Chapter seven
Elizabeth broke out of jail
A clatter of iron chains echoed hauntingly in the suffocating silence. Elizabeth stretched, her muscles taut and strained, yet heavy iron chains bound her legs in place.
With a sudden jolt, she was jerked awake, heart racing as the reality of her predicament seeped in. Her gaze swept across the dimly lit confines of her cell, the cold steel biting painfully into her wrists where several chains bound her to the damp stone wall. Her clothes lay in tattered shreds, a mockery of what they had once been, and her arms were suspended at an unnatural angle, tethered by thick cuffs that caused a sharp, throbbing pain she couldn’t quite ignore.
It hurt—hunger gnawed at her insides, twisting her stomach with increasing ferocity.
She had been trapped here for hours, perhaps days.
The air around her felt thick with dread, and she was desperate to believe this was all just a nightmarish dream.
But deep down, the weight of truth crushed her thoughts—she didn’t murder anyone.
The echo of heavy footsteps reverberated ominously through the corridor outside, sending a jolt of fear coursing through her veins.
Elizabeth backed away, pressing her back against the cold, damp wall, a futile attempt to shield herself from whatever fate awaited her.
She didn't want to face her interrogators; she was innocent—this was a grotesque mistake that threatened to swallow her whole.
Shadowy figures emerged outside her cell, and she flinched, her breath quickening as panic surged within her. The creaking of the cell door sent a chill up her spine.
Two hooded figures stepped inside, their movements deliberate and menacing. They began to unbind the chains that had held her captive, the metal clinking ominously as they did so.
As the last of the chains fell away, Elizabeth stumbled forward, wincing as the cool air kissed her bruised skin, relief flooding her for just an instant.
But before she could let out a sigh of freedom, they seized her arms and snapped a pair of smaller cuffs around her wrists. A combination of anger and exhaustion coursed through her veins, and though she wanted to scream, the weight of weariness kept her muted.
Her legs faltered beneath her.
And she slumped downwards.
The guards dragged her out of the cell and down a dimly lit corridor.
The sound of chains clattering against the stone floor harmonized with their heavy footsteps as they turned a corner, hauling her into a small, sparse interrogation room.
The unforgiving chill of the room seeped into her bones as they cuffed her to a cold wooden chair, the metal biting into her delicate skin. One of them reached up and rang a tarnished bell hanging from the ceiling, the sound echoing throughout the grim room.
A white curtain rolled up, revealing a figure stepping through from the adjacent room. A man entered with an unsettling calmness, his hands raised in a dismissive gesture towards the guards. They shuffled out, the door clanging shut behind them.
The man approached her with deliberate slowness, his piercing, eagle-like eyes scrutinizing her every detail, assessing her with an unsettling intensity that made her skin crawl. He drew out a chair, its legs scraping against the stone floor, and lowered himself into it with a predatory ease.
Stroking his well-groomed mustache, his voice dripped with condescension as he proclaimed, “I hope the cell suited you perfectly.” Elizabeth met his gaze with seething defiance, her eyes narrowed into slits, yet she bit her tongue, withholding a torrent of rage that threatened to erupt.
“Midgard is your home,” he continued, his tone smooth yet tinged with menace. “You can go nowhere else.”
He paused, his eyes narrowing further, gauging her reaction. “I’m not going to torture you unless you give me a reason to.”
Her silence resonated in the air between them like a challenge. The man leaned forward slightly, and his voice lowered conspiratorially. “Remember, you were arrested because—”
“—You made a dumb mistake—” she interrupted, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and defiance.
The man rose from his seat. He approached the sleek device on the table, its surface glinting under the soft overhead light.
With a steady hand, he pressed the vibrant red button located on the side of the charger. A faint beep echoed in the room.
Without warning, a surge of electricity coursed through her, igniting her senses in a blaze of unbearable pain. She bit down on her lips, blood filling her mouth as she struggled to stifle a scream, her vision blurring and merging with a haze of red. Through the chaos, she forced her eyes to remain fixed on the man, who simply smiled, the corners of his mouth curling upward in delight.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“I warned you, I’ll only punish you if you remain obnoxious.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Elizabeth managed to spit out, her voice hoarse but unwavering.
“You murdered the highly respected Head of the Student Council. Yet the merciful Fairy Lord—our leader—granted you life for a reason. Locking you here is for your own sake.”
Just as she opened her mouth to retort, a loud knock echoed sharply from the doorway, cutting through the tense atmosphere. The man turned his attention to the door, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features.
“Looks like someone’s here to explain,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Enjoy.”
He stood and sauntered toward the door, swinging it wide open, inviting another impeccably dressed man to enter. They exchanged curt handshakes, the interrogator allowing the newcomer to take the seat opposite Elizabeth.
“Well, daughter,” he began, his voice smooth yet chilling, devoid of any trace of warmth, “you’ve taken a life.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, her heart racing as disbelief tangled with horror.
“D-dad?”
He waved a hand, dismissing her confusion as if it were mere annoyance, his expression an unyielding mask.
“You won’t find a way out of this easily.”
“Father, they tortured me—the interrogator—” she pleaded, desperation clawing at her voice.
“They failed to break you completely, didn’t they?” he shot back coldly. “They couldn’t force you to admit to anything, could they?”
“Father, I’m your—”
“I am not your father,” he interrupted, the sharpness of his words cutting deeper than any blade. “You’ve disappointed me.”
“Please—just listen to me—tell me you’ll help,” Elizabeth wailed, her voice breaking, sorrow twisting through her veins. “I didn’t do this!”
His gaze was unreadable; it held no flicker of compassion.
“Help?” he echoed, a cruel smile creeping onto his lips. “Why should I? You’ve proven yourself to be quite resourceful in the most dangerous ways. Perhaps you’ve just become more… interesting.”
“But I’m your daughter!” she cried, the betrayal hitting her like a physical blow. “You can’t turn your back on me!”
“Ah, but you see, this wasn’t the daughter I raised. This... this is what you’ve chosen.” His tone was matter-of-fact, devoid of any emotional warmth. “You’ve become a stranger to me.”
“Please,” she gasped, anguish spilling over, “don’t do this.” He stood there, unmoved, his cruelty a cold blanket wrapping around her despair.With a languid disregard, he leaned back and pressed a button on the wall.
Electric shocks surged through her body, each pulse igniting a raw, searing pain that tore a scream from her throat, echoing through the confines of her dark prison.
As her world exploded into chaos, she fought against the agony, yet it was the knowledge that her own father was the architect of her torment that twisted the knife deeper into her heart.
Amidst her suffering, a sudden, fragmented memory flickered back—an echo of a pain she thought she had buried long ago.
It was hauntingly familiar, not from this cruel dungeon, but from a time lost in the shadows of her mind—a memory that transcended the bounds of time and space.
Just when she thought she could bear no more, as abruptly as it had begun, the pain receded, leaving behind an aching emptiness.
In that silence, the weight of betrayal hung heavy in the air, a bittersweet reminder that her torment was not only physical—it was woven into the very fabric of her existence—binding her to the one person she longed to trust the most.
Christopher, her father, unfastened the cuffs binding her to the chair, gripping her arm with a vice-like hold as he pulled her out of the room and across the cold, cavernous hallway leading back to her cell.
“You failed me,” he growled.
His grip tightening on her shoulders.
“Running around, hearing things you should never know. Reading those mythologies, witnessing phenomena that should remain hidden—you unsealed them.”
The intensity of his hold felt as if it would crack her bones.
“Now you call me father?”
He shoved Elizabeth back into the cell with a forceful motion, slamming the door shut behind her. She heard the chains rattling as they locked, sealing her in darkness once again.
Despair blossomed within her, and the weight of her father’s cruelty sank into her bones.
Days bled into one another, a relentless cycle that stretched beyond the grasp of time. In that stifling cell, the world outside felt like a distant memory, fading into a whisper as shadows crept languidly into every corner.
No windows broke the gloom; no light dared to disturb the darkness.
The clanking of chains echoed.
As the hours crawled by, the very walls of the cell seemed to inch closer.
Elizabeth’s vision wavered, blurred by the haze of hunger and despair that clung to her like a second skin.
Days without food melted away into weeks, and with each passing moment, reality slipped further from her grasp.
She had lost count, lost care; the only truth left was the gnawing ache in her belly and the suffocating silence pressing down upon her.
No one came.
No voices echoed.
No steps approached her door.
Alone, a darkness consumed her thoughts, twisting them into bitter reflections of her past.
If only she had chosen differently, stayed upstairs.
If only she had kept her distance from Janet.
The weight of her regret bore heavily upon her, suffocating hope like a weed choked by weeds. With trembling limbs, Elizabeth pushed herself off the ground, palms raw and bruised from their futile grip on the cold bars.
Defiance flickered in her heart—a fleeting ember against the consuming darkness. She longed for something, anything, that could pull her from this nightmarish limbo. But hope remained elusive, a distant dream that slipped further from her reach with each unchanging day.
As she leaned against the unforgiving wall, tears surged, hot and stinging, ready to break free.
In that moment, a strange sensation teased her spine—a shift, an awareness that whispered of something amiss. In a heartbeat, she froze, heart pounding in rhythm with the sudden urgency of discovery.
Turning slowly, her breath caught in her throat as she beheld a long groove etched deep into the stone. It pulsed with a mesmerizing blue light, ancient yet alive, crackling softly as it beckoned her closer.
The illumination danced along the edges of the groove, weaving a tapestry of potential in the midst of her despair.
And in that instant, Elizabeth knew.
With a soft click, the light seamlessly slid into the wall, and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, sunlight poured into her cell, bathing it in a golden warmth that felt almost foreign.
She blinked against the brightness, reality shattering around her as she stared, her breath quickening.
Something ignited within her, a raw instinct demanding action.
Before it was too late.