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Layla didn't know much of how she'd been taken to the slave establishment as she slipped through consciousness on and off after the vampire in the black cape had injected some sort of vile into her neck.

There was the sound of barking orders, horses hooves and a carriage moving through rocky path.

It felt like eons with her in a semi-concious state but when her consciousness finally returned completely, she was locked in a tiny cell, her body slump against the stone floor.

Rubbing her eyes, Layla tried to sit upright through the groginess in her head. Her eyes adjusted to the sparse lighting in the cell and she took a long scared breath when she realized where she actually was.

The slave establishment.

Ursula had sold her.

Terror clawed at her being and panic flooded her veins.

Her head whisked left to right trying to find any semblance of an escape route. She didn't. There was only the little cell and endless amount of darkness in the corridor outside. She heard a few screams, a few sobs, a few cries of mercy.

It just made her fear accelerate.

Tears of panic pricked her eyes washing away the disbelief of what Ursula had done.

She had to get out of he-

"You're awake," A slow dragging vicious voice drawled as the door to the cell swished open.

It was the black caped vampire from earlier. His eyes were trained on her face again before it slid down the length of her body in a way that made Layla's skin crawl.

She scooted to the back of the cell against the cement wall, as faraway from the man as she could.

The vampire's lips stretched into a grin that made Layla shudder. She held her breath as he took one step closer after another, his expression twisting to a perverse eagerness.

"Let's test you, royal blood." He said his hand coming down to touch her face once he was in front of her.

Test you? What did that mean?

Layla blanched away from his touch and the vampire's eyes narrowed. His hand slid to grab her arm and he attempted to yank her off the crouched position she sat in.

"No." Layla mumbled standing her ground, "I won't go anywhere with you."

The narrowed eyes flashed a bright red and the vampire's grip on her arm tightened gruesomely, "GET. UP."

The warning in his voice made Layla's heart thump with wild fear. She shook her head and tried to ward his hand of off her.

The man's other hand grabbed a fistful of Layla's hair and yanked her face up to look at him, "I will tell you one last time, get up."

But Layla didn't agree. She knew whatever this 'testing' was held no good. She couldn't let him take her anywhere.

Despite the panic and the throbbing pain in her scalp by the way the man gripped her hair, she willed the little powers she knew how to use.

Within seconds, her nails grew longer and sharper and taking the opportunity, she scratched at the vampire's face.

The man made a sound between a hiss and a growl but let her go in the pain of the wound inflicted by her nails. Layla tried to run to the furthest corner of the cell. Her gaze found the still open cell door and she ran.

She ran out of it as fast as her siren agility could take her, she ran through the end number of cells lined up in a straight line through the dungeon.

"Guards! Catch her!" The vampire's voiced boomed in the entirety of the light-less corridor.

Layla didn't know where she was running. The dungeon seemed to stretch on forever and forever. But she kept moving forward.

Although not minutes after the vampire's yell, three guards obstructed her path. She turned around to run the other side only to find more three of them in front of her.

Heart in her throat, "Please let me go," She begged her eyes watering.

She tried to pull at her powers again but this time before she could do anything, two of the guards stepped forward. One grabbed her arms and the other clasped silver handcuffs wound with Rowan berry plants around it on her wrists.

Rowan berries.

It was dangerous to merfolks. They couldn't use their powers with it on them.

No no no.

Layla wriggled violently against the two guards' grip. But they just held her tighter. More two joined holding her legs while the first two held her arms.

"Leave me!" Layla yelled thrashing wildly as they carried her back towards the cell where the sickening vampire awaited.

When they reached the cell whilst all her begging, she didn't cry out in pain when they threw her on the hard stone floor mercilessly, she didn't thrash as four guards pinned each of her arms and legs down to the ground with her front and her cheek pressed against the stone floor.

Her eyes were rooted to the long black leather whip the black hooded vampire held and the maddening rage in his eyes, the scratch she'd inflicted on his face made him look more terrifying.

Layla's skin turned cold, her heart pounded against her chest in terror as the man took a step forward, as he raised the whip in his hand.

No no no. He wouldn't-

Icy snapping pain streaked across her back from her shoulder down to her waist. She thrashed against the hold of the guards, a painful scream leaving her mouth.

"That's what you get for defying me, bitch." The vampire growled before bringing down the whip again.

She could hear the breaking of her skin as the leather hit her back this time, she could feel the throbbing burning pain, she could feel her vision go blurry with the cries that erupted out of her. She could feel every lash of the leather against her back as he whipped her again and again and again until her brain had start to go numb from the pain.

When the vampire stopped whipping, Layla felt her consciousness start to slip.

She sensed the vampire move closer to her until his stale breath hit her ear, "Now let's test you, shall we?"

Horror clawed at her being. She fought through the whiteness in her vision to focus.

What more did he want to test?!

"Strip her." The vampire ordered stepping back.

Layla understood then.

She understood as she saw the vampire remove his cloak and undress out of each of his garment. She understood as the guards who held her down, turned her around and started stripping her clothes. She understood the sickening truth of what was to happen as the vampire approached her with a perverse gleam in his eyes.

What had she ever done to Ursula?

Why? Just why did she have to sell her?

Was this how she was to pay for trying to stab her sister?

All the fight left Layla's body and she shut her eyes not being able to bare to see what was going to happen to her. What they were going to do to her.

She was just fifteen. She didn't deserve this. No one did.

Layla let her mind and soul slip into a numb voidness as hands roamed her body, she let herself loose in a dark abyss of her mind as he touched her all the way wrong and she let herself feel nothing as she welcomed the slipping consciousness and took it as her only mercy left.

She did know what they did though. She knew.

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Layla had turned into a shell of herself within a week in the slave establishment.

Sometimes it'd be the vampire, sometimes someone else equally horrible or more, sometimes the vampire would toss her away to someone else once he's done with her.

Each day they did the same thing. It was as if they found a sickening pleasure in whipping her then. . . .

Layla didn't let the thought finish.

Her dull lifeless silver eyes remained glued on the moth that crawled up the cement wall, her mind filled with a dangerous numbness.

Every part of her body ached. Every wound burned like it'd been rubbed by salt. She could smell the scent of her own blood from a week ago still linger in the air and it should've made her feel sick, but she felt nothing.

She watched the moth move to a corner where shattered glass pieces lay strewn on the ground. The man who'd visited today had thrown a champagne glass at her head on his arrival because he was angry. She'd pushed the broken pieces to a corner with her bare hands once he'd left after he'd had his way with her.

Now the moth sat atop one of the pieces then jumped to another. In its jumping, it got trapped in between two larger pieces.

Layla tilted her head to the side as the moth fluttered its wings furiously and helplessly trying to get out of the glass cage it was trapped in. If it didn't get out fast enough, it'd die from exhaustion and efforts which would just go in vain.

Something about its action reminded Layla of the way she'd thrashed against the guards hold the first time she came here. It reminded her of what happened every night after that in a fresh vivid nightmare.

She didn't know why she did what she did next.

As the moth flew violently to get out of the glass pieces holding it captive, Layla rose from her crouched position. Ignoring all and any semblance of pain, she picked up one of the smaller glass pieces that weren't trapping the insect and stabbed the moth.

Layla saw the the insect flutter its wings twice before falling dead.

"Easy death is a mercy." She whispered to the dead creature before her eyes went to the larger pieces of glass.

Absent-mindedly, she picked up one edgy piece and bought it to her left wrist which were still handcuffed.

Testing the sharpness of it, she pressed it a little feeling nothing at all as it sliced a bit of her skin, "Isn't it?" She asked the dead moth, eyeing the trail of blood that leaked down her wrist.

She pulled the glass piece back only to draw another line on her wrist, this one deeper. But as more blood trailed down her wrist and the pain finally shot through the endless numbness, a cry of horror escaped Layla's lips.

She threw the glass away as if it was a lethal weapon aimed at her. And at that time, it indeed was.

The train of where her thoughts had almost led her to terrified her.

Layla took one step after another away from the glass pieces and crouched down against the wall again, her eyes wide and horrified at her own actions.

Bringing her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her knee caps.

Shutting her eyes, she let the tears flow freely as sob after sob broke through her throat.

Rocking her body back and forth, "Please....let....me....go." She begged, the sobs growing louder and her body hurting everywhere.

As days passed to weeks, weeks to months, months to years, years to decades and decades to centuries, her pleas were lost among the many sobs along the dungeons.

Layla had lost herself among them too. Lost herself until she stopped begging, stopped hoping, stopped feeling anything except voidness.

-------------END OF FLASHBACK----------

Layla let a tear slip down the side of her cheek at the nightmare of a past she had.

No one had ever heard her. No one ever came.

No one.

Not even Marilla.

It was Charlotte who'd gotten her out of that Hell hole.

When Charlotte had bought Layla, she'd been an empty vessel. She didn't know what to feel and what to not feel. She'd just been a soulless creature who saw things, heard people but rarely spoke or reacted to anything.

Charlotte had been frustrated herself on what to do with her. Even if Charlotte asked anything, nothing made sense to Layla.

And then annoyed, the witch had started her manipulating game.

She'd whispered to Layla every night about how badly she was wronged by Marilla. About how it was all Marilla's fault.

Charlotte had whispered how it was Marilla's fault because if she hadn't taken the throne that belonged to Layla, she would've never been taken to the slave establishment. Never been thrown out of the kingdom she was to rule.

Charlotte had narrated how if Layla helped her with something, Layla could take back what belonged to her. Take back the throne and rule and have a lot of power.

Layla had known Charlotte wanted to evoke jealousy and greed out of her, that Charlotte wanted to use her for her own motives, she'd sensed it in the witch's every word but what Charlotte was actually successfully awakening was anger and hatred.

Layla's anger had stemed little by little with each of Charlotte's words. The anger had grown and fostered with each passing day until Layla clung to that single feeling she felt after centuries of voidness.

She clung to the anger so fiercely as if it was the strongest and only string of survival she left. She had let it bloom and bloom so that she could feel something. Even if it was burning anger for everything wrong that happened to her.

In the back of her mind, she'd always wished, hoped someone would come looking for her. Someone would get her out of the Hell hole Ursula had thrown her into. If no one, she'd trusted Marilla would.

The love she and Marilla shared for each other couldn't be tainted by a stunt Layla pulled out of recklessness. It wasn't that weak.

But she'd been wrong.

She'd been so very wrong.

Marilla had lived her life just fine as a queen. She hadn't spent centuries being trapped in the slave establishment, she hadn't been tortured and raped and hadn't almost killed herself because she couldn't take it anymore.

While with every passing day Layla's hope had slipped little by little until there was none left, Marilla had been living jovially, ruling the kingdom, ruling the folks who nauseated her.

That day when Ursula had dragged Layla along, they'd seen where she was taking them. They most probably knew what Ursula was going to do. But they'd just stood-by throwing leers and might've even laughed heftily when she was sold off.

They were all sick. Each one of them.

And Layla hated them with everything in her being.

She was angry at all of them. At Marilla over everyone else.

Marilla had broken the very strong and deep trust Layla had on her. She'd broken it that very moment when she'd not even looked for Layla all those centuries.

Some twisted part of Layla had been happy when Charlotte had somehow framed Marilla for revealing the entryway to Helvon. For whatever reason Marilla had done it, Layla had thought she deserved the blame of the Queen's capture and Laira's fake death thrown on her.

Layla never wanted that sickening throne which would let her rule over the people who nauseated her. But then she'd observed after helping Charlotte capture Queen Annabeth how Marilla had grown to care for her kingdom.

And Layla wanted to take everything Marilla cared for. Just like how everything had been taken from her.

Heck, she'd lost herself in that establishment. She didn't even know how the old Layla was before she was captured.

Atleast Marilla wouldn't have that fate.

No matter how angry, Layla would never wish enslavement in the slave establishment upon her worst enemy. No one deserved it.

But oh, she would take revenge from all of them.

She didn't care if anyone died along her quest. She didn't care if Marilla died either. None of them had cared about her when she was gone for centuries, why should she?

She was going to take everything from Marilla and make those merfolks pay.

And it would all start with taking that throne they all bowed to.

No matter in what means, she'd end every hurdle in her path if need be.

Rubbing at the corner of her eyes where the tear dried, Layla stealthily pulled out the crystal dagger hid under her side of the bed.

Gripping it in her hand, Layla's gaze slid to Dilin.

He knew way too much. He would mess all her plans. He is a hurdle. And she ought to clear them all.

And without a single thought as he slept soundlessly, Layla lifted her hand before bringing it down with enough force that the crystal dagger pierced right through Dilin's heart.

Layla is messed up. On a very LARGE scale. And at this point, even I don't know how to fix her. Although that doesn't mean I don't feel horrible about what happened to her.

The memory relapse of this chapter was heavy to write. I felt immensely sad half the day about it. But then aight, a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do no matter how sad😭

And I want to break every fingers of that vampire person and torture him and every guy who'd done a sin as grave as his. They deserve the worst. It's sad to even think how the ones who'd suffered something like Layla (abuse or sexual harassment) in real life must've been through. I hope they find the courage to get through it and feel happiness again!

Now serious talk aside,

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I hope I was able to piece all the emotions properly in this chapter!🤧