Keith Donovan

Prisoner story

Amber slowly opened her eyes. There was not a world of difference between her eyes being shut and now, but her eyes would quickly adjust to the darkness. She was laying on her side on a shallow nest of straw that made up her bed. Carefully positioning her body upright, and then slowly raising to her feet. She was cold, but there was little to shield or prevent such things. The only clothes adorning her body were worn, frayed rags around her waist and chest, barely enough to cover her modesty.

Those, and the several cuffs and chains imprisoning her body. pinching the grey "skirt" of a rag to her body was a steel belt, containing various rings and eyebolts around it's circumference. Her slender wrists were trapped within steel cuffs, the chain connecting the two looped within rings on her belt. With some finesse and difficulty, she would be able to sacrifice one wrist's freedom to receive a few inches for her other wrist.. but it was always too short. Her poor ankles were also locked within cuffs, a simple length of chain connecting the two to limit her movement. On her right ankle, an extra, longer chained was attached, connecting to a eyebolt in the center of the floor.

Hobbling slowly, straining against the weight of her chains, Amber walked to the thick steel bars of her cell. There was only dimly-lit nothingness beyond. She did not know how long she has been imprisoned in this dungeon, but it mattered little. She was not sentenced, and was not counting her days. She would spend the rest of her life in this cell. Her cuffs had no keyholes, they were welded on to her body long ago. She has not seen her jailors since she was locked into her cell long ago- food and water is dropped from a chute into a basin in the side of her cell.

Dragging her ankle chain, connected to the center of her prison, she does her daily, slow lap around and around the cell. It was the only exercise she got, and the only way to fend off boredom. She knew every inch of her cell.. every scratch in the stone, every crevace. Her stride matched the limitations of her ankle chain exactly. She knew the sound every centimeter of her chains made when they jingled.

After a number of laps, finally squatted down against the back, stone, moist wall of the cell. Extending her legs, she stared down at her ankle cuffs, seamlessly joined around her. She slowly raised one of her bare feet, higher and higher, until the sudden jerk of her ankle chain restricted any further freedom. Tears started falling from her eyes. She furiously pulled on her wrists, side to side, before jerking them up against the belt's loops repeatedly. She sobbed and cried in frustration, her struggle to get away from the awful chains weakening. She longed to see the sun, the sky,and grass again.

Still crying, she returned to her bed of straw in the corner of the cell. Years and years from now, she would still be locked in this dungeon forever chained, never to see freedom.