Day One
I write this from my cell. The only light is shining from the cracks under the door. They’ve taken away everything I have and put me in a dark room. It’s cold and damp and smells bad. For a long time they had me hanging by my wrists in shackles and now they hurt and are rubbed raw from flailing around. My throat hurts from screaming and they won’t give me water. They told me that I could sleep in the pile of moldy straw in the corner and gave me these few sheets of paper. Who knows why they gave me that request. Perhaps they thought it was harmless? Well apparently they don’t pay much attention.
Day Eight
They haven’t given me new bread and water for three days. I regret eating that last loaf as fast as I did. I told them I lost my pen so I could get an extra. My wrists are in a perpetual state of pain. I refuse to give up, I’m not ready to back down just yet. There’s not much I can do to escape, so I’ll just have to make my stay inconvenient. My stomach is growling, I think I’ll go lay down for a bit before they chain me up again.
Day Thirty
I’m miserable. They’ve gotten into the habit of ‘forgetting’ to feed me that poor excuse of a meal quite often. I’ve started to ration myself, giving myself very little to eat. I had to use my spare pen because in a vain attempt to escape, I stabbed one of the guards with my other. It didn’t work, and all I gained was a nasty bruise on my back and a long cut on my stomach. I think they like hearing me scream now, especially because it’s getting harder to talk. My throat hurts and is usually dry. Was it worth it?
Day Forty
Another beating was in store for me. My guard got switched and this one already dislikes me. I didn’t do anything wrong this time, but I think he broke my wrist when he tried pulling my hand out of the shackle without opening it to see if I was sneaking out. It’s dislocated or something, I’m not sure. He was upset with me because I killed his wife. S**t happens, and she got in my way. That’s what I do, and that’s what I’m here for. Time to let go of the past… that’s what I did.
Day Ninety six
I can’t take it. I’m getting fed less often, and beaten more. My entire body aches and the straw doesn’t make sleeping easier. There’s never anything to do. Sometimes I sleep while chained up to the wall. Discomfort has become a part of my life. One I hated but one I was used to. I don’t think I’ll have to do this much longer…. If they keep this up I’m sure to die.
Day One Hundred Eighty Four
They found out that I was writing with the light and took it away. It’s hard to see but I’m somehow managing. I think this will be one of my last little notes. I’m getting worse and worse. I’m weak and sickly. I can barely hold this pen, let alone stand. I have to crawl around this hellhole like a dog. A worthless, dirty, unloved dog. And it hurts. Everything hurts. I haven’t spoken in months, and I gave up on fighting. I do what they ask in hopes of avoiding another thin slice through my skin. Bruises cover my pale skin, and I can see all of my bones clearly. I’ve caught some sort of cold and can’t stop coughing. That hurts too, and they won’t give me extra water. I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I need to go, I think I’m going to die soon.
My head hung in boredom. I’d been hanging there for hours, they won’t let me down. It’s been two years in here, and I’m still alive although I wish I wasn’t. They give me just enough to survive and nothing more. I’m quite literally skin and bones. I haven’t seen light in a year and a half, and I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t talk if I tried. I was pathetic.
What happened to me? I used to do pull-ups while shackled, I used to kick and punch whenever I could. But now I was at their mercy. I didn’t even need to be told what to do, I knew the deal. Whenever the guards came in (there were two now), they would either chain me up or let me down. About three times a day they’d escort me down the dark hallway outside so I could use the bathroom. They brought me food rarely and I had grown used to this constant state of hunger.
But I was alive.
I couldn’t tell if it was a good thing or not. I surely felt a little bit of pride for being able to live in these conditions, but it wasn’t worth it? I knew they would never let me out, and I knew the only reason they waste the space on me is because I murdered the kin of a lot of powerful people and they wanted me to suffer.
But no one knew why. When I was little, the king came to my house in person. He came for my parents, who were secretly dragon breeders. This was illegal because only the king was supposed to be powerful enough to have dragons. But what make my parent’s dragons special is that they had wings.
Contrary to popular belief, not all dragons have wings. It doesn’t make them any less powerful, they usually compensate by being much faster, but when you are skilled enough to own the sky and the land, you’re in a good place.
My parents were selling these dragons to an underground resistance against the king, and the king found out. How? Some a*****e sold us out. And he came for them personally.
When they knew he was coming, they had me hid under the floorboards with some of the spare eggs. They instructed me to take the eggs and to put them in my bag and crawl out through the trapped door when it was safe.
I snuck down there and gathered the eggs carefully, lining the bag with anything soft I could find. I knew that there were lives in there. Then I squatted in the darkest part, near the door, and waited.
From that point, I watched my parents get slaughtered. Not just killed, slaughtered. It was brutal and slow. I had to do my best not to whimper, but their screams were so loud that I remained unnoticed. I knew that I should of left then, but I remained glued to my spot.
I couldn’t move, and as I sat there, my parent’s blood dripping through the floorboards and onto my skin, I changed. Everything changed. My interior hardened as my tears dried. As my hands clenched around the strap of the stained bag, I became a new person.
Finally it was over. Everyone stopped screaming, my heart stopped pounding in my chest. The king and his guards started to tear the house apart, searching for eggs. Luckily, we had recently sold the last of our grown dragons (we raised and trained them by the litter). The table crashed above my head, silverware and the remains of dinner sliding across the floor. They broke through walls, searching for somewhere to keep the eggs. This was my only chance, I had to go. And from there, I fled into the dark, clutching the only thing I had to my chest. Alone in the harsh world at ten years old.
From then on in, I sought revenge. I tried to raise the remaining eggs by myself but I lacked the skill and ended up with four dead baby dragons and a broken heart. I stole what I could to survive, and eventually sold enough of my loot to afford a dagger which had become my closest friend.
Every time I had the chance, I killed the families of the guards, sometimes the guards as well. I wanted to kill the king, but I had years of training ahead of me for that. So I went along, murdering everyone I could and getting away with it.
Somehow it never seemed like enough though, no matter how many lives I destroyed it couldn’t fill the void in my own. So I decided to go to the king at age sixteen.
It was too soon. I got caught almost instantly, and I ended up here. I ended up miserable. Was it worth it? I don’t know. I just wish it was over.
I closed my eyes and waited to fall asleep, although the difference between being awake or not was hardly noticeable. I could barely remember enough to dream. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
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Courtney Shaddock