Trapped

France Portnawak (Titanic)

September 20 2014

Event: 500 Word Challenge

Location: Milk Wood, Second Life

Host: Lizzie Gudkov

Prompt: Picture 

Time: 30 mins

Trapped in a corner, she recalled her days of wandering, of lurking in the shadows, of hiding. 

She still clutched onto the Victorian medallion. It was stroking her soul, scratch by scratch, widening the deep wound slowly. 

She had been advised not to take it, but she didn’t listen. She had to have it. No one would ever tell her she couldn’t have it. 

She knew far too well that the medallion was not hers. She knew it would never be. Yet, she held on to it, determined. 

Trapped in a corner, she recalled her days of believing, of dreaming, of hiding. She saw it, the hungry wolf. His red eyes were glimmering faintly. It was preying on her soul, circling her fears slowly, step by step. 

The medallion would be her protection, they said. And she held it close to her chest, an uncontrollable wave of desperation taking over her feeble decisiveness. 

And now she was trapped. And the wolf knew it. And she turned to face the wall, the medallion still in her hand, its edges sinking in the soft skin of her palm. And she couldn’t wait anymore. And the fear was overpowering. And no one else knew those red eyes as she did. And no one cared. And… 

She woke up. Nights were becoming worse for her. The nightmares… 

She sat up in her bed and looked around. Where was the medallion? She looked for it all over the house. She turned drawers inside out. Nothing. It had done its job. It had somehow moved on. 

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, the obsession growing, while sleeping and being awake. 

It’s a spell, someone said, or was it a curse? 

Time going by didn’t help even when she became confused and started looking for the wolf out in the garden till late at night, the neighbors peering through the curtains concerned about her unusual behavior. 

Her family got more and more anxious and decided to commit her to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. She’s so young, they said, mourning the loss of a promised future. 

She never left that place again, that horrid white place, forever recalling that Victorian medallion with the face of a wolf on it, forever trapped in a lonely inexplicable corner.