AN: A look into the broken mind of Hope. Remember, the one trapped in the jar? She came out a bit simple, unaware of most, other than her little prison. It's a rather depressing picture, for hope personified of all things. Not exactly how I intended it. Feel free to leave your thoughts in a review.
Broken Closed
"Open me."
The broken whisper constantly escapes from the mouth of the jar, only to have its speaker be cruelly reeled back in by the cold emptiness of its prison. The air, it seems to Hope, is frozen between the smooth clay walls, the walls which are supposed to be beautiful. That's what everyone says. That the jar is so pretty and intricate and oh how beautiful.
But all Hope can see is the rust-colored interior of a frigid cell.
-open me-
There used to be more spirits inside the jar. A long, long time ago, so long that she doesn't remember their names or what they looked like.
Hope is glad they're gone.
They bit each other and whined and fought. The spirits who weren't fighting, they were huddled on the side moaning and groaning, or wandering the jar complaining about their aches. Hope would watch, from her little hideout at the bottom of their joint prison. She never liked being around them.
One day, the day that Hope will never forget, the jar opened. Someone tore the top off, peering inside. They screamed when all the spirits, all the nasty ones, poured out of the jar with a petrifying squeal that grated on Hope's ears. She tried to follow them, but in the time between the others' escape and her realization that she could too, the person had slammed the top back onto the jar, and Hope was trapped.
At least she has the place to herself now.
-open me-
Hope hears people talking about her. The sound of their voices is always muffled by the clay, like hearing an echo with her hands covering her ears. But she hears, and sometimes she even pays attention to what they're saying.
"Give up Hope," a gruff voice says. Hope hears people say this a lot, and she absolutely adores the ones who say it. The ones who want to release her from her prison. She doesn't care that their voices are usually shiver-worthy (she tells herself it's the freezing temperature of the jar); she only listens to their words.
Give up Hope. Release Hope. Open the jar. Please, please, please.
But then another voice always answers back. And the second voice always says something along the lines of "Never." They talk about war and fighting and other horrible things that Hope doesn't like to hear about. From the sound of those conversations, Hope draws a conclusion that she's pretty sure is correct.
People are fighting over her.
There's always one side who has the jar, who keeps Hope imprisoned. And the other side always fights for her freedom. For eons and eons, people have been killing and dying and getting wounded, all so that she can escape her prison.
She'd never admit it (she has no one to admit it to), but the thought is kind of flattering.
"Why?" she wants to yell at her captors. "Why won't you let me go?" They never hear.
-open me-
People talk to her sometimes. Or maybe they think they're talking to themselves. But Hope hears anyway. These bits and pieces of speech are clearer, somehow, than when she hears people talk about her. It's as if a barrier fades, melts, while they address her, but before she can try to escape they leave and the wall hardens.
"I don't know what to do," a girl's voice whispers brokenly. A male voice comforts her, and Hope loses her chance.
Another time: "How," a man asks, "is that supposed to work? This is hopeless." He sounds almost hysterical, like he's about to start crying. Hope feels bad for him. She flutters up from the bottom of her prison, wanting to talk to him or comfort him or even hear his voice more.
She hears the sound of something being thrown onto a hard surface. Stone, maybe. The sound echoes, resonating throughout the clay jar. But as the wall melts… no one is there.
-open me-
Once, Hope swears she feels fingers toying with the strings that bind the top of her prison. The last few… months? Years? Hope has no conception of time. But the last few pieces of time have been especially frigid, gradually growing colder. She desperately tries to escape, throwing herself against the walls. Her efforts gain her nothing except a little extra warmth, which she is grateful for nonetheless.
A little bit ago, she heard yet another "Give up Hope"/"No" exchange. She once again felt despair threaten to consume her with another denial of freedom.
But now, the warmth of the fingers—they are soft, so Hope is pretty sure that they belong to a girl—playing almost absentmindedly with the leather ties… the feeling gives Hope hope. She floats to the top of her jar, noting that she is slower than usual for the cold.
"I can see Hope inside it," the girl says. "So fragile." The girl's voice is fragile itself, quiet and almost serene.
Hope feels the barrier begin to melt, and she—and she can see the fuzzy outline of her face. She can see. She savors the new addition to her senses, fearing that the sensation will be snatched away. The girl has hair almost the same color as the inside of the jar, but shinier. It glitters. And her eyes are a color Hope has never seen before, but it is cool in a calm way. Peaceful. The girl's skin is pale, but there are dots of the same clay color that Hope doesn't understand. If the wall would just melt and fade the smallest bit more—
"Rachel."
The voice that breaks on Hope's ears next doesn't belong to the girl. Hope can't tell if it belongs to a boy or a man. Somewhere in between, she reasons, but closer to the latter. She recognizes the voice… she doesn't know where she's heard it before, but she knows it.
Suddenly, she feels the fingers on the strings vanish, to be replaced by a rougher pair of hands on the sides of the jar. Hope instinctively huddles against their warmth, and then realizes why she knows the voice. It belongs to the person holding the jar now. And this person has held the jar before.
This person is the last one who denied her freedom.
-open me-
Only a short piece of time after that, Hope grows warm again. She feels the rough hands give the jar to a pair of soft, warm, comforting ones. They don't belong to the girl who was toying with the strings, Rachel, but Hope still feels… good. Not perfect (she's still trapped), but her prison is no longer quite as unbearable as it has been in the past.
She hears a woman's quiet voice. "And why is that, Percy Jackson?"
"Because Hope survives best at the hearth." Hope is shocked to hear this coming from the rough hands person, the one who said no when told to release her.
Hope survives best at the hearth. Rough hands—Percy Jackson—he is concerned for her survival? He's putting her where she will be safe. From what? An idea occurs to Hope, one that has never crossed her mind before.
Maybe there's a reason people never released her. Maybe they're doing it, like rough hands, to protect her. Maybe… maybe the outside world is even worse than her prison.
Despite the new-found warmth of the hearth, the thought makes Hope sad.
-open me-
Hope grows cold again.
The warmth fades quickly. Only a few pieces of time after it comes.
The jar is freezing. The walls harden.
Hope has a feeling that the cold comes from the outside. From the world that is worse than hers.
-open me-
The cold doesn't go away. It doesn't let up, or fade, or melt. The walls stay hard and unforgiving. Solid. No warm hands, rough or smooth, hold the jar now. And slowly, slowly, slowly, Hope moves more slowly, slowly, slowly. Her world is soso cold. Why? she wonders. Why did the warmth go away?
Hope doesn't try to flutter anymore, because she knows it's a losing battle. The jar only stays warm for a small piece of time.
And so Hope loses herself, again, in the cold and the despair and the unyielding walls, all the while begging:
-open me-
-open me-
open me