Cold, lonely, hell

I woke up.

Dirty ceiling. Moldy room. Some bars at the entrance.

Prison.

While I kept screaming, one of the mermaids had done something to me and I'd passed out. 

I looked down and didn't see my legs. Gone! I had a tail?

"WOAH!" I nearly screamed but then realized, I had both of my feet. The fishtail was fake. I was fine. Or at least most of my body was. My left hand wasn't though. It was covered in a cast of sorts and was lathered with herbs? At least smelled like herbs. Didn't sting but there was a dull pain. Too dull for a fracture. So maybe I hadn't broken my arm? No, I definitely saw it being bent in a 40ish degree angle. It was definitely broken and probably overtly so. Better not move around.

Anyway, I'd caught someone's attention.

A mermaid guard. "Try not to break something else."

"So," I spoke. "What'll happen to me?"

"You'll be set on trial and then executed if you should resist. More likely, you'll just be jailed for a while just like she said."

"Hmm…." I sighed, sitting up and against the wall. This cell didn't come with a bed. Just a mat and a bucket in the corner which I thought was for showering but no, it was for the other work. "It went so much better in my head."

There was a mesh at the corner of the room. Like a shower drain. The hell am I supposed to do with that underwater?

"Well, reality is often disappointing."

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your queen's intelligence?"

"10."

"And yourself?"

"5."

"Me?"

"4?"

Hmm… "I didn't find her that intelligent, if I'm being honest."

"Likewise," the voice came along with footsteps. She was coming from above. The queen? "You could have handled the situation so much better. For starters, you could have omitted the fact that you 'fished' her out of the sea."

"You could tell lies, so I figured it was best I didn't."

"You could have just phrased it in a way that didn't make it a lie."

I could have. I probably should have.

A major blunder on my end.

"Besides, you attacked me, the queen, in front of all my ministers. You're lucky they weren't petitioning to murder you in your sleep." She held her head, sighing. "Anyway," she paused. "You'll have to spend some days here while I arrange a fake trial and then send you home."

"Home?"

"Yes, we'll send you to the academy."

"Wait-"

"Unfortunately, you will not go being to the forbidden continent."

"There are plenty of other places I could look, and-"

"Your parents are dead," she said, not flinching for a second. "I have seen your destiny." Her eyes glowed in blue. "They're dead. Go home."

"NO!"

"Then you will remain here, in this prison."

She left.

But her words still reverberated.

Seen my destiny? The fuck was she even talking about?

Wait, wait, she means my real parents. A wave of relief washed over me. But a second later I again fell silent. Then doesn't that mean… they were dead.

Was it Mom and Den, or was it… them? Someone close to me.

FUCK! I banged my hand on the wall. I got a cut and bled a bit. The pain was sharp but dulled a bit. Didn't go away. It made the other arm flare up too.

"Fuck…" tears welled up and fell. Rather odd, how tears worked in this hell. Instead of falling, they floated down.

In this cold, lonely… hell.

***

Sometimes later, Rokshana came to visit. She'd come with her brother.

"That was rather immature," he said. "Though I suppose it's only natural given your age. Actually, how old are you?"

"Six." I was nearing seven these days. But I didn't care about age anymore. It was irrelevant. "Why're you here?"

"I'm told, she told you that you'll be sent home. If you resist, you'll have to stay here, trapped in this… you know."

"Well, I don't know. What gives you people the right to dictate how I live my life?"

"Nothing. Yet, that's the way it is. If you don't like it, you could always leave, or live long enough to change the world."

I snorted. "Yeah right

"Me killing myself changes nothing.

"Me staying alive and trying to change world… changes nothing.

"Frankly, it doesn't matter if I even exist.

"Makes you think, maybe that's why I'm here. Because I don't matter."

"That's not true," Rokshana said. "You matter. You told me, remember? I'm not ugly. Now I'm telling you, you matter, you matter to me, Sol."

I was about to lash out at her. Tell her, I still thought she 'looked' ugly. But that wasn't what I wanted to say. And I didn't mean that. I didn't want to hurt her that way. "If that woman was to be believed, it means someone is definitely dead. What's the point of me trying then?"

"Didn't you already know they could have been dead?

"Yet, you still came here.

"You still risked everything.

"And that's why, that's why I think it matters. You matter. Besides, divinity is often wrong.

I couldn't help but smile halfheartedly. "I wonder." Because the queen sure didn't sound hesitant.

They hung around for a while longer. Said a lot of things. But I'd zoned out and honestly didn't care anymore.

Eventually, they left.

The mermaid guard left too. Given the light outside, it was probably midday. Time for them to rest.

And although I didn't expect anyone else to show up, someone did.

"Okay so, here's the plan," said the fishman. "We're going to use the sewers and."

I sighed. I sighed, aloud. "Again?"

Sirgh… But yeah, I needed a distraction. And this was a fine distraction.