It wasn’t the vermin crawling across her bruised shins or the thirst in her throat that woke her up. Nor was it the sticky gash throbbing through her matted hair. It certainly wasn’t the dark. These days, everyone lives in the dark.

Jolted away from her sleep-state to awareness the dark was cleft in two by a young man entering parting doors, furious light at his back. Perhaps it was her angel, delivering her from this tiny hell. Those childish thoughts quickly vanished as recognition seeped in. His teeth, barred in his vile grin, betrayed his excitement.

Three seconds of light. Light so dim it hardly deserves the name. Yet enough to see her gashes and long healed scars, to see her naked pale skin contrasting the black filth of prison, to see the hands of the man bathed in the blood of brothers.

Then darkness. Her eternal punishment. A sob escaped through cracked lips and pierced the silence. Bloodied hands closed around her and once more she retreated into the darkness, long ago readied for her fate.