THE SLAVE CELL

The cold, dark eerie cell scared Lucy, having ran from the vampires all her life, she never expected to be caught, the cell reeked of hopelessness as it seemed as if everyone had lost hope about ever gaining their freedom back.

“Eat up!” The guard boomed at her making her shiver before passing a bowl to her, she looked at the slob presented before her and turned around, it looked ten times worse than dog food.

“Number nine refuses to eat… again.” Number nine? She thought, but she still wasn’t speaking.

The cell door opened and a guard dressed in a different uniform entered. “YOU WON’T EAT, YOU WON’T SPEAK, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!” She shivered trying to crawl backwards but the man was hot on her trail, as she looked at him with dead eyes conveying her complete lack of emotions, she knew she reached her end when she felt the cold bars touch her back.

He bent down, lowering himself to meet her straight in the eyes; he moved his hands to grab her by the throat making her choke, his hands felt cold, so cold that she didn’t feel him tightening his grip on her. 

“Speak now!” He commanded, but words weren’t forming instead she was gasping for air.

“You’re killing her sir.” The guard from earlier said, but it was obvious that he met deaf ears; because the chief guard kept choking her harder. She felt herself rising up from her feet as he was holding her by the throat with just one hand, maybe this was the vampire strength that everyone had spoken of.

“SPEAK!” Tears fell from her eyes as she wasn’t able to form words as he began to see her life flash before her eyes, she wanted to tell him that she cannot speak, she can’t even remember the last time she heard her own voice, soon she started seeing dark pixels as she felt life leaving her slowly and painfully.

“She’s dying sir.” But the chief guard didn’t stop with his torture. “I don’t care about the life of a puny worthless human, especially one that cannot speak,”

She was starting to fade away as it became painful to even try to breathe, just as she was about to give up, the door opened making the guard to release her.

“What’s going on here?” Everyone bowed down, making sure their heads was touching the floor, in respect to the vampire Prince himself, everyone except Lucy, and she didn’t know who he was as she was still struggling to catch her breath, sprawled up on the floor almost lifeless.

She spared him a glance wanting to see how her savior looked like, he was very tall and lean built with flowing black hair and white porcelain skin, she couldn’t see his features clearly but the black cloak he wore added to his overall intimidating effect, she quickly removed her eyes so he wouldn’t catch her staring.

The guards didn’t speak which angered Prince Damien even more, the slave cell house was not his favorite place to visit, he hated the idea of keeping humans as blood slaves, but duty called, and a part of the duty as the crown Prince is to check on the most thriving business of the kingdom, the blood bank system.

“When I talk… I demand a reply.”

“I-I-I I was teaching her a lesson y-your h-high-h-highness.” His reply amused Damien who raised his eyebrow as a reply.

“Teach? Is that how you teach? Her face had turned pale, had I come in two seconds late she would have been dead.” He turned his gaze to Lucy who was struggling to breath; he didn’t know why he felt the urge to protect this puny human girl, or why the sight of the guards red hand print on her skin made him boil.

“S-she w-w-wasn’t e-eating or s-s-speaking your grace.”

“Don’t stutter.” Ordered the Prince, it bothered him that he had to be here but the stuttering got to him more.

“I-I’m sorry your grace.” The guard replied still stuttering, he couldn’t help himself, having heard rumors about Prince Damien being able to kill without even moving, he knew his life was hanging on a thread.

“So where were we?” asked the Prince who scanned the cell ground, it smelled like constant loss of hope and fear, but the girl stood out with her silver life hair covering her face, everyone was bowing down, except her, he could sense everyone’s fears, except hers.

Thoughts flooded his mind; he could hear everything, what the guards were thinking, what the slaves were thinking, except hers

“Who is she?” He asked, but he could already hear what the guard was thinking. ‘Why does he care about a mere human?’ it was his special gift that no one other than his family knew about, one of his special gifts.

“I don’t know your grace, she is one of the humans we found seeking refuge in the east on last week’s raid, she was half dead when we found her, hasn’t spoken or eaten since, I didn’t want one of the slaves to die when I was on duty that was why I was trying to force her to eat.”

The Prince knew he was saying the truth; deep down the chief guard didn’t want her to die, the intentions might have been genuine but he went about it the wrong way.

“You say she hasn’t spoken since?” asked the Prince as the guards nodded, the Prince couldn’t help but wonder why she was alive, he knew humans were weak, how did she stay a week without food?

“Are you sure she’s human?” Asked the Prince

“Yes sir, she is.” Interesting… he thought before walking towards the girl. “Bow to your Prince.” He said to her but she wasn’t budging, trying to use compelling he repeated his command but still the girl was still not moving.

That’s Strange… he thought as he turned to the guard and repeated the same command to him with compelling, the guard didn’t even hesitate to grovel at the Prince. “All Hail Prince Damien.”

He was certain that his powers were working, so why wasn’t it working on this girl?

He touched her head, lifting her face up so she could look at him, but as he saw her eyes, he was shocked to see the same violet eyes that have been invading his dream for months.