It was dark; damp. The night cast a thick, black blanket over the exterior walls of the building, only serving to match the suffocating atmosphere that was caked into every surface of the inside. Every dusty wall, every bar of wearing scrap metal, every hollow tenant with sunken eyes; it was present in every hallway, every cell of the place. It could not be escaped. And some had stopped trying.
She sat in the cell, watching the darkness fall. She’d given up trying long ago.
She may not have been a resident as long as the others; nowhere close to the majority of them, in fact. She’d only been confined to the walls for… She strained to remember. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of days. The longest holding time was three weeks, if she remembered correctly, and she didn’t believe the press could keep their heads up to that time. It was likely she’d be removed from her cell soon, though the thought brought her no hope.
For the months leading up to the event, she’d been able to sense the darkness eating away at her soul. She may not have been within the confined walls for long, but it was not as much a change as one would expect; in fact, it was much less stressful. She didn’t have to worry about hiding anything anymore. Here, it was all out in the open. Everyone knew what she had done.
Well… no, not everyone. There were still those who wouldn’t believe her. It didn’t matter; she would convince them soon enough. She’d expected resistance from them, and so she had prepared. They would have no choice but to believe her. She would confess to the crimes of which she was accused in such a cold and definite way that there was no possibility of twisting any part of it in her favor. They would be forced to see; to open their eyes to what had been evident for what felt to her like time’s eternity.
She had killed him of her own free will. Her hand was not physically forced, though she would only barely admit to herself that it had been forced in a different sense of the word. Still, the fact remained that no one made her do it. She hadn’t been compelled to with any threat or whispered persuasion. She had been the one to make the decision, and soon no one would be able to deny it; no matter how much they wanted to.
The night had fully encompassed the surroundings of the prison when she began to hear the sound. It was farther away at first, but it echoed just like everything else did in the place. It was perhaps one of the worst yet best parts of being holed up in that cold place " everyone knew everything. New tenants, released tenants, visitors, lurking guards; none could hide. It was something not a one could understand unless he had experienced it himself. They were closed off from the world. They were different from the rest of humanity; some might have said they were insane. But there was something about being there that linked each and every one of them together in a way that could not be explained; which was adequate, as it could not be comprehended, either.
The footsteps grew louder and louder, approaching her cell. As they went along their way, she could hear several tenants rustle in their cells, hoping against hope that it was their turn. But the cold, dirty girl confined to the cell in the very back did not hope. She lapsed in and out of reality as if nothing were changing; nothing would ever change, so what reason had she to hope? It would have been foolish.
She could have gotten away with it, if she’d wanted. She could have claimed a forced hand, self defense " anything. They were eager to devour any and every lie she could feed them. But she wouldn’t do it; lie like that. Not when she knew she had done it of her own free will. She’d never be able to live with it.
A wry laugh escaped her crackling throat. She was locked up in haunted prison with cruel watchmen and a chill feeling that never dispersed, soon to be convicted of murder, and yet her conscience only worried her with the guilt she would feel from lying about it. It was true, though; she would feel worse lying about the murder and having to go on in everyday life like nothing was wrong. She wanted them to sentence her to life; or death, since it make much difference. It was much… simpler.
The heavy footsteps stopped their hesitant shuffling as they reach their destination. There was a painful clanging sound against the metal bars of her birdcage, but she ignored it. Barely aware of a gruff voice commanding her attention, she bit her lip until she tasted rusty blood. Stiffly, she turned her head in the direction of the thick presence she felt constricting every muscle in her body. He was familiar, though she did not know him well at all; he had the air of an executioner waiting for the dawn to break. He never had to be explained.
“You have a visitor.”
It shouldn’t have surprised her so, but she could feel her dead heart speed for a fraction of a second. She had specifically asked to see no one. It was only unfortunate, she thought crossly to herself, that prison guards didn’t cater to the half-insane commands of a murderess.
He waited for a response from her, though he had learned within the past two days not to expect one. With the sharp metal screech of a rusty key sliding into its perfect fit, the wall of bars swung open. The girl confined to them stared ahead at the deteriorated wall opposite her, paying no attention to the newcomer. She hadn’t even bothered to try to discern his face. She had a good idea of who it was by his step.
The man spoke. “Charlotte?”
No answer. He tried again, but she would not respond. Sighing softly to himself, he approached her with cautious steps. Her hand suddenly twitched from its position; she grasped the stone of the wall supporting her back, and he stopped his advance. Her nails began to pry the dirt away from the stone, leaving stains of darkened blood wherever they roamed.
“I told them I didn’t want any visitors,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from lack of use. “I don’t want to see anyone. Leave me.”
“Come on, Char… It’s me; Tucker. I’m your best friend, remember?”
“Of course I remember! I’m not mad,” she spat.
Her eyes blazed, but she would not look at him. She refused to bear the broken look she knew would sag his face. He was concerned about her, that was all; surely such was what he came to tell her. It was the precise reason she had asked them not to entertain any visitors. But she knew that no matter what she’d have done, they would have allowed him in anyway. He was someone the world could not refuse; previous to her imprisonment, Charlotte knew things had been much the same for her.
Tucker’s chest constricted upon seeing her in such a vulnerable state. He knew it would be bad, but he could never have expected a mere forty-eight hours in prison to change her so dramatically. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a nagging voice suggested that she had been this way for longer than he knew; that she must have simply been hiding it.
It pained him to even consider that this was the real Char. It was possible - was it not? - that the Charlotte revealed to him now was the imposter. It was hard for him to imagine the real Charlotte as anything other than the lively, independent girl he knew and had always loved. A shell had been encasing that lovely spirit slowly over the last months, and now it had hardened to the point where no concerned friend could break it with gentle hand. To Tucker, that only meant trying harder.
“No; you’re not mad,” he agreed, sitting himself down in her line of vision, “but you’re getting there.”
She looked away. “I asked you to leave.”
“I heard you.”
Her teeth clenched tightly. He watched the subtle strain of her mouth as she focused her eyes on her bleeding nails. She could feel his stare boring into her. She let her hand fall and pursed her lips. Her foot began to tap rhythmically.
“Char,” he interrupted the sound. She stopped but would not face him still. “Charlotte, look at me.”
Her lips pressed together tighter. She defiantly closed her eyes until they began to ache with the strain. Sharp breaths could be heard through her nose. She jerked her head sharply to the side once and began to pace her breathing through her mouth again. Her right hand twitched.
Tucker bit his tongue to contain his frustration. There was still a trace of it lacing his tone. “Stop that, you little pretender. Stop it and look at me.”
“Why do you always have to tell me what to do?”
“If you could just do it yourself, then I wouldn’t have to tell you.”
“Or you could just leave me alone,” she suggested poisonously.
“You’d go insane if you were alone.”
Her eyes snapped up and fixed fiercely on their target. “I would not. I don’t need you; I don’t need anybody. I’m perfectly fine when left alone.”
“Which is exactly why you’re being held in here for murder…?”
The corners of her mouth pulled down and tightened sourly. Her breathing was becoming slightly heavier again, and her chest heaved painfully with the effort. She really hated this about him - he knew what to say to get the answer he wanted. The war had changed him. The boy she had once known was long gone; those perfectly blue eyes had seen too much to hold any glimmer of innocence now.
The war had changed her as well; it had changed all of them, really. It had affected her more internally than it had externally, though her sunken eyes and paper-colored face certainly had something to do with it. She could forever sense the constant danger lurking behind every corner and feel bursts of adrenaline course through her veins. She became quite independent of the world, constantly throwing herself into her work and speaking to no one… It was this that led her to her breaking point; it was this that dragged her to the edge of the cliff where there was no turning back.
And yet, sitting in her dark cell for never-ending hours, listening to the screams and shuffling of other tenants half-insane and numb in mind, she did not regret it. Even as her best friend sat opposite her, questioning her sanity and disrupting the steady flow of empty thoughts pouring from her draining soul, she knew if she were placed back in that moment and given a do-over, the outcome would be exactly the same.
She knew she should have refused the first flower; she had always known it. Some would say it was foolish - the choice she made when she held the soft hibiscus in her calloused hands - but she would never agree. She had never been a foolish girl. It’s not to say she had made no mistakes, because she fully acknowledged that she had, but she would never wish to change them. They were a part of her being, embedded into her dying soul. Wishing them away would be the same as wishing away an infected limb; oh, it was very possible that the infection could spread and contaminate the rest of the body, but wouldn’t being wholly imperfect cause less trouble than being pure and good with important pieces missing? It did not make sense to give away a part of herself.
Many people wondered why she did what she did. It was the question on everyone’s minds, she knew. But to understand why Charlotte Rose Veren Recker made the choice that she made, one would have to enter her tangled mind and cut through the fierce jungle that laid in wait to devour them. One would have to follow her back to the beginning and stand next to her as they observed every single scene.
And this, reader, is what you will know when you are finished with this tale: you will know what everyone else wonders. You will find that lost soul wandering the depths of the fiery pit. And this you must accept now: there will be nothing you or anyone else can ever do to save her.
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