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by arjun krishnan

DISCRETIONARY WARNING: STORY CONTAINS PHYSICAL ABUSE

She hadn’t seen the world like most people her age had. In fact, she hadn’t seen the world at all. She had resided in her run down, enclosed space for as long as she could remember. It didn’t feel like an enclosed space to her, though, it was all she’d ever known for her 16 years of life. She had vague memories of a mother, a father, a brother… but she simply dismissed them as wild dreams, put into her mind by evil spirits to tempt her from seeking these fantasies. She knew what would happen if she did.

 Her life goals were uncomplicated; things like mapping out a floor plan of her space, or doing the laundry in under five minutes. She thought simply, pondering about what the outside world and other people are like.

The only thing she had to go by was a necklace. It sparkled, with a little golden heart at the end of it, and it glimmered every time she put it under the light. She had that all her life, and she had always wondered where it came from, and what it was for.

Her bunker came with unexpected friends, little puny bugs. She grew to bear a few, but always found the spiders irksome, with their creepy eight eyes and hairy long legs. She would always scream in fear in terror when she saw one, no matter how many times she did. 

For all her years she only knew one man.

Robert was an odd man, coming into the space everyday and taking advantage of her any way he could, whether that was hitting her, manipulating her, or doing the unthinkable. She had known him all her life but never knew a thing about him. He was gruff and angry, but to her he was like a god-like figure, as she knew no one else. Robert was the only one who could bring something new to her, a new pillow or book, a new toy when she was younger, and music discs of only classical songs when she was older.

She had many habits, like biting her nails, even though she had earned the gift of a nail clipper. She put on Mozart in the day, Handel in the afternoon, Beethoven in the evenings, and Mozart again to sleep; he was her favourite. She read simple books like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” with great analysis and depth as if it were a full scale novel. She would always imagine the beach (as she had earned a poster of it) and what it would be like to splash in the waves and get tanned under the sun, eat ice cream, or just relax with friends…not that she knew what the concepts of friends meant; she had none. She only knew Robert, and Robert was anything but a friend. She would pause all of these habits when Robert came just in case they aggravated him, because if they did she knew what would come next.

She was a smart girl, curious beyond belief. With the only thing she had from the outside world being a necklace. She had examined the necklace for hours at a time, seeking something, anything, that would set her free from the shackles Robert had placed on her hands. 

Until one day, she noticed something.

A tiny little crack was starting to form on her necklace, so small that most would not notice it. But she did; she knew the ins and outs of that necklace, the dimensions, every square millimeter by rote memory.

“Could this lead to something?” She asked herself, as she tried to exploit the crack and open the necklace, it was a big deal to her, but she was willing to break it just for a chance of getting out. Instinct got the best of her. As she tried harder and harder, she felt it get closer and closer, and then, in an instant, it snapped in half.

It dropped to the ground and split in half. She hurried to pick it up and examine it. But there was nothing, nothing inside, nothing outside, nothing new, nothing to save her from this hell hole. 

As all hope came crashing down, she wept and wept. The one chance she had was gone, no hope was left, no fight was worth fighting, there was no way she was going to get out.