapped me until my cheek stung and my world tilted.

They wanted something, but I refused to give it to them. I refused to give these people anything. I was nothing but stillness.

No tears, no noise, no surrender. Just open eyes and ears. Piercing, watching, and unbroken.

My eyes were too sharp for a child so small. I saw everything. I heard everything.

I meant nothing to them. Was nothing to them.

Am I really nothing though?

In this darkness I stilled myself and waited.

Somewhere, deep inside, I was alive.

An ember still glowed deep within my soul.

I didn’t cry the first day, not because I was brave, but because I didn’t know how. My fear was too big for tears. It swallowed me whole and left only silence.

First Kindness

Late 2253

The noise came first.

Boots. Grunting. Metal scraping stone.

Then the guards opened the door and shoved her in. Letting her fall down the stairs.

A lady.

She hit the floor hard and there was a thud as she made contact with the concrete floor. She didn’t scream. She wasn’t moving around either.

She just quietly laid there. Curled up on her side. Her shirt was torn and clinging to her skin. Red bloomed from her sides, soaking her shirt.

The basement seemed to swallow the sounds around us. The guards slammed the door shut after she touched the floor.

I glanced up before it closed. They wore sinister smiles and laughed as she tumbled down.

The air was heavier than usual that night. The damp walls wept with silence for us, for this lady.

She still wasn’t speaking. She still wasn’t moving.

Some of the other girls went to her to try and help.

One girl knelt by her side and pressed against her side, where the red was blooming. Another girl tore strips from her tattered clothes, trying to bandage what they could.

I didn’t move. I just watched.

She finally woke, but I continued to observe.

She was older than the rest of us. She wasn’t like the guards, but not like us either.

Her hair dirty blonde, long and braided down her back. The braid was unraveling fast. Blood streaked her cheeks, but her eyes. They showed something fierce. They showed strength and a fighting spirit.

She was in and out of sleep for days. Her breath came slow and stubborn, rising through the silence like it refused to leave.

I stayed close, curled in my corner. Watching her chest rise and fall. Over and over and over again.

The steady rhythm was comforting in this place.

She woke again, eyes opening slowly. Blue like the sky.

Her eyes didn’t flinch away when they met mine. Others always skipped past me or looked away if our gazes met.

She just looked right at me.

That night when the guards gave us our food, she tore a chunk of bread off and soaked it in the watery broth. She didn’t speak much.

She did try to speak to me though.

Maybe because she knew no one else would want me. I’m scarred, marked, broken.

Her voice was soft, but dry, raspy.

“Eat.” She held out the hard bread she soaked in broth. “If we’re strong, they will keep us.”

Later that day she pressed a frayed piece of fabric into my hands. I don’t know where it came from.

“Hold on to this.” she whispered. “When the dark feels too big.”

I didn’t speak or nod, but I took the cloth. I observed it, turned it over in my hands. I just looked back up at her and closed my hands around it.

It was warm from her hands.

I curled around it in the dark and didn’t let it go.

I didn’t know kindness could be quiet. I thought it had to be loud—like rescue, or love. But hers came like breath. Soft. Necessary.

A Quiet Ritual

2254

The dark doesn’t change. It’s thick and low and wet. It’s clinging to the walls like wet clothes cling to the skin.

Some days the only way I know that the world has moved, has changed, time has flowed, is when the rats come out later. When the food is colder. When the temperature in this cold dark place changes.

There’s no clocks, no windows, nothing else for us to know. There’s just stone and metal and the voices above that never say anything kind.

Girls disappear, one by one. A creak from the stairs. A sharp voice. A hand grabbing an arm or collar or their hair. Sometimes the girl will scream, sometimes they don’t.

Then the door will slam closed. The empty spot they leave behind just waits, wide and silent. Like it’s hungry for another.

The lady started to count. She found a loose stone and would scratch marks into the dirt. One for each girl they take.

She never told me what she was doing. I watched though. I watched her fingers move slow and steady after each disappearance. I watched her pull a stone from a pocket, tap it, mark it, then hide it again.

At night she hummed, sometimes sang. Low and barely there, like something that’s been buried under the earth.

The dark didn’t seem so bad when she hummed. She always sits with her back against the wall, legs crossed, eyes closed. Humming like she is remembering a place far away.

One night, I decided to hum with her. Just a little, just under my breath.

I wasn’t sure if she heart it. She opened up one eye, looked at me and gave me a small nod. Then she closed it again and started humming again.

After that we hummed together every night, even as the others cried. Even when the guards would yell. Even when the girls never came back.

If we could hum, we were still here, still alive.

I started looking for the pattern in things. In her habits, the hum, the stones. Like if I could map it, I could make sense of the dark.

Pebble Counting

2254

Sometimes the silence was too much. I would catch myself shaking at times.

She noticed. She gave me three smooth pebbles one day. They’re small, worn, and cool in my hands. Not like the sharp rocks and concrete scattered across the floor. Or the dirty bits of broken bricks mixed in.

“Count them,” she said softly, her eyes watching mine.

I just stared at her, not sure what she meant.

She took out some stones from her pocket. “one.” She tapped it on the ground. “two” she put another down. “three.” She laid the last pebble with the others.

She started again, numbers continuing to climb, then she would start over. I began to copy her movements. I didn’t dare count out loud. I kept the counting to myself.

“Counting keeps the noise down,” she whispered.

I continued to use this method when the silence was too loud, or the dark too heavy. I used it when the guards came, when the door slammed shut again.

If I can count, I can keep from breaking.

The sound of pebbles clicking against stone was the only thing I could control.

Hair Braiding

2255

“You’re hair is starting to get long.” She ran her hands through my hair. She patted the spot in front of her. “Come, sit.”

I was hesitant, but I obeyed. She chuckled as I sat down in front of her, not knowing what to expect.

She began. She used her fingers to smooth the knots in my hair, pulling gently through the tangles. Her nails were cracked and her hands were dry, but she was soft, careful.

Once she got most of it detangled, she braided it. Like hers.

All the other girls lined up once they saw my hair. She just smiled and let each girl take their turn.

Once she finished, she tapped the tops of our heads. “Now hopefully, it’ll stay a little tidier.”

I wore that braid until it unraveled a few days later. Even then, I kept tucking strands back in, or back behind my ears the way she showed me.

The next time went quicker. She didn’t have as many knots and tangles.

“Now you look like a girl who can survive.”

That braid didn’t just keep my hair back. It reminded me I belonged to someone. That someone thought I was worth the effort.

Protective Moment

2255

Today is a bad day. Everything felt off. The air even feels off, stale. Like the basement was holding it’s breath. Sometimes you could know, smell when something worse was going to happen. Like sweat and oil and something sharp underneath, vinegar and meat.

The food hasn’t come.

The girls, they’re all really quiet. More than usual.

Even the rats have stayed hidden.

Then the door started to creak, thrown open. A laugh, a sniffle, a gross wide smile.

It’s not the usual guard. He’s walking slower, heavy, greedier than the others.

I was sitting near the far wall, knees pulled to my chest, holding the cloth scrap in my hands.

She was sitting nearby, her braid loose, humming like always. Trying to keep us calm and thinking about the music. Like the song could hold the walls together.

Each stair creaked as he came down. He stepped down into the dark. Paused and let his eyes adjust. He looked at each one of us, his eyes gleaming.

“Older stock, older girls, stand up and come forwards.” The other girls shrank away, trying to fade away into the dark. Their eyes all on the ground.

He stepped closer, the lose pieces groaning from his weight.

His eyes landed on me. I didn’t move, I never did. I just stared back at him, sharp and quiet. I think that made it worse.

He took another step closer.

Another. His grin widening as he kept his eyes on me.

Then, she stood. The lady stood up. She rose like she was meant to. No sound, no panic, just there between us.

Her body was thinner now, worn, pale, bandages hidden beneath her clothes. Her voice was solid, unwavering. “No.”

He stopped and his gaze left mine to meet hers. He laughed, low and mean. Smile, grin now a sneer. “You saying no to me?”

She didn’t move, didn’t blink. Her hands were at her sides, her shoulders square. “She’s too young. They’re all too young.”

“She’s quiet, I like that. I like the defiance in her eyes.” He met my gaze and smiled again. The girls behind us didn’t speak. No one breathed. I could hear the blood pounding in my ears.

“If you want to try to take one of these girls,” she was stern “you’ll have to get through me.” She stood even taller.

He stepped closer to her, too close. They were almost touching. Still, she stood tall and didn’t flinch. Like a towering wall, protecting the citizens behind from harm.

They stayed like that for a long time, it felt like forever. She didn’t move, didn’t tremble. Something slowly changed in his face.

It didn’t seem like anger, or unease. Maybe he saw something that didn’t fit here. Here is this dark basement. Something sharp, old, and still alive.

Eventually he spat at the ground near her feet, turned, and left. The door slamming behind him like thunder once he climbed the creaky stairs.

She waited, still standing in front of us until she was sure he wouldn’t come back. Then she knelt down. Hugging each one of us. I was last. She met my gaze then closed her eyes. She touched her forehead to mine.

His skin was warm. Her breath smelled like broth and blood.

“I’ll never let them take you.” she whispered. “I’d rather die first.”

I didn’t say anything. Just watched, listened, leaned into her a little bit.

For the first time, I believed it.

I learned then that protection didn’t always need weapons. Sometimes, it looked like standing between. Like saying no. Like refusing to disappear.

Mending my Scrap

2256

The basement is quiet today. Not much happened. The guards just left us with our small bit of food and water.

She pulled out a needle from the folds of her braid. That’s where she keeps it. They let her have one to mend our clothes as best she can. She took the frayed piece of scrap she gave me. It was fraying and starting to fall apart.

Her fingers moved slowly, carefully, like it was as fragile as we were.

I watched the way she pulled the thread tight, how she mended the tears with soft and easy stitches.

“Things fall apart,” she murmured, “but if you care for them, they last longer.”

She finished and tucked the needle back in her hair. She pressed the newly mended scrap back into my hands.

It smelled like broth and dust, but it felt like hope.

She stitched more than a scrap. She was mending the parts of me I didn’t know had started to fray.