She crushed the rose in her palm, her fingers ripping it apart like gnawing teeth. She opened the rose to find it in pink little pieces. Gently she blew the pieces away from her, as she watched them fall to the ground.

From the dark depths of her cell, there was little else to do. She had learned long ago that there was little else to hope for too, as days turned into nights which turned into months that seemed to drag on for eons.

There was only the small window in the corner of her cell that gave her any hope at all. It offered up a small shaft of light in the midst of darkness. It was from there that the rose had drifted in there in the first place, and she had crushed it.

She sighed, feeling the world be plopped on her shoulders like a bag of boulders. When she was a little girl, her father would grip her fingers, look her straight in the eye and tell her that she could never give up hope. He told her that one day their country would be freed from its oppressors. Yet how was she expected to keep up hope here, in the dank corners of her cell?

He was here no longer to give her hope and he would never be there again. She clutched her chest as the agony came like a burst of flame scorching her skin.

She had watched the interrogators beat him bloody as she had stood helplessly from the doorway. And then… Then once they had gleaned him of every worthwhile piece of information, they had shot him.

Hunger pangs slammed into her like knives shoved in her stomach. Shouldn't it be time for them to send the loaf of bread through the slot? Her throat was burning too, for it had been just as long since she had drink too.

When she commanded the rebel army, she had tables of food offered up to her. She had failed though and now this loaf of bread was all she had to look forward to.

After what seemed like eons, the bread and water came through the slot. She grabbed it greedily, the bread crumbling down in her hands. She picked up the crumbs off the ground; she then grabbed the water, slurping it down like a dog at its water bowl. When she had finished, the ache in her stomach was still there but that tiny bit of food was all she was going to have.

Was it ever going to get better? She tried to keep the fire in her candle burning brightly but it flickered.

She put her arms around her knees and drew them to her chest. Things may get better but they were not going to get better that day. At the moment, her oppressors were still winning.