"The wolves are at the door, Belle, they're always at the door!"

—A Christmas Carol (adaptation for live theatre)

𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐩𝐞

In my dreams, I always run.

I don't know where I'm running, or where I come from, but I can't stop. I can't stop, or the wolves will hunt me down.

Sometimes it's wolves I run from. Sometimes it's myself. But even in the glaring light of day, I feel their eyes gripping my spine, their claws as they dig out weaknesses and things I didn't know I felt.

Running, running, always running, the rhythm of my footfalls going out of sync. Chaos took hold; my muscles bore no control over my legs. I tumbled. The wolves will get me.

≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫

I jolted awake, my breaths heavy and ragged. I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead. Darkness hung all around me, the cold floor of my cell only adding to the dreariness. I could barely see, not that there was much to be seen at all. The prisoners on either side of me were fast asleep in their own cells, and guards stood like gargoyles on the other side of my iron bars. No windows. No escape. Nothing.

The silence unnerved me more than the darkness or the armed, burly guards. In silence, there was nothing to distract me from myself, from my thoughts spiraling into whirlpools I would rather not fall into.

I wrapped my fingers around the bars trapping me. Chains rattled around my wrists. "Psst," I whispered at the nearest guard, one with watery eyes and a knotted beard that hung dejectedly off his face. He had an irritated expression on his face, like he'd just smelled something wretched. "You, the ugly one. Throw me some hardtack, will you? I'm starving." I wasn't hungry at all, but poking at my jailers' nerves had become a hobby to pass the time.

The man scowled at me. "Shut up!" he barked. His breath reeked. The hand on his sheathed sword said the rest: don't say a word if you want to keep your tongue. I retreated to the shadows.

As entertaining as bothering my captors was, it was only a temporary relief from the quiet, claustrophobic loneliness of my surroundings. I felt a bitter resentment whenever I remembered why I was here, at the kingdom keeping me behind bars, and at myself. Yet under that resentment was the sure feeling of guilt and regret, chewing my soul up under my skin. I was here for good reason; I couldn't deny that. And even farther down in the pits of my stomach, I felt that something was wrong. I shouldn't be here. I couldn't.

For now, I only prayed that the silence wouldn't swallow me whole. If my gut was right, and my own kingdom was in trouble, I had to get out of here.

But I would have to wait.