Like Lightning

✤

HER BREATH QUICKLY caught up with her conscious and her blinking slowed down. Jolene blankly stared into the eyes of the old, unsteady door that acted as a barrier between herself and that voice.

The voice that had momentarily paralyzed her. 

"Is anyone there?" 

The short snicket of dialogue echoed and buzzed through her head.

She didn't answer, she only chewed down on her red lip and dug each of her brittle fingernails into the fleshy pad of her thumb. She had hoped to hear the sound of the person's footsteps fading away from behind the door, so that she could be sure that she was still safe in that dusty old room. But, Jolene was faced with the unknown being yet again, and she knew she could not turn back and run away from it this time.

"It's stopped," Spoke the anonymous. "You're people... Those people... they're under my control now."

Jolene didn't know whether to provide a reply, but she was sure that either way she chose, the male behind the door would surely make his way into the room eventually - it sounded that way.

She heard a gruff murmur. 

"This door is locked from the inside," Ah, this man comes from the west, she dodged her thoughts.

"So, if you don't speak now, I'm gonna have to break it down," He threatened. 

So this mystery man can read minds now, obviously.

But she should just save her voice - he's going to do it anyway.

"I'm not with them," Her breath hitched, surprising herself by the sound of her own voice.

Even though she didn't know what the man looked like, Jolene could practically see the look on his face and the way he quite literally paused. She wasn't planning on saying anymore than that, though. 

IN THE ABSENCE of a response, Jolene assumed he had vanished.

He probably wanted to inform his people about the kidnapped child who was locked in one of the bedrooms. The girl huffed and sat back down beside the crooked bed that she grew accustomed to over the course of the last few days. Her eyes never left the door, and she sort of hoped he actually had broken it down. Just so that, even if he was danger and there were no means of escape within these ship walls, she would have been able to mentally tick that note, and it would be over with. The possibility of what might have happened to her afterwards didn't even matter to her.

Jolene still waited for Nicolas to come back. She knew he wasn't returning anytime soon, but she really hoped whoever that man was hadn't done anything to hurt him. After all, you could barely call Nicolas one of them. He didn't deserve to be punished for something that wasn't in his hands to deal with. It just wasn't fair, and the girl felt sympathy towards the poor boy.  

She didn't even notice when she awoke from her nap that she had even fallen into one. But, she felt extremely well rested, and some of her strength came back, but she was still lacking nutrition and the ache in her stomach just became more intense; unbearable.

Then, as if the universe had listened, she found herself gazing at the thin plank of wood that had been slid under the heavy door. It wasn't the splinters that rimmed the plank that caught her attention, though. More the generous offering of the most glorious, sweet-looking sweetcorn she had ever lay her eyes upon. Next to the yellow corn, a single piece of spam. If someone was to receive this in a restaurant before 2010, they would have pulled a face and sent it back to the kitchen, but in this moment, Jolene's thoughts were overtaken. 

Wasting no time, she sprung out of her mesmerised state and picked up the wood that held the food. 

She brought it back to the bed, her eyes never leaving it as if it would have disappeared otherwise. She then scraped the sweetcorn into her mouth, barely chewing, just wanting, hoping for the pain in her stomach to go away. 

It did.

And she was more than satisfied after she had savoured the dish as much as possible. It would surely be a while after that before she became hungry again; even if it was just scraps, it was something. 

She would rest easy that night. She was sure of it. 

She didn't bother checking on the few splinters that made their way beneath the skin of her fingers, because she didn't care. She just dropped the plank onto the sheet and rested back against the frame. 

Jolene inhaled heavily and shut her eyelids. A lot seemed to have gone through her brain before the few seconds were over and she began to exhale. She thought about Nicolas again, and what he was doing, if he was doing anything, she didn't like to think like that though. The man's voice still echoed through her brain. So did her people, and her father. Charles wasn't really her father, but she always thought of him that way. Everyone else thought he was, anyway.

There was a lot more she could have thought about: how she even ended up on this boat, what had happened to everyone else in her village, who the people were that had somehow made their way through the pirates. The list went on, but she put her mind at rest. She didn't want to waste moments worrying herself to her toes, so she didn't. 

I must say, though, finding a distraction was quite a task. Her eyes raced around the room over and over and the only thing she found that kept her busy were the small plaits in her hair that formed between her fingers. 

She continued making braids in her hair until she heard lighter footsteps outside the door than before. 

She tilted her head towards her left shoulder and paused her little game of hairdressers.

The footsteps seemed seemed hesitant, like they were trying to keep themselves quiet. The sound of shoes on the floor paced around for a while before distinctively placing themselves dramatically in front of the door. 

Jolene heard a throat being cleared and quickly let the artwork in her hair fall away. 

"Can I come in?" The new voice said. 

It was a boy.

Her eyebrows raised themselves and she straightened her back. "Uh, no." 

"Unlock the door," He rephrased.

"No."

Was this bitch for real?

Nothing more was said from outside, so Jolene spoke up.

"Where's my friend?" She asked, hoping for a real answer. Obviously she was referring to Nicolas, but he didn't know that. The thought of the poor boy being hurt haunted her. Her plan to stay quiet had quickly been altered, as she knew the only way to get the answers she desired was to actually ask them. 

The voice of the new boy spoke again. "Who?"

It wasn't a dumb question; he really did not know who the girl was asking for, so he became clearly frustrated at the dumb answer she prepared for him:

"Nicolas," 

He rolled his eyes at the door like a child, taking advantage of the lack of vision between the two sides.

She knew from the silence that he had no clue who she was talking about, and she grew flushed with embarrassment after realising how thick-skulled she sounded just then. 

"I mean, he has wavy brown hair, about 5'5, maybe 5'6, uh... he talks like he's from the eighteen hundr--"

"Nope, never heard of him,"

Die.

Jolene huffed loud enough for the stranger outside to hear and rubbed her eyes in frustration. She then decided to play fair and just didn't respond after that, expecting him to overwhelm her with more annoying words. He didn't, though. Gave up, I guess. 

SHE COULDN'T TELL YOU the exact time at which the boy left without saying anything, but she couldn't care; he was gone. 

A while passed though, enough time for her to consider bashing her head multiple times onto the floor until it went through. She was really bored. Bickering with the boy probably spared her biting her fingers off from pure ennui. She wouldn't wish him back, though. Not in a million years. 

The sweet taste of spam and sweetcorn lingered between her teeth and surfed her tongue. That alone was a distraction from the real life around her, if you could even call it life. Her headache still haunted her temples and the base of her skull, and if she squinted, she could make out the little coloured worms in her vision. 

Jolene did that a lot; examine those funny creature-looking things that overruled the majority of her eyesight. A game, she called it. One by one, Jolene would look at a specific moving shape and make an image out of it. Sometimes they would turn into faces. Faces of people she didn't think she had seen before, but clearly had. 

After some time went by, the lonely girl found herself stuck in a dream, but she wasn't asleep.  She was quite the opposite. Every sensation around her she felt, each fly that went by was like a gush of wind beneath her nose. She was suddenly aware of the stray strand of hair that had been poking her eye for the past 12 minutes. 

Inside of her dream though, was magical. There was nothing there, but everything all at once. It was an ordinary forest, a forest beholding the tallest of trees and the prettiest of wild flowers that were being birthed from the dirt before her eyes. She could almost smell the earthy scent that would have been, if it was real.

Her hyperawareness continued to puzzle her; she could tell that the scene that played in front of her didn't at all match her surroundings. But, all she wanted to do in that moment was breathe. She wanted to breathe the crisp air that swam through the leaves of green. She wished to breathe in the song of the birds that completed the picture. She just wanted to fell alive. 

But she couldn't.

She could not feel the wind tickling her eyelashes. She could not touch the dewy grass that sparkled in the refection of her icy eyes. She couldn't do anything but watch.

I don't know whatever possessed her to stand up, but that she did. Her bare feet scraped the ground she wished to be earth. Her body making its way over to the empty drawers. With hands all filthy, she lifts a rusty candle holder that appears to her as a pretty berry branch of a bush in her awake-dream. 

As she furrows her eyebrows at the grimy texture of the 'berry branch', the cool metal shocks her. Jolene runs her free hand down the side of the candle holder and grimaces at the peeling rust that smears onto her digits. 

"I'm Carl, by the way," The sudden voice broke the silence.

Taken aback, Jolene yelped and jumped out of her fantasy before she threw herself along with the heavy candle holder onto the wooden flooring, creating a thumping sound. 

She grinded he teeth together and tensed her jaw, almost preparing to spring forward to pounce and attack the unfaced boy. 

She theatrically forced herself up and slammed the berry branch-candleholder down onto the cushioned bed. 

The boy proceeded, "Now you say yours," 

As she hissed at the sharp pain in her back that would soon grow into a bruise, she shook her head. 

Jolene managed to pull herself together so that she could curse him off. 

"You can't just do that you bastard!" Called the girl.

"I'm Carl, by the way," He repeated in a much louder and aggressive tone than before. He didn't even bother asking if she was okay after he had frighted her half way to her grave. 

With every excruciatingly painful word that cringed it's what out of his big mouth, Jolene had to restrain herself from barging her way through that damn door and knocking all of his teeth out. One. By. One.

Abusing the lack of visual and physical contact between the two, he just kept pushing her further and further towards the edge of Mount Patience. 

No, this is what he wants me to do. Thought Jolene.

He wants me to break down my walls and pounce at him, just to lure me out and attack me. I know how this part goes.

He was probably sent down by that other man to verbally torture his way into my personal weaknesses. 

A/N

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEN!!!! aka my fav time of year. i took my little sister out trick or treating so now im eating her sweets cause shes not old enough to. its really good 😋. anyway, more important news.. MY. HAIR. IS. BLUE. bruh... it was supposed to be black but its blue soooo.... it looks goood anyway. i dressed up as eric draven cause ive been wanting to for a few years now but i did it. no even knew who i was tho sad face sad face sad face... i really hoped you liked this chapter cause ive been on and off writing and editing it but here you go ig...

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