Written on this Stone

She shuffled backward across the dry, packed dirt on her bare feet, trailing her hand along the rock, feeling her way. Her back hit the wall. The stone's intense cold penetrated her thin cotton top. Despite that, she leaned against it, pressing back, sliding, sagging, scraping every vertebra as she slowly sank down. Her flesh was raw. Her pride was shattered. She was completely and utterly defeated. Knowing the ceiling soared above her, over twelve feet high, only made matters worse.

Through the pitch-black, she squinted at her hands. She could feel that her once beautifully manicured nails were scratched and broken. The polish chipped away completely now, and the tips of her fingers were rubbed bare and bleeding.

Exhausted, she barely felt the pain as she turned her face into the rock, resting her feverish forehead against the cold stone, giving her some relief.

She wondered how her face could feel like it was on fire when the rest of her was frozen solid.

The cold seeped through the lightweight material of her pajamas. Every bone in her body ached right down to the marrow. Her eyes burned from crying and staring into the ceaseless black. The back of her throat was raw. Her screams had long since gone from high-pitched and feral to hoarse and painful. The echoes of her own screams rang in her ears and bounced off the deep recesses of her mind and permanently lodged there with no escape. Frantic for a sense of certainty.

She had no idea what hour it was or what day. Her mind couldn’t fathom the passage of time in this ebony tomb. The endless darkness had swallowed her whole and with it—reality.

But if she had to guess, she’d put her money, her entire fortune, on days, maybe even a week. Her stomach had stopped demanding food. The gurgling and growling were now eerily silent as her belly contracted inward, shrinking. She had forced herself to ignore the hunger, but the thirst—that was unbearable. The parched desert of her mouth, her tongue cracked and blistered like sunbaked earth, drove her mad.

A shudder racked her body as it convulsed and sank further into deprivation. Her feverish body made her see yellow and white orbs that pirouetted before her eyes, mere figments of her imagination, yet real nonetheless.

She shook her head to clear the encroaching cobwebs and the delirium. Did she hear voices? Was that a shout? Footsteps? Surely someone was missing her by now. Surely someone was looking for her, panicked and desperate to find her.

That fragile line of thinking slowly disintegrated. They would never think to look down here. Not this close. Not right beneath their very feet. That was the cleverness or the irony of the whole matter.

Her situation was incomprehensible. Staggering. To be so close—and yet so far. And to be crossed by someone she loved was inconceivable.

Had it happened the way she thought it had, or was her depraved mind playing a trick? Surely not.

She knew what she saw—what had happened and what had been done—the unimaginable. The unthinkable.

The fury. The rage had been bewildering. But the brief flash of hatred had cut to her core.

The image came to her once more in her mind's eye: the slow retreat, the scrape of stone, the sliver of light right before it was snuffed out. Darkness had fallen with such intensity that she had lost all sense of direction.

The shock of what had happened left her reeling, slapped by a betrayal so strong and wicked that she would never recover. The last face she had seen before the stone sealed shut was the one she had trusted most.

The reality of the act settled in, swamping her. There had been pure, unbridled jealousy there that she hadn’t seen. No—correction, only the truth would be thought or spoken now, though she had chosen not to see it before. The truth was right in front of her now in all its horrific glory, as sure as this void of space was darker than a mindshaft.

It had been there all along—in the twisted looks, the insincere gestures, the comments disguised as concern. She had mistaken envy for affection and cruelty for immaturity. Now, trapped in the dark, she finally saw the truth.

In her heart, she knew her life was over. That time was short. She knew she was lost to the dank, deep darkness. This is where she was. This is where life had turned cruel and trapped her. This is where she would die.

That thought sank her into an abyss of despair. A pit so dismal, so cavernous, she shuddered.

It was only a matter of time now. All hope was gone, drained out of her like bathwater from a tub, replaced by a wave of anger that burned brighter than a thousand suns. An anger as she had never felt before, raging inside her, welling up, bursting to be set free.

She spoke out loud, only so she could prove she still had a voice. “I came into this world determined to leave a mark. And I’ll be damned if I won’t.” She thought of her betrayer. “You may have tricked me. You may have trapped me here in this dismal hell, but I will have the last word.”

A single tear trickled down her hot cheek, leaving a damp trail; she nodded into the blackness. There was only one thing left to do.

She stuck the tip of her raw index finger in her mouth. The tangy, copper taste of blood assaulted her parched tongue, making her stomach turn as the blood dripped down her chafed throat. She bit down hard, making the blood flow faster. Putting that bleeding finger to the stone—she made the first mark.

Come hell or high water, so help her—the truth would be written on this stone. Someone would know who put her here. She may rot in here, but they would surely rot in hell for what they had done.