You are nobody.

You are unwanted.

You don't deserve to exist.

The words swirl around her head, just like they have for years now. The same words the woman whispered in her ear as she bound the coarse fabric over her terrified eyes. The blindfold's still rough against her skin despite the many tears that have blotted the surface over the years.

She doesn't bother pulling against the tight bindings that suspend her in the air. She remembers the first year, when she kept pulling against that damn straitjacket, knowing, knowing she couldn't get out, but still trying because she needs to get away from those words--

The words, the same words taunt her, tells her you're nobody, you're unwanted, you don't deserve to exist over and over again until she's screaming and whimpering into the soundproof mask that covers her mouth, hoping to God that someone could hear her, knowing that no one will and no one cared.

It's been a long while since she could feel anything but the pain of the words seeping into her. It's been a long time since she held the sheer concept of days and months and years. It's been a long time since the words were said.

They still hurt.

In the beginning, she told the words to herself constantly, holding onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, she would adjust to the pain until it meant nothing to her. At this point, she's given up on hope. What hope is there for an unwanted nobody who doesn't deserve to live? Maybe she's just weak. Maybe she's too weak to get used to the pain. Or maybe this is normal. She almost laughs. If this, all this was normal, she'd have no hope to start with.

She doesn't think she's weak, though. She's never been weak, even before, when she was living in the fantasy that she was wanted, she was somebody. When the woman had captured her, she'd barely winced at the deep scoring knife cuts the woman made all across her body, presumably trying to break her the old way.

So, not weak or normal. She wondered what it was.

Crreeeeeaaaaaaak.

Her ears scream in protest as the first sound she's heard in years echoes through the darkness. Instinctively, she tries to speak, say "Hello?", but the mask is still there, like always, and her throat burns from the effort to merely speak. She doubles over coughing, not that she could move an inch. The last time she tried she ended up ripping up her skin on the nails driven deep into her flesh, the same nails that held the straitjacket down on her.

Some strange burning feeling thrums in her chest as the sound continues, louder and louder by each passing moment. She doesn't recognize it. The warmth, the ferocity, the fire. It's desperate and yet so welcoming, like it wants to take her into its arms. She leans into its flaming touch, ignoring the pain of the burn, just wanting to feel the arms around her, holding her like it wanted her, giving her—

Hope.

Her eyes flare open, only to meet darkness, but still, still, still, the faint echo of hope returns to her. The creaking continues and hope intensifies, filling her whole body up with the warmth, the fire, the chance-

The creaking stops.

She feels the warmth abruptly freeze, as if it were a child caught touching something she wasn't allowed to touch. Her heart beats in erratic pulses, suspense keeping her in such a state. She wonders who it was that emitted the creaking sound, the one that filled her with hope.

Footsteps, slow and unsure, reverberate in the cold stone room. She hears each and every clack of what sounds like boots, each sound thrumming in her ears, crescendoing in sound and speed until--

She swears she feels a breath tickle her face. 

Her ears, so sensitive from all those years of silence, pick up on the sharp inhale the person takes and she mirrors it, inadvertently. The warmth pulses lightly, fluttering, waiting for his or her next move. A bead of sweat falls into her eye, and she blinks it away, almost scared to even do that, in fear that it might just prove this was all a hallucination.

"Bloody hell." Male. Adult. 

Her salvation? 

She'd have to see.