Emily
I wake up to the same three things that always make me miserable which is cold, moist, and darkness. For a long moment, I don't know where I am. I'm not in my lumpy attic bed. The floor beneath me is hard, unforgiving stone, and its chilling touch seeps right through my thin dress, making my teeth chatter uncontrollably. The air is thick and heavy, and I have to force it into my lungs. It carries the smell of mold, stale water, and something else… the metallic, sickly smell of pure fear. It's a smell I recognize from my own darkest nights in the attic, but here it is so much stronger, a hundred times over, like the collected terror of everyone who has ever been trapped in this place.
My eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, and the shapes around me start to become clearer. I am in a cellar. Rough stone walls rise up around me, slippery with a constant moisture that drips with a slow, annoying rhythm. Drip!. Drip!. Drip!. It's a sound that could drive a person mad. There are no windows, only a tiny sliver of faint light that outlines a heavy wooden door at the top of a short flight of stone steps. That door might as well be a mountain away. I quickly realize I am not alone. The darkness is filled with soft, hopeless weeping sounds, the quiet, hushed cries of others who share my terrible fate.
I push myself into a sitting position, my body aching from being handled so roughly. My shoulder hurts where the scarred man grabbed me, and my head hurts from being thrown into the cart. As my vision clears, I can make out shapes in the darkness.There are perhaps a dozen of us, gathered closely in small groups against the walls, our faces pale and tear covered in the dim light. We are a collection of the strange and the unusual. I see a girl huddled in a corner, her skin the color of polished ebony and her hair as white as snow. A little farther away, I see a boy with delicate, pointed ears, much like the pictures of elves in the one fairy tale book I owned as a child. He looks terrified, his large eyes glancing nervously around the cellar.
And then, right across from me, a small boy, no older than seven, sits with his knees pulled tightly to his chest. His tiny body is shaking with silent sobs that wrack his small frame. He isn't making any noise, but I can feel his pain and sadness from across the room.
He looks up as I move, his eyes wide and full of fear. Forgetting my own terror for a moment, I feel a surge of protectiveness. He's just a little boy. I crawl over to him, the cold stone biting into my scraped knees. "It's okay," I whisper, my voice strained. "What is this place? Who was that man who took me?"
The boy flinches at my questions, pulling back slightly as if he's afraid I'll hurt him. "He's… The Collector," he says, his voice a tiny, trembling thing, barely louder than a whisper. "He buys us. People like us. Curiosities."
The word hangs in the air between us, cold and sharp. Curiosities. The memory of Lord Harrington in my father's parlor flashes in my mind. There are men who pay a pretty penny for unique specimens, he had said with a laugh. And then I see Victoria's triumphant smirk as the collector pushed the purse of coins into her hand. It all clicks into place with a horrifying, sickening finality. This is my new life. I have been purchased. I am part of a collection, a living oddity, destined for a private menagerie, to be stared at and displayed for the amusement of some rich, wicked nobleman.
Another boy, older and with a bold, angry look in his eyes despite his situation, scoffs from a nearby corner. He must have overheard us. "Don't waste your breath trying to comfort him," he says, his voice bitter. "No one gets out of here. He keeps us in this hole until a buyer comes. Then he sells us to rich folks who want something exotic to show off to their friends. We're just… pets."
The word "pets" sends a wave of nausea through me. The pure, humiliating horror of it threatens to swallow me whole. To be a thing, an object, a pet for someone's amusement. I think of my father, his silent, grieving face. Would he even notice I was gone for a few days? Or would he simply believe Victoria's inevitable lie that I had run away? The thought is a fresh wave of pain, so sharp it takes my breath away. Of course he would believe her. I had given him every reason to think I would run away. He would be relieved. He would be free of the living reminder of his loss.
A cold, stirring terror fills my stomach, a paralyzing fear so immense it feels like it could crush the very air from my lungs. I could let it. I could curl up on this cold stone floor, join the hopeless weeping of the other children, and simply wait for the end. It would be the easy thing to do. Just give up.
But then, an image flashes in my mind.
The little purple wildflower I saw in the garden, pushing its way through a tiny crack in the solid stone wall. I think of its stubborn, bold beauty in a world that tried to crush it.
My hand instinctively goes to my neck, and I feel the smooth, cool weight of the locket against my skin. It's the one thing they didn't take, the one tangible link to a mother I never knew and a father who once, for a brief moment, showed me a flicker of kindness.
Something inside me shifts. The cold terror in my stomach doesn't disappear, but it begins to change. It hardens. It transforms from a paralyzing liquid into a solid, sharp, and determined core. A silent, strong vow forms in the depths of my being, each word a piece of iron being forged in the fire of my sadness.
They can lock me in a cellar. They can call me a curiosity. They can sell me like an animal. But they cannot have my spirit. That is mine.
I will not just endure this. I will not be a pet. I will not be a curiosity in a cage. My name is Emily. And I will find a way to get out of this trap.