isolt griffin

I'm more alive than I've ever been

It could have been a single day or a thousand that she had existed here, tucked away from the world beyond. Time ceased to exist here, each moment falling away as the sloughing of deadened flesh to forfeit its ash to the impenetrable nether. Her mind had long ago begun its wandering, a vicious trinity of pain, fear, and shock having chased away nearly every conceivable part of her. The majority of her senses had been robbed of her in an astoundingly expeditious fashion. Her captors had blinded her, fastened a silver muzzle about her that had all but burned away the flesh that lay beneath it, the only taste or aroma afforded to her these many days was merely the metallic tinge of her own blood as it pooled and eventually crusted beneath the heinous binding. Her assailants had spared, it seemed, the pair of senses that they knew would present them with the greatest aid in their mission to cause her as much agony as they were capable of. They took of her body in every manner that they were able, greed having quickly coerced them into feeding upon the blood that lay stagnant within her veins. So much had they taken in their gluttony that not even the bewitchment of immortality could heal the wounds that these fiends had inflicted upon her.

The only things that kept the young woman tethered to the reality of time were the sounds that punctuated the drawing moments of absolute solitude. It had taken hardly any time at all for Isolt to grow somewhat accustomed to the cries of agony and the screaming, for in the beginning she had proffered up her own wails to the orchestration. And yet the ones that pulled tight about her heart as a choking string of razored wire were the screams that she recognized. Yumi. She was here, tucked away in the labyrinth of this place, and she seemed to be ailing in the very same ways that they all were.

Isolt had long ago stricken some oath within and for herself that she would not forfeit to her torturers any more tears, any further screams; however, when Yumi's cries rose to join the cacophony of those around them, Isolt found herself helpless against the sorrowful tears that wracked her entire body. They could have taken it all, everything that she had left, in truth she would have offered it to them willingly... if only they would spare Yumi. Alas, they had not. Their greed, it seemed, was a toxin that ran fair deeper than empathy ever could have.

The fallen vampire monarch does not move with the resounding echo of the door as it swings ajar upon its hinges, assuming with quite a grand measure of confidence that it is none other than the resident medical personnel arriving to perform what had become a routine "procedure" wherein he seemed to lay his hands to her in whatever manner he found would please him the most. Already were her emotional ramparts solidifying their defense against the caress of his calloused hands... but it is a caress that does not come.

Not immediately.

Isolt's mind reels, clamoring for purchase upon the realization that, firstly, it is not the voice of the medic that reverberates from the stone walls of her cell and, perhaps more peculiar still, that he is speaking to her. It had been so long a time since anyone had spoken directly to her that the redheaded woman had instinctively begun to tune out the voices of those about her. That this presumed stranger would address her directly was highly curious... and that he suspected she might actually be able to wage any manner of assault against him begged the question of his tenure or, at the least, his familiarity with her particular scenario. Had he any true knowledge of what had transpired within these walls he would surely be of the understanding that Isolt could no longer stand of her own accord... much less orchestrate an attack against him.

In fact, only does she move when this stranger makes mention of Yumi... and the fable of her freedom. It was very likely an emotional snare, a tactic to gain what little trust the young woman might have left to offer to him. And yet still does she offer the weakest of nods to his request, cringing violently as his hands brush against the flesh at her ankles.