She claws at the walls, crying out into the darkness that surrounds
her. "Help me! Someone please help me!" Flinging her body against the door
again and again, it does not give. But only serves to taunt and infuriate
her. Her bloodied hands are numb with pain, her stomach rumbles loudly
from the many days without food. Her head aches, and she cries miserably.
She no longer
asks for her freedom, she begs for death. She knows the only
way to escape her living hell is to die, and no longer exist.
She sits silently, listening to the men walking by, dragging yet
another victim to their death. Hearing the screams of agony as the others
die slowly. She envisions them, twisting, burning, begging for mercy, as
the men stand by and laugh. She uses what is left of her nails to claw
at her wrists, hoping to open a vein, and let out the life giving blood
that keeps her tied to this hell.
She tries dragging her tender flesh across the rough bench hoping
it will tear open a hole in her. She cries and begs a god she no longer
believes in for mercy. She knows in her heart that her pleas go unheard.
She huddles in a corner, feeling the walls close in on her. Feeling
her mind slowly slip away. Her eyes dull from the hunger and pain and the
lack of feeling. She no longer cares if she lives or dies. She no longer
feels. Her eyes grow dim. She no longer hears the cries of the tortured.
No longer begs the nonexistent god for mercy that is unattainable. No longer
prays to a god that has failed her. The hunger begins to fade. Her mind
slips farther away, clouded in a fog. She begins
to feel herself floating. She dreams that she has boarded a ship,
and is sailing away to a new land where no one hurts, and there are no
tiny dark rooms. She dreams that she is flying away on the wings of a raven,
that carries her high into the clouds and she no longer feels the tiny
room with it's rough hewn bench, and heavy door. She ceases to dream.
The door swings open, a large man stepping through. He kneels
in front of the woman. Laying his hand on her cold cheek, he feels nothing.
No life left in the closed eyes. He wonders quietly who she might have
been in life, and wonders if she was maybe someone's sister or mother or
wife. These thoughts anger him once more, and he blames himself for not
acting quicker, he blames the others for not listening when they could
have done something to maybe spare the lives lost here. He forces back
the anger he feels so deeply, and refuses to allow himself to think of
his own sister who was no older than this woman who died in such squalor.
He wonders why people have to suffer so much. And what this woman did to
deserve such a horrible fate. He curses a god he never believed in and
steps away from the room. Calling to the others to report
yet another body. Yet another victim of one of life's little
jokes.