The Rewrite, Part 5

 The original rewritten scene which began "The Rewrite". I wished to include a call back to Rurik, as he was created by me later on in the process of this storytelling, but became a larger and larger force in Ailith's life as her time in my head continued. Rurik's role is quite important now. Gris is not my character. I guess I took a few liberties with him here, but I changed very little dialogue as it was all to my liking, generally.

Ailith felt her body falling to the ground and landing on a person, but she couldn’t control any of her limbs. For a minute, her head just pounded so loudly that she could hardly hear, her anger and desperation overwhelming her senses.

But the stranger grunted for her to get off, and she scrambled up, tripping on her skirts and falling again.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she blurted out as she stumbled away from the body and slumped to the ground.

“Not your fault. I understand.” From the voice, she could tell her cellmate was male. He did not seem to be a threat, but she remained on guard, just in case.

Ailith looked around, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Pale moonlight crept in through a crevice not wide enough for a fist to fit through.

She shivered in the cold damp. Her cellmate pulled himself up and dragged his body to the far side of the little box they were in. His breathing was labored; a rattling, strangled sound.

He did not seem in good health.

In good health.

Kyle’s face flashed through her mind and she panicked. Was he here, somewhere, in the darkness? Just nearby?

“Kyle! Kyle, Kyle are you there?!”

No sound.

“I don't mean to sound rude, but yelling will only annoy the bandits. This "Kyle" probably can't hear you. Settle back. Once you stop trying to escape, bread crumbs and acrid water become a meal fit for a king.”

Ailith bit her lip. It sounded like he’d been here for a while. She squinted in the darkness, and noted the stranger’s messy brown hair, longer than most commoners. He lay nearly motionless, his body a heap of old, ratty clothes and thin limbs.

She determined he would not hurt her. But what was he doing here?

“I'm Gris. I've been stuck here for 2 years, why, I know not.” He answered her question before she asked.

“I’m Ailith.”

“Hello Ailith. Listen, the rules are simple. Learn them from me, and you'll save yourself a couple of bruises. 1; Stay relatively quiet. 2; Do what the bandits tell you, even if you might harm yourself. They will harm you worse if you don't. 3; Give up all hope of escaping. I lost track of how many times I've tried and failed. Only came up with rule 3 a week ago.”

Ailith blinked. Give up...all hope…?




“Don’t give up hope. No matter what happens, don’t ever, ever give up hope. You’ll be free one day. I know you will.”




She blinked back tears at the recollection. His lifeless eyes. His tan skin gone grayish with death and splattered with his own blood. It was her fiercest, most evil memory. She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to stay here, and I most certainly don’t want to do whatever those men tell me to.” She didn’t dare let pass from her lips the things the men had said to her earlier. “My name is Ailith. My older brother is Kyle…” Ailith trailed off, thinking of the moment when she had last seen him, lying on the ground. Perhaps, he was already dead, and she was alone in this world.

Very well then.

She’d still escape this awful place.

Gris shifted himself and crawled across the cell. At first, this made her jump, as she’d been certain he was incapacitated. After a few moments of trying to puzzle out what he was doing, she noticed Gris was trying to pick the lock.

“Gris?”

“Remember rule number two? Well, I'm following it right now. Stay here. I don't want to see another noble with arrows in their back.”

“But-what? How is that…” she trailed off. She didn’t want arrows in her back, and if they did have Kyle, she didn’t want them to punish him for her bad behavior, either.

He turned to her then, though she could barely make out his face in the low light.

“Close your eyes. Open them in about a minute.”

She didn’t close her eyes. She wasn’t about to close her eyes with a strange man standing there. He opened the door of the cell, and bright torchlight streamed in. She squinted in the brightness to see someone thin enough that the bones stuck through his clothes.

Then he was gone, and she was left alone.



She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to think.