Louder.
I forced myself to sit up, even as blackness crept into the edges of my vision. A wave of nausea hit me and I struggled to stand, my legs giving way beneath me. Bracing myself against the floor instead, I held my breath trying to listen.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
It was coming from underneath me, a relentless tapping. I pressed my cheek to the cool granite and a slight vibration rippled across my face. I jerked back.
Scratch, scratch.
It seemed to be coming from the opposite corner of the room, near the window—a sliver of space in the stone that was no more a window than a cat was a lion. I crept slowly toward that corner, the vibration intensifying with every inch I moved.
The noise went from a soft tap to an all-out thud, a cracking against rock. I yelped and scrambled back, every cut and burn along my thighs screaming in torment.
The ground burst open, fragments of the floor flinging every which way, the sound like splintering earth.
I cried out and wrapped my arms around my head as debris flew in my direction and small shards of stone peppered my skin. A large piece of rock bounced off my shoulder and I picked it up, arming myself.
This was clearly no rat.
Like the squeezing of mango flesh out of its skin, a human headerupted from the ground. I suffocated a surprised scream and hurled my rock, every thought emptying from my brain as I stared at the face of another person staring back at me from the floor of my cell.
“Ah, shit,” the girl said as she lifted her eyes to look around the room.
Two
“What are you?” I whispered as a girl about my age lifted herself from the dark hole where the floor had once been. “Are you a ghoul? Finally come to devour me?”
“I’m not a very cunning ghoul if I had to get imprisoned myself to steal your soul.” Her eyes roved over me, a frown deepening her face. “And you look awful. You’d think I’d find healthier humans to feast on.”
She was shorter than me, with curly dark hair that hung wildly about her shoulders, dirty and matted like an animal. I pet my own and wondered what I looked like after so many months. In the early days of my imprisonment I’d braided it down my back to keep it manageable, but now I’d given up trying to look presentable. Caring about my appearance meant I had someone to look presentable for, instead of four vacant gray walls.
The girl’s cheeks hung from her, like the flesh had been sucked from her bones. But if the rest of her looked dead and ghoulish, her eyes were like a crackling fire.
“I really thought I was close this time.” She raked her filthy hands over her face.
I glanced at her fingernails, thick with dirt. “You’re digging out of prison,” I said slowly.
The girl stopped pacing and turned to look at me. “Quick one, aren’t you?”
My face twisted into a scowl. “Forgive me if the sight of another prisoner breaking through the floor was startling.” I was surprised I still had the capacity for sarcasm. “It’s been a year since I’ve talked to someone other than Thohfsa or the guards.”
I wondered if I’d finally lost my mind and was sitting here talking to myself, imagining another person.
She looked at me, assessing. “Try three.”
Three years. I exhaled through my teeth. Three years was a long time to be alone, surrounded by stone walls and the smell of human filth.
But soon enough, that would be me.
I glanced up at her through my tangled hair. This girl had managed to get beyond her prison door, something I had only done once and it ended in utter failure.
“How did you manage it? Escape?” I gestured to the mess she’d made of the floor.
“Well, I didn’t quite do it, did I? I ended up here instead of outside. A year of digging and I’m in an even worse cell than the one I started in.” She sniffed the air. “With a worse smell too.”
I laughed, the sound cackling out of me and going so unnaturally long I was sure I appeared unhinged. I cleared my throat and gestured to my wounds. “I wasn’t expecting visitors. Otherwise, I would have cleaned up.”
The girl grimaced. “Thohfsa do that to you?”
