Chapter 1 - The Anatomy of a Frame
The air inside the compartment tasted of dry rot and ancient dust.
It was a pitch-black wooden space, narrow enough to crush the breath from a pair of small lungs.
Two tiny wrists were bound tightly together in front of a chest.
Thick, rough natural-fiber rope bit violently into the pale, fragile skin, leaving deep, raw indentations.
The child holding those bound hands up to the darkness was barely four years old.
She wore a light pink cotton top.
Her blonde hair was pulled into two neat pigtails, secured by small, immaculate pink bows.
Her face was flushed a dark, feverish red.
Heavy, thick trails of tears stained her cheeks, catching the faintest, softest sliver of ambient light leaking through the wood.
She threw her bound hands forward.
The thick rope slammed against the deep, shadowy brown panels of the wooden wall.
Thump. Thump.
Her small chest heaved, pulling in the stale, suffocating air.
"Please open the door."
Her voice was a ragged, wet whisper, completely stripped of breath.
"Please."
May you like
She pulled her bound wrists back and struck the wood again.
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