Night had returned and with it came darkness. Shadows lingered blankly around her quivering form.
He'd returned some minutes before she'd collapsed, his long blonde hair glowing harshly in the gloom. He'd approached with care but had inflicted her with pain. So harsh he had been that she'd collapsed.
With one word her life was threatened, another and she was broken.
Pain surged through her every vein, her nerves alive with torture. She screamed, she gasped, she trembled but no outcry could be heard. Outside she heard a yell but from her ears she bled. She cursed herself for believing that someone had come to help at all.
The yell must have been a delusion. She convinced herself that it had all been in her head.
With one word, he stormed from the room, and with another she cried.
In one word she called out to the world and in one word her head replied.