Chapter 3 Hope in Hell

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I sit at my bars waiting, watching Sara's corpse. Her fingers twitched a few times since she sat up and dropped back down in the growing pool of her blood, but she hasn't moved since. Did she move? Or were my eyes playing tricks on me? There is no way anyone can survive without their skin. I think their death would be instant, or they would at least die quickly thereafter. The pool of Sara's dried blood nearly covers the entire floor of her cell. Some of her blood has managed to pour out into the hall between her bars and stain the stone floor over the last two days.

A rat runs into my sight and stops between Sara's cell and mine. One ear. He sniffs the blood stained ground with his nose, twitching his whiskers. He follows his nose into Sara's cell to the bottom of her foot. I tense and grab my bars. He is trespassing, coming too near to something sacred.

"What are you doing!?" I ask him. He won't answer, of course. He sniffs from Sara's heel up to her big toe, rearing up on his haunches as he does so. He squeaks and sinks his fangs into her muscle frozen by the young winter. He nibbles and gnaws on her big toe, consuming her!

"Get away from her!" I release my bars and look about my cell for something to ward off one ear. My eyes land on the rotting wood rafter that my noose is still tied to. I could use part of that rafter as a torch and ward off the rat with fire. I jump to my feet, grab the noose with my hands and yank it. The rafter cracks loudly, but it still holds itself up. I yank down again. The rafter cracks and splinters into two, both parts of the beam falling down and clattering on the stone floor.

Perfect. I pull the noose's tie off the splintered end of the longer half. I sit down on the ground and glance back at one ear repeatedly as I tear apart my noose and wrap the rags around the splintered end of the wood, watching his fast progress of consuming Sara's big toe. I must be quick, lest I am forced to watch one ear consume my friend down to her bones. I grab my piece of metal and flint and strike the flint against the metal. Strike, strike, strike, over and over, until the rags catch flame. I pick up the torch, its flame growing until it burns all over the top.

I crawl on my free hand and knees to my bars and lie prostrate on the floor to be level with one ear, keeping the flame far from my hair. I do not want to set myself on fire. Just feeling the fire's sweltering heat on the top of my hand is enough. I carefully move the torch between my bars, its flames licking the rusted iron bars as the torch passes between them. I move the torch across the hall towards Sara's cell as far as I can until the bars press against my chest and the side of my shoulder. I carefully maneuver the flaming end of the torch between Sara's bars along the stone floor, the flames almost reaching the tip of one ear's hairless tail. Just a little farther and the flames will reach him. I have no desire to kill him yet, but only to shoo him away. With the sharp decline of rats, I may need to eat him. If I can help the pangs of hunger, then I wish to spare him.

"Shoo!" I wave the torch back and forth by flicking my wrist, the torch's range of motion largely constrained by the bars on either side of it. "Shoo, one ear! Shoo!" The torch grows heavy in my grip, but one ear takes his fangs out of Sara's toe and races out of her cell down the hall, disappearing from my sight.

I sigh. Relief and a sense of accomplishment fill me while I carefully pull my flaming torch back into my cell. I hold the torch far from me, barely feeling its sweltering heat. I suck in a small breath and look over Sara's frozen corpse. Sara…she came into my life at the…strangest time. I'm not sure how else to describe it...she nearly took her life, yet she did not, and she was grateful that she did not because she still had so much good to offer to others, namely her husband…and me. She had a choice to either end her suffering or to persevere. She chose to persevere. By making that choice, she brought about so much good. She brought about so much good that she managed to smuggle a bit of that good into this hell. I sit back on my heels and pull her ring out of my dress to look at it.

She came into my life at the strangest time. I lost my faith in God and hope of rescue sometime ago. I'm not sure when. My faith and hope slipped away sometime in the night during one of my nightmares. Perhaps it was the one that is an exact replay of that fateful night where papa died and I took Maacthis' evil into me. Perhaps it was the one where the white weasel turns into a white rat and abandons me in this cell. Perhaps it was during one of my dreamless sleeps—the best sleeps I get at night. Ah! Regardless of when I lost my faith and hope, Sara came into my life just as I was about to take it. She made me feel things that I haven't felt since the night before my imprisonment—happiness, goodness, a reason to…hope.

"My God," I say, the revelation knocking me back. She made me feel sweet, beautiful hope. I can hope to find happiness in this hell before I die. I can hope to lead a better life in this confined space, to be the listener in my song who has led a simple yet meaningful life. Happiness is obtainable. Hope can exist, but only by my choice. I take Sara's ring in my hand and close my fist about it. I can choose to believe hope is an illusion for the comfort from brutal nature, or it is something that is real and tangible like Sara's ring that I can grab hold of…and cling to.

Sara coming into my life when she did was a coincidence. Though others may believe it to be fate, or the Maker's plan, or whatever else they wish to call it, I believe I would find agreement with them that she gave me the beautiful gift of hope and that this gift is not something to squander.

I breathe out slowly, taking in Sara's corpse. She has given me so many good things that she deserves the most honorable burial possible—the pyre. Though I cannot build a pyre for her here, I can set fire to her body and try to burn it to ashes. If I do this, no living thing nor time will consume her remains.

I prop my crackling torch against the wall in the corner and gather what rags I have leftover. I place a few precious rat bones within the rags and tie it all up in a neat bundle. This may not burn for long, and her ashes will mingle with rat bones, but I will accomplish two things. No living thing nor time will consume her frozen remains and she will have a funeral fit for someone of her honor and goodness. I start moving towards my torch to light my ball of rags, but I stop. How do I do this safely? I have no desire to burn myself today. I—wait, my pole and hook contraption!

I set my rag ball down, scramble over to my bed, and reach beneath it. I grab my pole and hook contraption and pull it out. It's a long pole I had made out of human bones, mostly leg and arm bones, bound together with rags, with a rat rib attached to the top to serve as the hook.

"What a marvel," I say, looking over my contraption with awe. This pole and hook contraption has kept me alive for twelve years. I have scavenged rags, bones, and other precious essentials left behind by the prisoners in Sara's cell. There are a few skeletal remains of prisoners who had died in Sara's cell, mostly men who died from starvation early on in my imprisonment. These men who died kept me alive. If they had not died then, then I would have died a long time ago.

I scramble back over to my rag ball and shove it onto the hook. Perfect. Now I can set fire to this, guide it into Sara's cell, and touch it to her body. Hopefully, her frozen flesh will catch fire like a rush dipped in oil. I move the rag ball towards my torch and let the fire touch the rags. The fire quickly spreads to the rag ball. I waddle over to my bars on my knees and carefully position the rag ball between two bars—the wood door SLAMs. The echo jolts me—my pole clacks against my bar, knocking the flaming ball off the hook! I gasp and lean back to protect my head, but the flaming ball lands on my left arm! I freeze up, unable to move. The prickling pain starts and quickly spreads across my flesh, the prickling turning to burning! Smoke rises from my sleeve and lights with fire!

I scream and shake the flaming ball off my arm, suddenly able to move! I drop my pole and scramble over to my chamberpot—empty! No water! Panic fills me. The pain, the agony, spreads, consuming my arm and hand! I drop to the floor and roll all over, back and forth, back and forth! The flames lick at my skin! The smell of burnt flesh pervades my lungs. My throat tightens with nausea.

"Look at her!"

I barely hear the evil cackling on the other side of my bars as I roll back and forth, steadily reducing the fire consuming my arm to black smoke. The last of the fire is put out, but the pain! I stop on my back and clutch my burning hot arm to my chest, sobbing and gasping from the all-consuming pain! I barely see Finn's blurry black figure looming over me, my bars separating him from me and the two other men with him. They all laugh at me.

"You stupid bitch!" one man says, laughing. "What were you trying to do!?"

One of the men taps Finn's shoulder. "I know you want to fuck that little whore," he tells Finn. Fear, disgust, embarrassment, shame, the physical pain—all of it overwhelms me. My heart races. My chest tightens and heaves for precious air. My lungs burn. My body trembles.

"Brother," one man grabs Finn's shoulder, "I would let you have my daughters if I could make any woman tremble at my feet like you can."

Though my sight is blurry, I see the cruel smile spreading Finn's mouth. "These bars do not keep me from you, little bitch," he says, "but only my sister's word. She is close to relinquishing her word." He grabs my bars and leans forward, pressing his face between them. "When she does, I will come into your cell and fuck you. I'll make you know hell intimately, and then I'll kill you slowly when you are at the height of humiliation and shame."

Finn does not laugh, but he grins while the two men with him laugh at me.

"Let me get a chance to fuck her when the Queen lets her word go!" one man says.

"Don't forget me!" the other man says, laughing. I clench my teeth and clamp my hands over my ears to muffle most of their vulgar, evil words, but I do not take my teary eyes from them. The moment I take my eyes from these men, they may ignore their Queen's word and carry out their horrific threats against me. I watch them in silent agony laughing at me and mocking me, untying their trousers and exposing themselves. Finn remains still as usual, only smiling and not laughing, keeping his hands on my bars. He has never exposed himself as the two men who usually accompany him do, but he is a different kind of evil than the two men with him. He is a more silent, menacing evil that cuts into me like no other.

I hate being the trembling mess subjugated at Finn's feet. If only I could find some way to overcome this evil and overcome Finn, but how can I possibly do that on the other side of these bars?

I look at the two men's faces and not below their chins, watching their eyes roll into the back of their heads with their sick pleasure. I quickly scramble back to the farthest corner of my cell to avoid getting covered in the milky fluid that leaves them. It is so vulgar, obscene, filled with evil. I must keep telling myself that not all men are like this…but are there any good men left alive? If Ravenna is now taking the lives of good people such as Sara, are there truly any good men left?

I endure the horrors of this yet again and wait for them to leave. All I must do is endure this.

Moments slowly crawl by as the men continue mocking me and pleasuring themselves. Over and over they do this, over and over.

Finally, the men exhaust themselves and leave me, tying up their trousers as they go to return to their wives and daughters. Finn steps back from my bars and leaves me, not sparing me a second glance when he disappears. I do not pull my hands from my ears yet.

The wood door slams, muffled by my hands covering my ears. The relief is felt, but cut too short when the burning pain in my left arm comes to the forefront. I clench my teeth and cry out softly, doing my best to keep myself quiet. There is no water for relief, but by the feel of the wind blowing in through my window, it is winter. I clamber up to my window and stick my arm out as far as I can, letting the frigid air touch my burned flesh. The winter chill grants some relief to my burnt flesh hidden beneath my blackened sleeve. I'm too afraid to see the damage to my skin, but the time will come when I will have to bandage it. Just not yet. Not until the pain subsides.