Previous Post Aella 3,     The last of the grey light was slowly fading and the sky was smothered in thick clouds. The sun had set just a few minutes ago but the shadows were already stretching out across the landscape to wrap it in darkness. The night was showing all the signs of becoming just as miserable as the one before.     Aella pulled herself to her feet and turned towards her cave, the sand clinging to her wet skin. She was soaked. The cold water gripped at her with icy fingers as she hurried to her cave.     Once inside she went through the process that had almost become a ritual to her now, so often she had done it. She lit the candle, smiling as its warm glow chased the shadows from the cave, then went over to her crate and carefully removed all its contents with utmost care. Finally she removed the towel that lined the bottom of the crate and set about drying herself.     Outside the shadows descended black and sinister, slowly snatching away the light. They pressed at the candlelight that filled the cave, threatening to steal it too, but Aella turned her back to the doorway and focused on her task, ignoring the whisperings from her rampant imagination.     She had come to the conclusion long ago that she was more creative than was good for her. With no other way to express itself her imagination filled the darkness with monsters, clawing at her from just beyond the cove. But no monster could enter the cove, not even an imaginary one. She was safe there and always would be. Safe that is, to spend night after night in empty exile.     Once she was finally dry and everything was returned to its place she sat for a moment unsure of what to do. Her eyes briefly rested on the small notebook and tiny pencil next to it.     No! She had searched through her knowledge in quest for an answer again and again, scribbled everything she could remember into the book’s small pages. She was sure that somewhere within its pages lay the answer she sought and on many nights she had spent her time looking though it and through it again. But not this night. This night she was having quite enough trouble with imaginary monsters without remembering real ones.     For less than a moment, the memory of her mother danced before her. Then she roughly pushed it away, not allowing herself to remember further, fighting to leave the past locked in the back of her memory.     Then the memory was gone. She was alone again. Despair surged through her at that point, taunting her, telling her that there was only one way she would ever be free, that her efforts were hopeless.     The key she always wore was swinging gently on its ribbon, reflecting in the candle flame. She grasped it and held on as if it would give her strength, reminding herself that she had to be strong, had to not give in.     She was shaking with suppressed tears as she forced down a meal that she barely tasted and all but fell into the bed. She lay there as if all her strength had left her, spent up in this inner battle against her own emotions. She tried to breathe evenly, to close her eyes and sleep.     Though Aella lay there for far longer than an hour, sleep would not come.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I wonder about myself sometimes. The last time I saw my face in a mirror was before my lonely exile began and who knows how long ago that was? If I saw myself now I would seem a complete stranger, I’m sure. A carefree nine-year-old was the last I ever saw of myself. Now I have grown and not just in appearance. Now I am far from carefree.     As a child I believed that there was no evil in the world, or at least I never thought of such a thing. My loss of a happy childhood was so sudden and brutal that I can now hardly believe that who I was then and who I am now are in fact the same person at all     The youth that I once thought would never end now seems like a bright and far-off dream.     Just after what happened, after this isolation began, I was lost in shock. I clung desperately to my memories of before for the will to go on, to keep the horror of what had destroyed my carefree world forever from overwhelming me. Now I have learnt to forget. If I don’t think of what happened it can’t hurt me. If I refuse to remember how happy I was before then I won’t dwell on what I have lost. That life is gone now anyway, I can never get it back.     Now I must fight not against the shock of the sudden upheaval I have faced, but the long slow passage of time. Day after day the hopelessness of my situation gnaws at my heart. Day after day I fall deeper into despair.     I will not give up. No matter how long I am kept like this. If I allow myself to think otherwise I will have lost.     But still the despair of it all keeps whispering in the dark. My life is slipping away like grains of sand through my fingers. I am alone and am cursed to always be alone. I have lost so much of the fiery defiance I first held, slowly come to accept my prison even. There is only one way in the world I will ever be free of this. Only one way.     I tear my eyes open and gaze around me. Fiercely refusing to give in to the emptiness that has filled the dark shadows of my heart, so instead I open the eyes I closed, escaping not to sleep but to wakefulness.     Before me something shines in the candlelight. I know what it is. The Key. Beautiful, wonderful, powerful, and the power of a key is to open something. So many people in this world seek keys to what they want, be those keys real or metaphorical. You could say that’s why I’m here. Not to seek a Key, but to keep one. No matter what.     I climb out of bed and pick up my comb. I didn’t finish the job yesterday and my hair’s only got more tangled since.” Aella More stories by me can be found at http://www.chillwater.plus.com/rrw/rrwindex.htm">Rhiannons Stories. Rhiannon Watson Concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Rhiannon Rose Watson. The right of Rhiannon Rose Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

I was hoping she was heading somewhere else after the end of the last chapter, but her she is back in her cave brushing her hair once more. Poor thing.

Al B.