I woke up in the middle of the night, the wind blew into the cells and made me shiver down to my bones. The wind blew so hard it made a whistling sound in the sky. I moved to the corner of the room and put my knees up to my chest. I put my head down and started to cry. I held my legs tight. I wanted to be back home in my bed, sleeping soundly where the wind couldn't touch me and having my wool blanket wrapped around my body instead of my thin clothes. I wanted my mom telling me goodnight, and a nice plate of breakfast ready for me when I woke up in the morning. I wanted to be home where my brothers played card games and drank wine, and wanted to listen to the sounds of my family breathing as they slept peacefully. But instead I'm here, waiting for this nightmare to end.

I heard someone down the hall whispering and I stopped crying. I stayed quiet as best as I could, trying to listen in on their conversation. Soon, I saw a light from the torch begin piercing into the hallway and the whispering got louder, as did the footsteps. I wondered where the guards were and why they weren't doing anything about these people. I heard keys jingling in the air, maybe they were going to open the gates to let us escape? But why? They were close enough now that I could hear them clearly.

"What cell do you think she's in?" I heard a man say. They were looking for Alice I think.

"I don't know. Check every one of them." The other man said.

"How much are we getting paid for this again?"

"Fifty gold dollars, now shut up. The guards won't stay gone for long. We need to hurry."

I felt scared, my body trembled more than it did before and I started to breathe hard. What were they going to do? The footsteps were almost at my cell. My heart felt as if it were going to beat out of my chest, I could hear it boom with every step the strange men took. A tear fell down my cheek as one of the men were about to put their torch through my cell. The other man called out seconds before, saying that he saw her. I watched as they unlock the gate with the guard's keys. The loud sound of the gate creaked open and Alice wakes up. She sat up and asked who the men were, but before she could finish her sentence, she was hit in the face. She started screaming as she was brutally beaten in her cell.

I tried so hard not to scream, holding back every sound I wanted to make. I tried covering my ears to stop the sounds of her screaming, but she was too loud. I was crying so hard that I didn't even realize when she had stopped screaming. But when I realized it, I choked back my tears and stopped crying. I heard nothing and began getting suspicious. I got up from sitting on the ground very slowly and tried looking out to the other cell, but it was pitch back. I trembled as I slowly and wobbly walked over to the end of my cell. When I got to the end, I put my hands on the bars and started to look out when I saw something coming towards my way. I closed my eyes and fell backwards, yelling as I heard a loud thud. I open my eyes to see Alice laying on the ground and the boys laughing. They then walked over to my cell and threw the knife in.

"Sh, don't tell." One of them said before they left. Why didn't the guards hear her? Why didn't they stop the men?

I crawled back over to where Alice was laying and cried. Her body looked brutal and her face had a sight of terror plastered onto it. I tried reaching out to touch her with my fingers, but she was too far away for my small arms. She slowly turned her head over to look at me and started humming in an attempt to calm me down. Or maybe it was to soothe her own self from her upcoming death.

"It's okay my child. I'm exactly where I wanted to be." She said softly after a while. Tears were still heavily running down my face. "I was wrong...When you get out of here... You need to run and never look back." She doesn't say anything for a while and her blood starts to create a puddle around her. "I... Can... See... My son." She chokes out. These are her last words before she closes her eyes and smiles. Her last breath sounded like a sigh of relief from pain, I knew she was gone now.

For the rest of the night I cried, I kept trying to stop, but my body wouldn't allow me to. I could hardly breathe because my crying was so hard. My clothes were soaked and snot covered my face. My eyes were swollen beyond belief. I didn't even realize the guards came back from wherever they were. They started yelling at me for crying.

"Shut the hell up! I've been listening to you wailing for an hour now! I'm tired of it." One of them said. I tried speaking, but everything that came out sounded like a choke.

"Sh-Sh-Ha." I said, before going back to heavily crying.

"I told you to shut up!" He roared loudly. But I couldn't stop.

"Heh-heh-help." I managed to get out.

"God damn it, child!" He yelled. I could hear him storming into the hallway. His feet quickly stopped when he saw Alice's body on the ground. "Simon!" He called out for the other guard. "Get Ezekeliah, hurry!" He said, and I heard feet run off. "What did you do! What happened!" The guard yelled, but my crying overpowered my ability to speak. "Answer me now child!"

"I-I c-can't... breathe!" I yelled.

"Where's Ezekeliah!" The guard yelled.

"No need to yell, Alan. I'm here." Ezekeliah says, kneeling down at Alice. "She's dead. Get her out of here." He said, within seconds of looking at her.

"What do we do about the girl?" Simon asks.

"We need to kill her." Alan says.

"No, we aren't killing her, she did nothing wrong. She is still in her cell, there's no way she could've got out and killed Alice. I will take her to the King." Ezekeliah says as I still cry. "Ashley, I want you to get up and start doing jumping jacks."

I was confused as to why, but I slowly pulled myself up. I was still crying as I stood there, I felt weak and I wanted to collapse. He told me to start jumping, but it was so hard to move. I tried to jump, but my feet barely moved. He told me to try again, and the same results happened. He told me to keep trying until I got it. When they took Alice's body away, I was able to jump a little better. I stopped focusing on her body laying on the ground. It eventually got a little easier to jump, then a little easier, then a little easier until I could fully start jumping.

Eventually, I was doing actual jumping jacks and I stopped crying. He took a rag and wiped off my tears through the bars and then took me out. He told me if I started to cry again to start doing jumping jacks. As we were walking to the Kings room, I felt my tears coming back again, and I jumped and I jumped until gasping for air was overpowering my ability to cry. We started walking again. When we got there, he knocks on the wooden door. "Sire, I hope you're decent." He says and opens the door without another thought. The King was laying in bed with his Queen, he got up and asked what was happening.

"I believe Ashley isn't safe in the cells. We need to tell the people that she's fine and send her back home." Ezekeliah said.

"Why? What's going on?" The King said in a demanding tone.

"A few hours ago, someone came into the cells and killed Alice. I believe if we don't tell the village people that Ashley is okay, they will do the same to her."

"What do your studies say? Is she... normal?" He says, glaring at me. "Why didn't my guards stop them?"

"Your guards were gone! They can't protect us!" I yelled at him.

"Bite your tongue!" Ezekeliah yells back at me.

"But-" I was interrupted by Ezekeliah's glare.

"Now, from what I can see, she is just a child who is overly emotional. But I would have to do more tests to even see if she was sick. Which I can't do if she's dead. As for your guards, I don't keep track of their whereabouts."

"So you're certain she isn't sick for now?"

"Yes, Sire."

"Then tomorrow you can send her home after my speech, and I will speak to my guards about their absences. But if anything like this comes up again, I want her to know it will not be taken lightly, she will be put to death, regardless if you can cure her or not. I can't and will not protect witches. Now, leave so I can get some sleep."

"Yes, Sire. Thank You." Ezekeliah says, bowing down towards the King.

We leave the room and Ezekeliah takes me back to his lab. He tells me to sleep in the bed in the corner for tonight. I feel myself wanting to cry again and he sees my eyes begin to well up with tears. He tells me to start doing jumping jacks again. I do and quickly calm down. I collapse on the floor and stare at this old man. I wondered what was going through his head.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask.

"Doing what?" He says, confused.

"You told him I'm just emotional."

"Well, isn't that what you are? Crying in front of everybody, yelling, and going on about wrongdoings?"

"Yes, but-"

"Well, alright then. That is exactly what you're doing. There's no need to add anything else to it. And you need to not argue with my decisions. What you don't tell me, I can't use against you. You gave me exactly the right answers I needed. I don't need to hear any more." He says, giving me a wink.

"What, why?"

"Don't tell me any more, do you understand?"

"Yes?" I said, confused.

"Now, you need to go to sleep. I can only imagine what you've been through and how little sleep you got last night, I know you must be exhausted. Tomorrow, you will go back to your family, you can't be looking like a swollen strawberry. But you need to make sure to not act out again, otherwise, I can't help you if you do."

I nod and cover up with the blanket on the bed. I wanted to know more, I wanted to know why he was doing this, what his thoughts were, and what was going to happen afterward. But I felt it would be better if I said nothing more, and ask nothing else. At this point, I just needed to accept what was happening and trust that everything was going to be okay. Be thankful for his actions, after all, I wanted to be home, and he was helping me to get there.

I closed my eyes, I hoped everything would be alright. But I still couldn't bring myself to sleep. The terrors of what happened tonight played through my head like a mouse going in circles. It was like a stab to my heart, and it was still beating out of my chest as if I was still listening to it. I tried so hard not to cry and wake up Ezekeliah. I twiddled my thumbs and did anything I could to distract myself from the events.

All I could think about was them coming after me next. All I could do was stare at the door as my mind played through scenarios of what may happen. I didn't want to die, not tonight. He blew out the light and I was in total darkness, with only my fears to accompany me. Maybe it was my mind, or maybe I was drifting in and out of sleep, but eventually, I started seeing things in the darkness. The demons that were making me lie awake. I'm paralyzed where I lay and I want to move, I want to leave and get out of this room. I don't feel safe with those figures so close, so near from where I'm at. But I'm bound to this bed, and my heart won't stop beating so hard that I feel like it can be heard throughout the Castle.

The figures get closer to me, now I really start to shake and tremble. I want to run, I want to be far from this place. But all I can do is watch as they get closer to me. One touches my face as the other stares at me from above. This one has a real grip on me, he says 'sh', again, and I think he's about to stab me. He grabs something out of the other person's hand and he brings it closer to me. The object shines in the evening sunlight. I can feel that my time is up, but I don't want it to be. And then he puts the item in my hand, and for a moment, I can relax. But I don't know what it is, and before I could find out, a drop of something goes in my mouth and I'm out like a dead mouse. What just happened to me?