Cyrah rested against the vertical bars of her individual cell with her head tilted back, gaze transfixed on the ceiling somewhere up in the pitch darkness. Every breath was shallow, evading the stench surrounding her. She closed her eyes and considered her situation. Home burned to the ground, chased out of her home for declining a marriage proposal, and all of the livestock she considered like pets fled but thankfully they were alive. She nearly lost her life, but was instead imprisoned for trespassing. The guards never gave her a warning, or the chance to apologize and leave. These thoughts were followed by a plethora of questions, to which she hoped to gain answers once the master of the creatures, and the castle, arrived. Such dire circumstances made her wish for home again, with her mother and father alive once more.
The echoing clink of metal interrupted her thoughts. Cyrah quickly recognized footsteps of someone approaching. Great weight behind each step accompanied by a clack on stone. Her imagination held the brush that painted portraits of him in her mind’s eye. A devilish creature like the others. A monster, or an unnatural beast. His colossal figure standing on the other side of the bars cast an outline in the darkness, distorted by odd shapes sprouting from his head. She gasped, and scurried away until her back was pressed against the far wall.
The monster chuckled, a malevolent rumble that hung in the air, reverberating to every corner of the dank dungeon. “It has been a while since anyone came to visit,” he greeted in a deep, calculated tone.
Voice quivering, she asked, “Who are you?” She watched his arm move, bending at the elbow, but his hand was swallowed somewhere inside his frame.
“I’m not surprised that you fail to recognize me with this cursed form,” he spat, and then continued with confident composure. “I remember you, Cyrah.”
His baritone voice was carried to her on a slithering vehicle of ice that crawled over her skin to fill her with dread. She shivered, and turned her eyes to the floor. “How do you?”
“That is not important,” he said, biting off his words. “You are in a precarious position. What brought you to my castle?”
“That’s not important,” she countered, and a snarl crept into her bones. “What matters is I that want to go home. Release me,” she demanded. “You have no reason to hold me here against my will.”
He laughed cruelly, a deep sound that resonated like thunder from a dark cloud overhead, which caused Cyrah to glance up. “Your nature has not changed in the slightest,” he commented, volume sinking. “I may be a monster now, but you are as wild as ever.”
Knowing this beast was familiar with her made her breath falter. “So, you aren’t going to free me?”
He arrogantly questioned, “What reason do you need to be free?”
Cyrah was caught off guard by his question, but she responded swiftly. “Of course I want to go home. I can’t stay locked up in a cage. There’s more for me to do than be imprisoned forever.”
Smugly, he asked,” Are you certain? You want to return home where you lost your mother? The place you escaped to find a new life? Did you find what you were looking for when you left?”
Dodging his questions, Cyrah sharply asked, “Who are you?”
“The master of this castle, and your fate. You will remain in that cell, guilty of trespassing. You now belong to me,” he deliberately commanded.
She never wished to be safe and sound at home so badly. “You can’t do that,” she protested in a shrill voice, finally standing. “Just because you look like a monster does not excuse you to act like one, or treat people like possessions. Who do you think you are?”
The reaction Cyrah received made her retreat, shrinking into the farthest corner. He rushed the cell. Tusks protruding from snarling lips slammed against and between the bars, which he wrapped his strong hands around. His angry eyes glinted, and bore into her soul. On the cusp of a roar, he shouted, “I am the king of this land and what I want is mine!”
Cyrah watched, speechless as he huffed dismissively, turned, and then left her to rot.
Kilena Shrelack 