Stumped amidst her own chains, Frances watched May pick over her manacles, hunting for any weakness.
“…I mean, this is just a bit of a hiccup,” May babbled brightly as she searched, “this whole ‘getting caught’ business. There’s got to be some way out of this cell.”
Frances sighed, “No, there doesn’t have to be a way.”
“What?” May froze, wide-eyed.
“There doesn’t have to be a way out. There’s no reason other than chance for us to escape this dingy hole and whatever the hell they’re going to do to us. The universe isn’t obliged to give us a way through everything. It doesn’t follow that childish, molly-coddling fairy book logic you’ve got stuck in your head. There’s no author who needs us to escape to finish the story. People fail, May. Even when they do all they can, people fail. Hope isn’t a debt the world needs to pay us. Hope is just a madness we need to keep us sane. May, we’re trapped here.”
As if for the first time, May looked at the iron chains, the stone walls and the distant trapdoor, and sobbed.