1 Blank Canvas

"D-don't, please! It hurts."

A girl who was barely eleven years old, yelled at the top of her lungs as the burning hot iron was retracted away from her palm. Her eyes moved to the scalded skin of her palm as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"You, wrecked wench!" A woman, who was sitting on the rocking chair like a queen, spoke up as her eyes lingered over the whimpering figure of the young girl before her.

"Did you really think that complaining to your father will help you? Or were you forgetting the fact that he is hardly ever at home?" The woman seethed through her teeth. She shifted her attention from the girl to the champagne flute in her hand and took a sip of the sparkling baby pink liquid.

"You better learn from your mistakes or next time it will be your face." She added before turning her eyes back to the maid who was standing next to the girl. "One more time." She muttered briefly under her breath and another loud shriek filled the quietness of the room as the steaming hot iron was pressed against her pearly white skin.

"NO!"

With a jerk, she sat up straight and let out a piercing no. Beads of sweat glistened over her forehead as she took deep breaths to calm herself down. The dark blue t-shirt which was three to four sizes too large for her frail figure, was now clinging to her skin. It was completely soaked in sweat.

"Can you shut your mouth, brat? I am trying to sleep here." A heavy voice made its way into her ears.

It was then she realized that it was one of her nightmares. But why did she keep having the same nightmare again and again? Moreover, what was her link with the woman she kept seeing in her dreams? She couldn't recall anything about the woman.

The only thing she could recall was that the girl who was being punished in her dreams was her own self. The forest green eyes of the child made it too evident.

Every time she had one of those nightmares, it was the same woman instructing her minions to do cruel things to the girl. But why? It was a question which kept bugging her, but at the same time she couldn't recall any of those events being a part of her memory.

Her trembling fingers made their way to the locket around her neck and curled around the small oval shaped pendant which had a single lily engraved on the front. It was the only thing she was familiar with, but from which part of her past did it belong to? She didn't have the answer to it.

Her eyes roamed around the room she was in. It looked more like a shabby storage room where the only source of light was a ceiling bulb which refused to work at times. Under the pale yellow lights her eyes moved to the broken wall clock across the room. The hour hand of the clock had been stuck at the three since the day she was brought here.

She got out of the dust filled cover which her captors had provided her with and stretched her arms in the air. She twisted her waist a little and cracked her backbone to ease the stiffness of her back a little. Sleeping on the ground wasn't an easy deal when the only thing acting as a separator was a thin sheet which was torn in places.

She made her way to the door of the room and tried turning the knob only to find it locked. Heaving out a long sigh, she made her way back to the place where she was lying down earlier and sat down on the floor. Closing her eyes, she leaned her back against the wall and went through the events of the last few days.

It had been almost over two weeks since she found herself in this place. She was only allowed to leave the room when it was time for food. She was stuck in a place which was filled with scrawny looking men with no way to escape. She didn't know what to do.

Her memories had failed her on more than one occasion. Every time she tried to think of how she ended up in this dump, she couldn't come up with an answer. The only thing she received from all that thinking was a throbbing headache, which only turned worse with time if she continued forcing herself.

To her, her past life was a blank canvas with no inkling of any color. She had no recollection of her life, her identity. What could possibly be worse than not knowing her own name? The only thing she remembered was opening her eyes in the very room she had been locked in. The only difference was that she wasn't alone then.

She opened her eyes and tracked them down to the other corner of the room where a pile of sheets were left on the dusty floor. Those were the sheets which belonged to the other girl who used to share this room with her.

Though the two barely exchanged any words, they still looked after each other as both of them were going through the same thing. The only difference was that the other girl didn't experience what she was going through, memory loss.

That was the only plausible explanation she could derive from her situation.

"You have to find a way out." She mumbled under her breath. She knew that she had to find a way out for herself or else she might end up just like the other girl.

She still remembered the day vividly when two bulky men barged into the room and dragged the girl out. She saw her struggling against them, but all of it was in vain. Her strength was nothing before theirs. She did try to help her in fighting off against them, but two lean girls who were still in their teens were no match for two grown up men.

Her shouts and pleas for help still rang in her ears as she begged them to let her go while being dragged out of the room. Since that day, she hadn't seen the girl around whether it was in the room she was called to eat, or in any the other room.