Page 141 of Nocturne

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 heavedwith 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 andalwayswhen 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 thankfulthat 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.

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