Lily pressed her back into the corner. The rough stone bit into her flesh. She'd screamed until needles of fire had torn through her vocal cords. She'd kicked at the door again and again, to no avail. Mustering all of her will she calmed down, focused on form and energy. Kicked again and heard something in her foot give way with a gut-wrenching snap. The pain found its way to her mind and she screamed again, falling to the floor where she cracked her head against the uneven stone.

Screaming gave way to sobbing. Sobbing led to whimpering. Whatever had broken was already healing. This body was not as the same fragile shell she had lived in. She could be hurt but not killed. Injuries resolved themselves nearly instantaneously.

She learned about her new abilities when her captors had dragged her into this cell. They broke her bones to hear them crack. They stabbed her with long, jagged, black stone knives and laughed at her shrieks of agony. She'd almost managed to wrestle herself free by using the momentum of one of her attackers to throw herself over the head of another. When they caught her, they tore out her eyes to slow her down.

Yet here she sat, her vision more clear than it had ever been in life, despite the dim lighting in her hellish prison.

This place was hellish, but she remained convinced it was not Hell. Despair, sadness, and a bitter, lonely separation from something she'd never before consciously realized she was connected to were in the air in this place. And yet, for all that, she had hope that she would be able to escape, to rescue her son, to find her way out. Perhaps her hope was irrational, but it was hope none-the-less.

She couldn't imagine there was hope in Hell.

Or maybe Hell was hoping for eternity and never realizing your dreams.

No, such thoughts would get her nowhere. She ran her hands over her legs, stretched them above her head. Her body responded, strong and fluid. She'd never been so strong.

Even though she'd done it a thousand times already, she let her gaze roam the room, looking for any useful bit of information. It had to be a cave, just a space, blasted into solid rock. Everything was black rock. No mortared seems ran along the walls. No window broke the surface. The only light came through the square cut into the thick wood and steel door. Metal bars crossed the space too close together for her to even slip a hand through.

She'd seen the door on the way in; six inches thick with a core of steel. It had been made to hold captives far stronger than she.

Two wide, flat metal bars lay across the outside of the door in brackets bolted to the stone. The lock could not be broken.

A little rectangle, maybe six inches tall and twelve inches wide was cut into the bottom of the door. Presumably someone would shove food through there at some point.

Idly, she wondered what would happen if a person who could not die refused to eat. Would she go mad from eternal starvation? If they brought food, how could she trust it? It was all too easy to imagine them poisoning her, laughing as she retched. Her mind reeled against the swirling thoughts.

Keep hold of hope.

She stared at the little hole in the door.

There was no way a person could fit through that space, but if it had been cut there, there couldn't be any steel in the space directly around it, could there? She drew closer and lay on the ground, examining the space.

No metal shown through.

She rose to her feet and stared at the rectangle of light. Several slow, deep breaths brought silence to her mind. In a flash of motion, she spun three hundred and sixty degrees and let her foot slam into the door, just at the edge of the rectangle. A tiny piece of wood splintered off.

Daggers of pain shot through her leg. Her foot throbbed. She breathed through it until the throbbing stopped. Pushing her fear into a dark corner of her mind, she repeated the action with a similar result. The third time, and entire chunk came free.

Her heart leapt in victory. "Hold on, baby boy. Mommy's coming," she said, preparing to kick again.