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Chapter one

Astria Zielle

Being shrouded in darkness played tricks on the mind. Time blurred and blended when the sun couldn’t show me the world was still spinning.

How long had it been? A day? A week? Maybe a month.

Maybe the world outside of the literal box I was trapped in ceased to exist, and I was doomed to stay in this stone prison forever.

No, that couldn’t be true.

Kylie.

I fucked up. If the world ended, that meant she wouldn’t suffer because of my actions, but there was no way the universe would give me that luxury. Not after what I did.

Was I hoping my baby was dead? Did I believe that would be better? Better than me in here, and her out there without me to protect her.

For however long I’d been in here, enough time had passed for me to lose a couple of marbles.

I dug my fingers into my left cheek, right where they branded me before tossing me in here to rot. The searing pain throbbed hard enough to cut through the madness that was slowly sinking its claws deeper and deeper into my crumbling mind.

A lot of time had passed.

This wasn’t my first time in the box, but I’d never struggled this hard to hang onto my sanity before. Funny how the brand they marked me with was what kept me anchored to the world.

My father would throw a toddler styled tantrum if he knew it was working to my benefit.

My fingers ran along the rough six walls that encapsulated me inside this hell. There were divots that lined perfectly with my raw fingertips.

Right, I’d spent the first couple of days trying to claw my way out.

The furled position was the most I could stretch out in the three-foot-by-three-foot cold space. What a girl would do to stretch her legs a bit. How long had it been since I moved? Too long.

The bones on my left side screamed in agony, especially my hip. Who knew how long I’d been spiraling? Not me.

I struggled to roll over to face the opposite direction. In the too tight space, it was all too easy to bonk my head on the low ceiling.

Bells rang in my ears, making me weak and dizzy. My stomach gurgled to remind me that I hadn’t eaten since I’d been in here. I licked my lips, dreaming of potato stew, only to find there was no saliva left in my mouth to even wet my dry lips.

I reached for the cup I kept in the corner and couldn’t even shake a drop of water out of it. My water rations hadn’t been delivered in a while. At least, the best I could figure.

Why wouldn’t I die already?

Fuck, don’t start in on that again. Death would solve my problems, but not Kylie’s. Get your shit together.

I made it a point to move every body part, however limited I was. Partly for something to do, but I’d seen women come out of the box without any strength, because they laid down and died here.

Think about Kylie laughing. Think about hugging her in your arms.

I laughed out loud, remembering how Kylie made me a flower crown before I came here. How proud she was when she finally learned how to keep it from falling apart. The most beautiful girl in the whole world.

The memory was an improvement over this dank concrete prison that reeked of every bodily fluid imaginable. I tried not to think about how most of it was probably mine, or the fact I was laying in it.

Maybe it was best that there wasn’t any light in here. That way, I couldn’t see the horrifying state I was in.

Would they ever let me, the feral bitch, out?

One lapse in judgment.

One second of blinding rage, and I ruined Kylie’s life. I could only hope someone would show some rare mercy to me and let me go home to her. Or that I would somehow wrangle enough fight together to do it on my own.

Stupid bitch, think next time.