I was afraid of what he planned to do with me. I wanted to know why he took me, why I had been kept his prisoner. I wanted to see him. If he was so bold as to kidnap me, why was he being such a coward now? My patience was thinning. Why wouldn’t he come out to see me?! Did he want me to lose my mind?!

     “You’re a coward! Is this what you plan to do with me?! To make me lose my mind?! Well, I won’t let you! You hear me?! I won’t let you take away all I have!” 

     I looked around, searching for a way out as I’d done a thousand times before. No matter how hard I looked, nothing had changed. The walls were still empty, grey canvases. It spoke tales of heartache and sadness, of a brokenness that was once beautiful.

     Maybe taking a nap will help me. At least I can escape this reality in my dreams. 

     Waking up, the air felt different. The room seemed colder. Goosebumps made themselves present on my arms. The hairs residing on my neck stood up, as if to alert me of a present danger. I looked around. Everything seemed normal. In fact, everything was so in place that I almost missed it. The shadow in the corner of the room was darker than the rest. I wasn’t alone.

     “Who are you?!” 

     I tried to make it seem as if I wasn’t afraid. My voice betrayed me, however, shaking like a leaf. Backing up into the opposite side of the cage was the only thing that I seemed capable of doing. I couldn’t fend this thing off with my powers and I didn’t have enough strength to fight with just my fists.

     It stood there, it’s silence washing over me like ice. This was a being devoid of life, devoid of anything good. That was when it hit me. Death. He finally decided to show. My blood ran cold. He was much more powerful than I had expected. He continued to stand there, giving no answer. He knew I figured it out. That much was certain, if my pale cheeks and wide eyes were any indicator.

     “Do not yell,” a hollow voice breathed.

     He slowly made his way out of the shadows, revealing himself. His black cloak was tattered, mixing with shadows that seemed to swallow him whole. Looking hard enough, I could see the shadows made impressions of faces, mouths contorted with agony. Outside the sleeves, I could see hints of bone instead of fingertips. His face was concealed by the cover of the cloak, as if only an abyss of darkness was waiting inside.

     He walked up to the cage, shadows clinging to his every step. I backed away even further from him, imprinting the bars of the cage into my skin. He stopped at this and tilted his head, like a puppy would do if it were confused. Had he not kidnapped me, I would have found it endearing. He stood there for a minute, staring at me. I could feel the burn of his gaze. I did not dare to look at his face, instead focusing on the ground around me. 

     “Why are you afraid? I only did this to protect you,” he said. 

     Those words angered me. Protect me? I had been held captive for weeks, living on nothing but a few rays of sunlight, and he wanted to protect me?!

     “Protect me?! Protect me from what?! I was fine until you decided to hold me against my will!”

     “What did I say about yelling? Do. Not. Yell. One more time and you will be punished. Severely. As for what I was protecting you from, it was those humans. I’ve watched them hurt you for thousands, millions of years. I am sick and tired of watching them take advantage of all that you’ve created with nothing to give in return. Since you won’t do something about it, I will.”

     I couldn’t believe what he was saying. This was his excuse?! THIS was his reason for kidnapping me?! 

     “LET ME OUT OF HERE!” I didn’t know I could scream that loud. The walls seem to shake from the force of it. My throat started to hurt.

     “That’s it. That was your last chance. I tried to be civil with you and this is how you repay me? You dare bite the hand that feeds you? If you aren’t going to be grateful for my generosity and care then you won’t get anything at all. Don’t come crying until you’ve learned your lesson,” he said.

     After saying this, the shadows in the room began to swirl and rise. They grew bigger and bigger until they began to rise and cover the window, blocking the sunlight that was meant to feed me. My mouth began to dry. I was already parched. How would I survive without sunlight?! I ran towards the bars closest to him.

     “No! Please, I’ve learned my lesson! I swear I won’t yell at you again. Please, let me have my sunlight back!”

     “You need to learn your lesson. Now, be good so that it won’t take as much time. I don’t like punishing you, either.” 

     I felt myself weaken. I couldn’t die because I made this world but this was worse than being erased from existence. It was like starving a man of food and water while making him run all over the world. I could only hope it wouldn’t last long. I didn’t think I could handle it.Tears slowly fell down my cheeks as I slid down the bars and onto the ground. He left without another word. I heard the lock click into place. 

     It had been weeks since that day. I began to weaken and my mental state wasn’t much better. I didn’t know between night and day anymore. I felt myself on the edge of insanity when the door opened. I couldn’t even move off the bed. All I could do was look up. He watched me for a few seconds then slowly moved the shadows away from the window. Immediately, the sun drifted towards me.

     I started to feel myself become stronger. I could feel myself return to my natural color, my mouth began to dampen, and my muscles started to strengthen. I slowly rose off the bed and made my way to him. I looked at him and, even though I hated it, said thank you. I apologised for my behavior and that I wouldn’t do it again.

     I hated myself for becoming weak but I had spent so much time in this cage that it was changing me. I wasn’t the strong-willed girl that didn’t have a care in the world anymore. He made me weak. I hated it. I didn’t like having to rely and depend on him for such basic needs. I couldn’t change it, though. He had control. 

     “I’m sorry I had to do this. I want you to understand that I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I did it because you need to learn to behave. You needed to be punished for your bad behavior. I’m happy that you learned your lesson, though. It seems to have calmed you. If you behave, I’ll give you a reward,” he told me, a hint of a smile in his voice. 

     A reward! Will I be able to get out of here?! How long do I have to behave, though? I just want to leave this place.

     I nodded my head, my mind reeling from the new information. I really hoped he would let me out, if only for a moment. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle more than a few months of this cage. It was beginning to feel cramped. I felt closed in, claustrophobic. I was never one for tight spaces. I liked open fields, not small rooms. He stayed for a few more minutes and then left, having said what he needed to say. When he left, I felt weird. My heart felt a little empty. My happiness dulled. I didn’t know it but I was closer to insanity than I thought. 

     He began to check on me everyday. I would make sure to behave and not step a foot out of line with the hope that he would reward me. In doing so, over the weeks, he created another window for me (I had found out that the room was made out of shadows and the lost souls of the damned) and allowed me ten minutes out of the cage everyday. 

     He would praise me for being good and I felt myself growing to like his company. Being praised for once felt good. I was never praised for my creations before and, often times, was usually insulted by the human race. I felt myself begin to smile when he told me I was doing good and I began talking more. Of course I was still scared of him, but he seemed to be kinder than before. 

     He began to open up to me, too. I felt bad for him. My creations were scared of him. He was always alone, with only evil souls as his company. Maybe that’s why he took me. He was just lonely. As curious as it was, I felt sad. I didn’t like the fact that he went to such lengths because he was lonely and that scared me. I didn’t want to sympathise with my captor. It felt wrong.

     Only a few months later did things change. I began to leave my cage and, on the days I was especially good, he would let me leave the room for a few minutes. Of course I slipped up a few times and was reprimanded but I never went without sunlight. He said that that was only so I would calm down and not disobey him. It was in that time period that I began to care for him more and it seemed as if I had begun to grow feelings for him. 

     One day, when I was let out of my cage, I had questioned about his face. I asked him why he never took his hood off. He told me he didn’t want me to see his face, that it was hideous, that I would never talk to him again. I disagreed, saying that it didn’t matter what someone looked like, as long as they weren’t evil. Eventually, I had persuaded him to show me. 

     I froze. A human skull stared back at me. It was completely void of any skin or tissue. Many would call him grotesque but I thought he looked incredible. I had been around humans long enough to see their skulls and they looked the same, if not worse. The only difference was the two protruding horns growing where his forehead would have been. Other than this, he looked like a normal skeleton.

     “You don’t need to look. If you wish to move away from me, you may.”

     I didn’t like how he was saying that. He sounded disappointed and expectant, as if he knew what I was going to do.

     “You look like a normal skeleton would. Why do you hide it? I’ve been among the human race long enough to see what they look like after decomposition. Please don’t hide.”

     “Yes, but have you ever seen a human with horns. I’m an abomination,” his voice broke, sounding on the brink of tears. 

     This was heartbreaking. I didn’t like hearing these words coming out of his mouth. It was like a knife to the heart. It didn’t surprise me anymore that I felt this way. Two weeks prior, I had accepted my feelings for him. I remember that we were sitting across from each other, reading in the library, when I looked up. He was looking at his book and I could hear him whispering the words as he read. My heart started beating faster and my stomach started to twist and turn. My face was a humiliating shade of pink, for sure. In that moment, I fell completely in love with him.

      In doing so, I made the realization that I didn’t want to leave. I had become dependant on him. I loved how he would praise me for the smallest of things and how he’d give me the company that I longed for. All he asked for was my obedience and for me to stand by his side forever. I would happily oblige if it meant that we could be together. My feelings for him were starting to become too much for me to handle. Looking at his face and hearing these horrid things come out of his mouth hurt me more than any kind of physical pain I had ever known. I was tired of hiding these feelings. I did something I hoped I wouldn’t regret.

     I grabbed his face in between my hands and kissed him. It was awkward, at first. My lips were where his lips should’ve been, only teeth and bone present. After a few seconds, he responded and my head began to feel fuzzy. An explosion of electricity erupted in my stomach. I never felt anything like it. It was euphoria, what I believed Heaven was like for humans. My mind went numb and my whole body started to tingle.

     When we finally broke apart, we were breathless. Our foreheads touching (mindful of the horns), we looked into each other’s eyes. 

     “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please don’t be mad,” I said. My mind was racing at this point, hoping he wouldn’t be too upset. 

     “It’s okay, dear. I have been waiting for this since the day I took you. I never thought that it would happen, though. I have loved you for a very long time.”

     I blushed at the nickname and looked down. I decided to stay here forever. I knew I didn’t have much of a choice, but I never wanted to leave. My creations hated me and I’d never had someone appreciate me, much less love me. I looked back up into his eyes and something clicked. I saw my future, my whole existence. Throughout it all, he was by my side. I knew that he would always be there for me. He would never leave me and he knew I would never leave him. In that moment, all I wanted was to be with him. I didn’t care about my creations, about the things I once held dear. The only thing I cared about was him and that was enough. I let go of every care in the world and lived in this moment. My mind went to a line of a book I once read with him: 

     There is a beauty that lies within the broken.