2 The Dark Room

''Tiana!!!… ''

Gwen cried as she watched the two hefty men take her sister away; Tiana turned her head and her sad eyes glanced at her sister, who was standing by the door, tears pouring from her eyes; Gwen wanted to run after her but she was stopped by a deadly-looking man, who dragged her out of the door;

Tiana stopped moving as she watched her sister being hauled away; the man took her sister out of the house and slammed the door, making her shudder; she swallowed hard, trying not to cry again for something she couldn't change; screeching her legs across the marble floor, she continued walking forward.

The two men led her down the hallway and to a room on the right; one man walked forward with a bunch of keys; he looked at the room number and searched for the keys, after a little while, he found it and unlocked the door; before she could say a word, she was pushed inside; she fell to her face as she heard the ringing of keys behind her and she knew she had been locked in.

Tiana opened her eyes and she realized that the room was dark; pitch black dark. She couldn't even see her white hands; it was painful keeping her eyes open in such darkness, so she had to shut them and feel around with her hands; inching to the wall behind her, she curled up herself like a ball, shutting her eyes.

Life had been miserable so far. She was just twenty-two and everything, her dreams, ambitions, joy, hope, everything had been ripped away in the blink of an eye. If one had the right to decide one's fate, she would have chosen to never have been born.

The tears she had struggled so hard to keep in kept rolling down again; she sniffed as she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand; the air in the room was so stuffy and she was sweating all over but all of that didn't matter at that moment; she wished it could all end quickly but sadly, her journey just started.

She didn't know for how long she lay there, eyes shut, and mind wandering. Because of the darkness, she was sensitive to every sound. She could hear the stomping of feet on the floor above her, the creeping of insects around the darkroom, and even the never-ending pumping of blood by her shattered heart. Soon she slept off.

She woke up to the ringing of keys on the door; her body instantly sitting upright as she waited for the door to open; the light from the hallway illuminated a patch of the room as the door opened; she didn't have enough time to look the person who had opened the door because as soon as a bowl of food was pushed in, the door was slammed close again;

Tiana sat still for a moment as she listened to the retreating footsteps;

She could not move, she had had nothing to eat since morning but the last thing on her mind at that moment was food; she didn't even have the appetite to eat anything, not to talk of eating anything that came from that house;

And that was her routine for two days straight; crying, sleeping, and thinking; every day the door would open and a meal would be pushed in, three times in the day but she touched none of them;

On the third day, she was already too weak; her fingers barely moved and her eyes remained shut for almost the whole day; fresh tears replacing the already dried streaks; she could hear the singing of the birds and she knew it was morning, then suddenly, the lights in the room turned on;

She had not seen such brightness for three days, thus it was so illuminating that she raised her hands weakly over her eyes; the doors to the room opened, and she heard people walk in;

Forcing herself to sit up straight, she glanced at them, there was an older woman in her fifties, and two ladies with her, the older lady watched her for a moment then she waved to the two other women, and they walked forward and lifted her up; and without waiting for her to stable her feet, they dragged along; Tiana didn't resist them, she didn't even have the strength to;

Her feet scraped the floor as they pulled her limp body forward;

She heard a door pull open, and she was dragged inside; the sweet scent of strawberry wafted into her nostrils and she lifted her eyes to look at where she was;

There was a bath filled with water, steam was coming out of it, there was a maid standing beside it as though she had been waiting for her;

''Strip! "

The old lady commanded, Tiana looked at her and noticed her gaze was firm, there was not a hint of a smile on her face and she knew that if she didn't strip, she would be forced to.

She had not been naked in front of so many people before and the way they watched her made her nervous; before she could raise her hands to her clothes, the old lady, running out of patience, instructed with the slight movement of her head; quickly the two maids who had dragged her in, tore her clothes off her body, one by one they fell, till she was left with nothing but her bare skin;

Tiana looked down at her body, she hadn't washed for three days and after being locked up for so long, she stank;

As though they had already been prepped on what to do, a maid brought a stool and made her sit, another came with a toothbrush and paste;