The Girl and The Fox
Chapter 14

It was dark. Dark and damp, with water sprayed across the floor. They had a dungeon! A prison! But how? And where was this place?

Isabella had been thrown in the dungeon, discarded until she could replace something useful to say to them. But what could she say? She didn't know anything about winning a war, and evidently they knew that. Her own father probably wanted to kill her. To slaughter her in front of all his subjects, if that is what you would call them. He probably thought of them as peasants. He thought of everything like a game.

When Isabella was younger, she used to imagine what her father was like. Sometimes she would pretend that he was Father Christmas, and they would save Christmas together from other famous people, other times a spy, and that was why he wasn't here with her. She wished she could be that age again, not knowing anything bad about the world. She wished a lot of things actually. She wished she had never left her home and gone out in the night. She wished that fox had never come to her house. Sometimes she wished she had never been born. Maybe she was a mistake in this world...well, if she knew about her past, she would know she wasn't.

After what seemed like hours, Isabella finally got up from the dank floor she had been thrown onto. Her dress she was wearing was soaked, all the colours looking darker than they actually were...if you could see them.

The prison was empty. It was more like an underground room. They had brought her down stairs that were so slippery you could break your neck. Then they person had shoved her in this place.

The air smelled like it was decaying. She wondered how many people had rotted down her. She shivered, not knowing whether she wanted to know or not.

She felt along the walls. The room was pitch black and all her other senses were strengthened. The wall coated her fingers in slime, crawling up her hand and onto her arm, wanting to bond to her. She tried to replace a door, but it was hopeless. There was no door knob. The stupid door could only be opened from outside to in. And she was inside.

Then her father entered. The person who dumped her in this place. The person who brought her into this world, and was now torturing her.

'Found anything useful for us yet, my dear?' he asked, lightly chucking at her fear. He seemed to feed off her fear. What could she say? Eventually he would kill her if she hadn't come up with anything, and that was probably what was going to happen.

'I...n...nothing yet,' she hastily said, scared at what his answer would be.

All he replied was, 'Fine. You have an hour. In one hour you will officially drown...unless you can't swim, which would make it quicker. If you think of anything, scream to me, but if you scream and haven't found anything I will kill you more painfully than you could have imagined with you tiny, little mind.' As he left, Isabella was pondering on what he meant. Would he drown her if she couldn't replace anything? What did he mean by 'unless you can't swim'?

The raven haired girl plonked onto the floor, not really sure what to do. Her hand were also sat on the ground, but they were getting more wet than they already were. She felt around. Her legs were also wet. As she stood up, she walked away from the spot she was sitting in she realised she was wading. Wading in water. He was trying to drown her. It all made sense now.

Isabella's eyes widened. She desperately tried to think of something, but nothing would go inside her head. She sat there, thinking, but she knew nothing of war. All she wanted was peace, and she had since she was little.

At almost an hour, she was exhausted at staying afloat. All her effort was now on trying to stay afloat on top of the water and breath.

At exactly an hour, Isabella was submerged in the deathly water. She held her lungs for as long as she could, until they were flaming. She took deep gasps in, but all that entered her lungs was water. She clawed at her throat, desparatly wanting to replace some oxygen, but none came. Almost as soon as the water had engulfed her, she past out. Her last thought was, 'What a terrible ending drowning is.