Prison Princess

from a fairy that was locked up for stealing. I tried to imitate the stemmed beauty she described on my four corners of concrete. Roses, daffodils, and lilies covered every inch of space, making my home feel a little less dismal—a little less hopeless. I stared at the sketched hope while trying to calm my breathing. In and out. In and out. I held the stale oxygen in my chest before blowing at the dust collecting on the floor.
Part of me wanted to worry about the strange man who grabbed me in the hallway. He’d said so many things I didn’t understand. I wasn’t naive. I knew most of the people lurking around Nightmare Penitentiary were dangerous. Just because I was kept away from the hardened criminals didn’t mean that some of that evil didn’t spill over into my ward. But he said my parents had sent him.
I had parents.
Logically, I knew I had parents. I didn’t just appear out of thin air. I had many theories on the subject. Sometimes I wondered if I was a forgotten byproduct of one of the prisoners here. I spent most of my childhood sneaking into other layers of Nightmare, seeking out a woman with green hair like mine and blue eyes the color of pixie dust. There was a tiny mirror at the bathhouse, and sometimes I’d stare at it and mouth I love you, pretending it was her speaking to me. I daydreamed possibilities that felt out of reach like she wanted to know me just as much as I wanted to know her. I pretended this was all just a misunderstanding. And as more time passed, darker thoughts crept in. What if they were dead? What if they didn’t want me? What if the only crime I’d ever committed was that of existing?
As I got older, they assigned more guards to watch over me. My freedom felt like ropes wrapped around my throat. The older I got, the tighter they pulled. Pretty soon there would be no breathing room left. I hadn’t allowed myself to hope escape was an option for me, but now...
Cypress said my parents sent him. He said he was going to get me out of here. Part of me was reluctant to believe him. I even debated on alerting a guard. But I kept my mouth shut. And when the sound of footsteps approached, I restarted the time clock in my mind. Thirty more minutes until the next guard. Sixty minutes until Cypress came back at the witching hour, hopefully with answers.

Chapter Two
I never heard him come in. I wasn’t sure how that was possible. Even the most well-kept doors creaked and groaned when we walked in and out of them. I’d been listening to the stark silence with my ears tuned into any movement, when he randomly appeared, as if out of thin air. Had I dozed off? I thought it pretty damned unlikely. I’d been too anxious about his arrival to sleep.
I scurried to the front of my cell and peered at the guard stationed there. She was knocked out cold, nothing more than a crumpled heap on the ground. “What did you do to her?” I asked in a whisper.
“Does it even matter?” Cypress replied in a bored tone. I spun around to face him. There was a sense of intrusion in my bones. I’d never had anyone but guards and the warden in my cell. This was my little corner of the world, and now I had a strange man taking up all the space.
He’d seemed tall and imposing before, but in my tiny, closet-sized room, he grew to larger than life. He even had to duck because he was too tall. If he wanted to hurt me, there was nothing I could do to stop him.
His eyes were wide as he took in my cell. He stared at all the drawings in amusement before bringing his attention back to me. “What a sad little existence you’ve had, Princess,” he began, and my heart sank. It wasn’t a glamorous life. Even though I had nothing better to compare it to, I’d heard enough stories to know that this wasn’t humane. I found myself embarrassed.
“Well then. I guess we should get going,” he said, holding out his hand. I looked down at it, not sure I wanted to reach out and take what he offered. If you’d asked me earlier today if I’d ever considered holding hands with a terrifying man who claimed I had parents and was taking me out of here, I’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of that question. Nightmare Penitentiary was all I’d ever known, and one of the first lessons I learned here was to trust no one. The second lesson was to never hope.
“Come on, I don’t have all day,” he growled while wiggling his fingers in amusement.
I pinned my lips together and shook my head, not sure what to say. I didn’t trust him, but I didn’t want to make him angry, either. Then there was this pesky little emotion bubbling up in my chest—hope. I couldn’t help but wish what he said was true, that Cypress really would bring me to my parents. Maybe the seclusion had made me naive, but that emotion had me considering his offer, even when I should have screamed and alerted the guards.
Cypress sighed and looked around before crouching lower so we could be eye level. “You don’t want to stay here forever, do you?” he asked.
“N-no,” I offered, hating how helpless I sounded.
“Even if this was all a hoax, wouldn’t you give anything to see outside these four walls? What kind of life is this?”
I shamefully averted my gaze. He was right. A life synchronized to the meals I ate and the guards who silently watched me was no life at all. Leaving was both exhilarating and terrifying to think of. But I did want out of here. I opened and closed my mouth, but none of my