Ah, I've begun another drabble series. Do you smell that? It's the smell of a new story. Delightful.
I'd like to thank the incredibly wonderful Xx Starlight-Moon xX for her help with this.
This series is dedicated to Anna Scathach.
Enjoy!
Bellatrix.
I: Taste
Her mouth is dry. Her lips cracked and, when she opens her mouth too wide, bloody. Sometimes her dry cat's tongue, coarse and hot, darts out to lick the blood off.
Sometimes not.
There are few rituals to uphold in Azkaban.
Too much time has passed – she only has one.
When the Dementors leave, she takes the metal tag around her neck and puts it in her mouth. The taste is sharp, sour, disgusting.
Her body rushes to produce saliva, to wash it out.
Meetings with Dementors leave her thirsty, and she drinks the spit, for there is no water.
II: Touch
The walls under her hands are rough. They scrape at her, hard enough to pull thin layers back, to leave white streaks of dry, lifted skin.
The walls are not rough enough to draw blood, to cause any real pain.
Running her hands along them makes her palms tingle and her fingers grow cold.
It brings her small comfort to know that she has not lost feeling.
When she was first brought in, she scoured the cell for signs of prior life. Etched words, dates, anything.
But she finds nothing.
The walls are cold and rough and hold no secrets.
III: Sight
There is nothing for her to look at.
Grey, grey, grey, everywhere she turns. Grey skin, grey walls, grey floor. She thinks her eyes must be grey too. Even the black of her hair seems grey.
She looks down at herself, and sees that the white of her clothes has turned grey with age. It makes her heart plummet to see that, for she knows not how long it's been.
There is no way to tell time.
She only knows a month has passed when blood leaks in dirty red rivulets down her thighs.
It's the only colour she sees.
IV: Smell
Faceless figures push food into her cell twice a day. Metal tray. Bowl of porridge. Two apple slices. Milk in the morning. Water at night.
The food has no smell.
She used to think she was going mad.
Of course it has a smell. All food has a smell.
She bent her nose towards it. Nothing.
She grew desperate, checked before meals. Apple, porridge, water, milk.
She threw the porridge at the walls, never cleaned up. She waited for it to rot, so she could smell it.
It just stuck like glue.
She smelled piss, blood, shit, sweat.
Not food.
V: Sound
Azkaban is a silent prison.
The only things she hears are her ragged breathing and her weak heartbeat, hiss, hiss, lub-dub, lub-dub, over the sound of the ocean going shhhch, shhhch.
It used to surprise her that she could hear the ocean from her cell, but now she wonders if that sound really is the ocean, or if she just imagines it.
Sometimes she can't hear anything, and she screams to make sure she hasn't gone deaf.
Her screams tear at her throat, but the mixture of pain and sound reassures her.
She lives in hope that someone hears her.
Thoughts? I'd love to hear them!