Panting, Katrina lay against the cold stone wall, her back pressed hard against it. Her eyes were closed against the darkness, against the evil. Against reality, the reality that she had been captured.
She just stood there, against the wall, dangling from her manacled wrists. Her toes barely touched the damp floor, and the blood had long since drained from her numb arms.
Katrina refused to open her eyes, steadfastly kept them closed. She let the tears fall, though she fought against making noise. Against the darkness.
Despite her efforts, the sobs slipped out her lips. Her breath came in ragged gasps, rapid, uneven. Her sweaty hands burned, clenched and unclenched.
Katrina didn't care. She was tired, more tired than she had ever been, and she didn't care.
Her curls were matted with blood, tears, sweat, dirt. She didn't care.
"Roran," she sobbed, choking out his name. "Roran..."
The cold stone wall tried to sooth her feverish body. Yet she found it repulsive, it made her shiver. Shiver and sweat.
Her chest rose and fell so fast it was as if she'd run a far distance, so slow it was if she was not breathing.
Katrina shifted. The darkness shifted. She knew, outside this evil fortress, the world shifted, too.
She wished her father's views had shifted. She wished this had never happened...and it would not have, had her father given Roran a chance.
"Roran," she repeated, her voice stronger, but still shivering. Shivering against the chilling wall. Against the chilling darkness.
She opened her eyes. Katrina could feel the evil in the shadows, feel it touching her, running its clawed fingers through her filth-covered copper curls. Feel it caressing her and whispering to her.
"Roran," it taunted, hissing, but seductive, voluptuous, "Roran, Roran, Roran." A mockery of her own voice. An echo of past memories...of past happiness and the sacrifice of her father's love.
Katrina shut her eyes furiously. She tugged on her chains and listened to them clink and rattle. Her wrists stung, bloodied and raw, and the blood trickled down her arms, dripped from her hair. But she didn't care.
The tears came again. But this time, they were tears of frustration. Of anger and fear.
Her breathing grew faster, she sucked at it and gulped the mildewed, stagnant air. Katrina choked, gasped, as if she was drowning. Drowning in darkness. Her eyes flickered open. The ceiling seemed to high above her. The ceiling and the window, where lay her freedom, crouching in darkness, waiting.
She could not bare it. She closed her eyes against the darkness and waited for Roran to come.
"Roran," she said in a voice strengthened and passionate. A voice that challenged the darkness. "Roran!"
A/N: Loved it? Hated it? Wasn't sure? Let me know! Flames welcome. Reviews cherished no matter what they say!
-Wings-