Twenty-three Hours of Darkness

“There, there.” I crooned. A stray hair stuck to Alice's nose but she didn't seem to notice. I brushed it back for her. Her glazed expression never changed. “Our hour is almost up.”

She shivered but didn't say anything.

This was my sixth day with this Alice. I knew that she hated me for keeping her down here but I suspected that she was beginning to hate when I left. Life's choices were troublesome sometimes. I knew that more than most.

I started to stand, knees aching from kneeling for an hour. Pain was the coin that I paid for my time with my Goddess.

The tiny bell rang like the laughter of a sadistic Tinkerbell.

Alice's eye twitched. “Please.”

Her voice was raspy but that was to be expected. As far as I knew, she hadn't spoken for three days not that I'd know for sure. She could have been screaming from the moment I left each day until the moment I returned and I would never hear it.

Perhaps tomorrow we would have a real conversation.

I closed the heavy vault door and left her alone, in the dark.