Prologue
"Tell me, Moonlight, why my sweetheart has betrayed my loving heart?" she whispered softly up to the dark heavens in a desperate plea,
the aching hole inside of her looking for an answer that would never come.
She bowed her head, covering her face with grime encrusted hands, no longer caring about what she might look like or what might happen to her.
A small whimper escaped her tiny mouth before she could stop the sound. She wasn't weak, wouldn't appear to them as weak,
but she hunched over further, rocking back and forth slightly. Her small frame shook with suppressed sobs of abject misery.
"Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god." She whispered in agony to the shadows, feeling the pain rise up to take her.
She took a few deep breathes to try to calm herself, no wanting to sink back into the black oblivion of depression she'd been living with
for who knew how long; days, weeks, years? These lucid moments came so rarely. She bit her lip, and threaded her fingers into her hair,
now as filthy as her hands, trying, trying so hard to stay calm. Breath in, breath out. She counted the stars, counted the cracks in the wall.
She rocked back and forth, counting anything she could see. Recounting, deep breathing, rocking back and forth.
Count everything again, breath in, breath out, hugging her knees, rocking. It didn't last long. It never did.
A moment's pause, and the memories stabbed her again in the gut, re-ripping out her heart and soul with a ferociousness that never ceased.
Falling to the sorry excuse for a floor on her hands and knees, she dry heaved over and over again, her body, like her mind, trying to purge what could not be.
Tears she didn't know she had left, trailed clean streaks down her dirty cheeks as she gagged and choked.
When she couldn't do that anymore, she slid over, laying on the cold stone slabs on her side, exhausted. Her fingers unconsciously clenched into her scalp,
twisting her hair as if to replace the emotional pain with another more physical kind.
Words cannot describe the absolute pain and utter misery that ate into her, leaving her with an intense, gaping hole in her chest, devouring her entire being.
She had once more found the depths of her own personal hell.
After an eternity, she crawled her way over to the window once more, and once more covered her face with her hands. Rocking back and forth,
she desperately whispered through her now cracked and bleeding lips, "Please don't leave me. Please don't leave me. Please don't leave me,"
over and over and over again. With agonizing slowness, she sunk back into the black oblivion of depression and mindlessness, all the while whispering her plea.
Soft, silver moonbeams shone down from the barred window high above to illuminate the young woman sitting, rocking in misery, on the filthy cell floor.