"Get some sleep, tomorrow's gonna be a long day." A pale skinned middle aged jailer pushed me into the dark jail cell, feet stumbling on themselves as I caught my weight with my trembling hands when my knees hit the ground.

"Wait! Listen!" I quickly turned around and tried to call the woman back but she disappeared into the halls.

My hazy mind slowly began to comprehend everything I felt as I sat myself on the cold concrete floor. There wasn't any use in fighting back at that very moment. Coupled with my grieving over James' condition and never seeing him again were emotions of frustration and agony. In a matter of hours, I was officially stripped of my freedom, my life, my willpower and my rights. Everyday I used to encourage myself to hold on a little longer, that it can't get worse than this but it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

A day ago, I was the only member of my family left to have never entered a prison cell.

And now.....here I am.

The apple never falls far from the tree.

Just a day ago, I had savaged the little hope I was left to try and move on with life. When I thought of James, he wasn't a dying man. Look at us now. What are we even left with now?!

Once again, we're all alone. Just like how the story started. Hence proven, how it starts_is how it goes.

Nothing good blossoms from anything done in secrecy. From anything built on lies. I hate to think that we did this to ourselves. Life would've been different if we just did the right thing. If we stayed away from each other. If we never surrender to our desires and temptations and our whims.

God! None of this would've happened if we never met each other.

I can't help but think I'm cursed. There's no explanation that fits my level of unlucky. Some people are just meant to be the less fortunate, and unfortunately for me, I'm amongst them. I fit the tribe, if it existed. The ones who get left behind. The ones who aren't worthy of love that each time they find it...it gets taken away. The ones who never get to accomplish their plans. The ones who try and try and just keep trying but it rarely amounts to anything. It all blooms until it goes pitch black and you can't even see the road ahead.

'It's all gonna be okay' They'd tell us. 'Your time will come. Be patient.'

When?

Where? And how is any of this going to be okay?

I let my scream echo against my throat while my body vibrated with a wave of anger. I screamed and screamed until my body gave out and I was left laying on the floor.

I'm angry.

I'm at my breaking point.

I can't do this. I don't think I can do this.

I hold my chest and catch my breath as my eyes burned from crying for days. The migraine had me praying that the room would get darker than it already was.

I couldn't do anything to help my case. I can't contact my lawyer , I can't call anyone for help. Mister Scott has made it impossible for me to be defended in a country that isn't my own. I wasn't given a fair trail. There wasn't even a legal case with charges filed against me. They just threw me in jail with absolutely nothing. And what's worse, I can't ever see anyone. Not ever.

I'm trapped.

And there's no way out of this.

___________

The next morning came another day of trial for me. Another day of battling battles I never asked for. I was convinced that there's nothing as horrific as the Georgia prisons. It was hell on earth. And everyone in there was a cold hearted monster. They welcome you with the most painful beating of your existence. And they bathe you in sewage waste as you feast with the retched rats of underground tunnels. I fainted three times that day from being overwhelmed with the aching in my heart and the weariness of my body.

And each time I opened my eyes there was something new to punish me with. They were eleven women, and I don't think I'd ever forget their faces as they suffocated me in a water tank twice. They forced me to sleep in the toilets for as long as I can recall that I couldn't smell nor taste anything anymore. I lost my sense of scent and I questioned my medical knowledge on whether the centers for those senses in the brain could be permanently damaged.

All this went on for five solid days.

I'd lost most of my will to live from the humiliation I went through. I reeked of nothing but discharge and vomit and my own blood. And they let me sleep like that for days.

The only think I could think about was - when was I going to die? I would beg them to kill me often when I couldn't bare it anymore. I remember kneeling and pleading that they'd just take my life.

I wasn't so fortunate.

Everyday I'd wake up to hell and I would sleep with nightmares that kept sucking me dry and leaving me horrified of even closing my eyes.

I developed a serious case of dermatitis and that didn't seem to signal them to leave me alone.

Nobody helped me.

I was starting to believe that Mister Scott was paying off somebody somewhere to allow this to happen to me.

And may be I deserved it.

All I could pray for-was for James to be alive and pushing on with his life. He didn't deserve to die. That was all I cared about. My life was no use to me anymore. I didn't want it. But he has a bright future ahead of him. And he can be somebody somewhere and his life isn't meant to be wasted.

______

A week had passed by and life wasn't getting any easier for me. With my injuries, and the overall absence of food, my own body was slowly starting to shut down. I didn't know exactly what I looked like. I could feel my skin with my fingers, I could mark out the scars and the severity of my skin infections. But none of that matters when one is ready to end it all. You don't need to look pretty for the grave.

It wasn't long until I began choking blood from chronic ulcers. If my injuries wouldn't kill me, then those ulcers surely would have.

The women of my nightmares stopped showing up as frequently but when they did so, I would remain hospitalized for days.

I was at my lowest point in life.

The only reason I didn't slit my wrists was because I didn't have it in me. I just couldn't do it. So I only hoped for the ground to swallow me whole.

I remember one particular evening.

That night had changed my entire life forever. It had potential to turn everything upside down and to be honest, it did. They say life is full of surprises. That it can take a ninety degree turn and leave you questioning everything. I was at a point in my life where the only thing I was expecting was for the drip to stop. For the lights to go off and for the days to end. But never did I expect nor anticipate the events that happened that very night.

It's a night that I'd forever imprint into my soul.

I was laying on the prison hospital rooms, my shoulder was budged and I had a huge cut on the side of my arm. I was dosed with morphine because the pain was to immense for me to bare. A nurse that usually attends to me, Lily, young, twenty six years old, sweet, came to me with her hands shaking and holding something in her hands.

Usually she'd be the one to ask me whether or not I'm fine. But the roles had been reversed. "Did something happen to you?" I asked her.

The inmates of this hell hole have a tendency of harming the medical team. It has happened several times. It would've hurt me if they did something to Lily, she's the only thing good to happen to me in this place. She actually gives me food and water when she gets the chance to sneak it in.

"I'm fine." She said dryly.

"Then why are you shaking?"

She looked at whatever she was holding in her hands and gave me a knowing look.

"What is that? What wrong? Am I infected with something else again?" I asked her .....alarmed.

"No, it's not an infection Betty."

"Then what is it?"

And then Lily spoke words that had me crumbling once again. But this time, it wasn't the usual way of falling, I was falling harder than I ever fell since the day I was born. This time I knew I wasn't ever getting back from this. I felt myself rolling with the sinking ship.

"Betty..... you're-" She breathed.

"I'm what? Lilian tell me. You are scaring me right now."

Lily closed her eyes and opened her hands towards me. "You are two weeks pregnant."

_________________