Author's Note: Thank you to all readers! Special thanks to my Beta readers and friends who help me get rid of those nasty grammar mistakes and plot holes!

Hope you enjoy this chapter, its gets brighter as we go...well, sort of...No worries!!

Chapter 2

"I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance."
-Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965)

Of the extended period of time that Melina spent in the dark tower, she was probably lucid for less than a third of it. Usually she would only become coherent while in her dark cell, eating her stale bread and water, tending her to her fresh wounds; but sometimes her conscious mind would awaken between torture sessions while she was still tied to the table, and those were the worst. She would scream, cry and plead to the Torturer, who always seemed to take too much pleasure in her suffering.

But for the majority of the time, Melina's consciousness was hiding safely behind layers of psychosis while her body was being stabbed, burnt, raped and otherwise mutilated. Her brain registered everything, every sensation and every pain, but to prevent a complete mental breakdown, the memories were stored safely away from Melina's reach...until she was back in that dark cell.

Whenever she awoke in her cell she would sob for a long time, curled up in a semi-clean corner, unable to sleep. Instead of resting, she would search her mind for the buried memories and replay them like a movie. She discovered, by doing this, that the white Devil had become much more agitated lately. He would attend to her torture sessions once in a while and ask her questions, or what she thought were questions.

At first he seemed to think that her refusals to answer, or her answers in an unknown language, were funny but lately he had seemed angry. Maybe he was beginning to realize that she did not belong here, that she had indeed won…and that she should be somewhere more glorious than this place in which, according to one of the voices in her mind, she had already spent way too much time.

Though the voice might know what it was talking about; Melina herself was not quite sure how long she had been at the tower. There were no windows in her cell except the one on the door and so she was unable to see the sunlight. Even the torture chamber had no windows and was lit only by candles.

Her cell was extremely small; it was long enough for her to lie down on her back, her feet to the door, but was only as wide as the door itself; which forced her to walk in sideways. It was not too high either; she could easily touch the ceiling by barely extending her arm. To Melina, it looked like a tomb and she was sure that it was the place where she was going to die...again. Her cell was also extremely dirty and the smell was unbearable.

One day, or night, she did not truly know, Melina's cell door was opened, strangely enough, by the white Devil. His face showed distress, the sort of distress she had seen on people who realized they had indeed made a grave mistake and wished nothing more than to go back in time to redo things - but his face also showed determination. Whatever had happened, she thought, he was not going to admit his wrongs easily, nor apologize to anyone.

He took a step forward into her dark cell and wrinkled his nose at the smell. Sorry, she thought, if I knew YOU were coming I would have cleaned. He walked to where she sat on the cold stone floor and lifted her up roughly. He said something with a hint of sarcasm before dragging her out of the tiny tomb, pass the first torture table, and the second; pass the skeletons,and Melina's heart began pumping faster with hope when she realized they were heading for the exit. She stopped herself from jumping around like a little girl on Christmas morning and quietly followed the white Devil out of the torture chamber. But her heart sank again as the white Devil began climbing up the stairs, instead of down. But there was nothing else she could do except to follow him, and so she did.

When she had climbed the stairs the day when she had arrived here, she had thought they were nearing the top; now though, she wondered if this tower even had an end. It went on and on, ever round and seemingly perfect in its design. Her weak, wounded and bony body was having a hard time keeping up with all this exercise. Her feet were numb and she could see that the places where her toenails should have been were now bleeding heavily; so was that ugly wound on her left leg. She fell many times during their trek, and each time she was dragged for a few stairs on her knees before the white Devil forced her on her feet again.

When the Devil finally stopped, Melina's hopes for freedom were all but gone; they were nowhere near an exit, not even a window. They were, however, in front of a door which he opened brusquely and threw her inside. She stumbled for a few steps before falling forward on all four. Melina bit down the cry of pain that threated to escape her lips, but she could not stop the single tear of frustration from running freely down her dirty cheek. She heard the Devil step in behind her and she painfully got up to her feet to face the man.

He was grinning broadly, as if he had achieved some sort of victory and began another of his never ending speeches. Melina felt a wave of annoyance hit her; how thick did one have to be to have not established that she did not speak their language; after all this time?! But the man was not talking to her she realized after hearing a strange sound from the back of the room; and she turned around. There, alone and all clad in grey, stood another old man. His beard and hair were white, his face seemed to have lost all its color when he had spotted her, and his blue eyes were wide in shock.

The Devil was still rambling on about who knows what, but she could only concentrate on this newcomer. His eyes were his most remarkable asset, their blue depths seemed to have no end and the compassion and pity she saw in them made her heart sick with grief; more so when she realized that the compassion was aimed at her. She tried to force herself to hate this new man, this person who thought he had any right to pity her when, clearly, he had not won…she had…had she not? Her eyes filled with tears, had she won? Of course you have, she heard the voice in her mind say, but for once, she doubted its honesty…she did not even know if she wanted to win anymore, maybe it would have been better to lose.

Melina shook her head slightly, where were these thoughts coming from; what was this man doing to her? She could not look away from him; after all the evil she had been surrounded by, he was like a breath of fresh air in her heart, a light at the end of the tunnel…and then they were both forced to turn away.

The Devil was screaming now, his hands, one of which held a white staff, were thrown towards the sky. And I'm the insane one, she thought, but a stern look from the man in grey stopped her from laughing. Instead, she backed away a little and listened as the man in grey barked something back to the Devil. He stopped his crazy chanting and turned towards the newcomer with a cold grin before speaking again and his voice was filled with venom. The man in grey looked at the Devil horrified, and then his eyes shot towards her. The look she saw in his eyes was one of such deep sorrow that Melina felt her breath catch in her dry throat and tears stung her eyes like razors.

He muttered something to her, and she had the terrible feeling that he was apologizing. Right then, she wanted to run to him, hug him and tell him that none of it had been his fault; anything to take away that look from his eyes. No one should have to carry that much pain, especially not this man. The Devil spoke again, only to be quickly interrupted by the man in grey. It seemed to Melina that they argued for hours and with each passing word, she witnessed a bit more of the Devil's sanity leave his eyes.

At long last, they stopped talking. Melina could not tell which of the men had won the argument, both looked like they had lost something in those few minutes; she wondered what their history was. Her feet were hurting more than ever, and so she alternated putting her weight on each of them while hoping that all of this would be over soon. And then what? she thought; when this is over you will most likely be killed or worse, returned to the cruel hands of the Torturer. But neither of these things happened.

Not long after the men had stopped talking, four giant demons, even bigger than her Torturer, walked in the room. The Devil spoke quickly to them before leaving the room, his strange robes billowing after him. Three of the ugly demons grabbed the man in grey and brutally shoved him out of the room; the last one picked her up, not too gently, and threw her over his shoulder. Away they were taken to an even worse prison than before.

After a billion steps, she was dropped on the freezing stone floor - outside. The Devil them put on the top of the black tower. It has a top, she thought ironically, and its top is even more horrible than its bottom. Out here, the cold was quick to bite her bare skin, enter her wounds and chill her bones. They were left alone, with no way of escaping, save a narrow path of a gazillion stairs which crawled down the tower; with no rail or protection against the fierce wind.

The man in grey grumbled something under his breath as the demons left them to their fate; he seemed so angry. Melina could not have imagined a worst way to die, atop a hellish tower with a view of the fiery pits below and as a companion, an old man who did not speak her language…how had it come to this?

For the first time since she had appeared in this world; Melina truly wondered at her situation. Why had she appeared here? Perhaps this was hell, and that she had never won, or maybe she had won the wrong thing. Maybe she deserved to be here, to be punished for the bitterness she had displayed in her past life; the one she had never loved or cared to live out. She felt tears slowly falling down her cheeks, leaving cold traces behind them.

Oh how horrible this was, and what more, how horrible it was to think she did indeed deserve it. Live alone to die alone…again, she thought. What irony that both her deaths would be spent with another soul; the first, a silly love-sick nurse with which she had never truly talked; the second, a tired old man with whom she could not communicate, even if had she wanted to.

Melina crashed on the freezing black stone; her left side quickly went numb from the cold and she began shivering uncontrollably. The old man, who seemed to have forgotten about her presence for a bit, suddenly rushed to her side…much like that nurse had done, his eyes held the same look as she had too; what had been her name again? Melina stopped breathing; she did not remember the nurse's name!

It now seemed so important to remember her name; the name of the only person to have honestly cared about her…what a wretched woman I am! Yes, she did deserve this fate. She had deserved every single second of it, and she knew this now. She knew it in her heart, and in her mind, and now that she knew this…it was too late. When she caught her breath again, the cold air froze her lungs and caused her to cry even more, her chest hurt so much…what had been her name!?

Melina heard a distant voice; talking to her, whispering in her ear, but she paid it no heed. She needed to remember that name, even if it was the last thing she ever did; because that young nurse, that sweet woman, that girl was the one who had truly won. Yes, she thought, Celine had won; she was a great person, a woman with compassion and love and happiness, someone who would live their life for all it was worth and let nothing go to waste…not even an old dying woman, alone in a nursing home…Melina smiled in the midst of her tears and she wished, with all her heart, that Celine would win, in the end.

"I lost…" she whispered to no one but herself and a very tired old man who collapsed by her side, his white hair tickling her nose; and then she fell asleep.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my story.