There is no light. A raging sea of cold darkness is everywhere. The world looks empty and miserable. A harsh, bitter, chilling feeling is in the air.

In the middle of the blackness, there is a girl. Her wide, huge gray eyes are gazing out into the darkness, clouded with pain. Her pale, sweaty, tiny hands are gripping the bars in front of her, the bars which go all around her and surround her in every direction. The girl's thin fingers cling to the frigid, rusty metal as though she is holding for her life.

The enclosed, minuscule place which the girl is trapped in looks like a jail cell, but it is much too small and bare to be one. It is more like a cage than anything else, except the bottom is simply dirt.

There is nothing in this enclosure, but for the girl. She is pressed up against one side of the square, her delicate, petite body almost one with the iron bars.

She appears to be no older than six years old. She is short, her figure young and undeveloped, her body yet to mature. Her hands are the size of two small cup bottoms, and her bare feet are no bigger than two bars of soap.

The features touching her face are soft and innocent. The dirty-blonde feathery strands that hang just below her chin are silky and light and pin-straight. A gentle trickle of freckles splashes across her cheeks in a golden line. Her lips are small and pouty.

The only thing that doesn't match the quiet sweetness of her face is the big, squashed potato nose that rests between her porcelain cheeks. It is a bit crooked and off-center.

There are a few more signs which show that she is not the perfect, untroubled, worriless china doll she seems to be at first. Her eyebrows are bothered, mushed together, her forehead creased with wrinkles. Her mouth is turned down with a distressed frown. Her complexion is pale, devoid of color, the roses drawn out of her cheeks. Her features are knitted tight with worry and stress - things too big for a six-year-old to handle.

She is wearing an expression of confusion and frustration. The emotion is displayed across her face in a childish, immature way, but the anguish shining in her eyes is worth an adult's lifetime of suffering.

The girl is terribly, unhealthily skinny. It is possible to see her little ribs through the flimsy fabric of her thin clothing. It looks like she hasn't eaten anything in months.

Her body is frail and weak - she looks less heavy than a feather, and most likely wouldn't be able to support one. She looks horrible.

The six-year-old's short flowery dress ruffles gently in the slight cold draft that blows through the room. Suddenly, her fingers tighten around the bars, her knuckles glowing white as she grips them hard. Then, her hands disconnect from the metal. She begins to pound on the iron furiously, passionately, desperately. A moroseful, hopeless, almost mocking clang rings through the air.

The girl tries once more, with renewed strength. She smacks her hands against the bars again and again, harder and harder. Her breathing becomes labored and ragged, uneven, panting. She hits with even more force, as if she is trying to get out, to escape - to make the bars break, to have them disappear.

Her fingers begin to bleed, red spilling onto white. But she does not stop.

She continues to pound, until, eventually, she realizes it is no use. Finally, she gives up and halts her beating. She slowly tears her bloody hands away from the bars. A moment later, her arms flail wildly, and she sinks to her knees, her forehead pushed onto the iron.

"Please," she whispers to nobody. Her voice is hoarse and croaky with disuse. "Please ...help ...me." It is a struggle for her to get each word out. The syllables are raspy and short of breath.

Nobody listens. No one is around to hear. She is alone.

Moisture fills her eyes.

"No," she cries with devastation. "Someone! Help!" Her voice has started to rise with hysteria and fear.

She smashes her head against the bars. The next words come out as a bloodcurdling scream.

"HELP ME!"

Sobs start to wrack her body.

It is then that the blackness begins to get stronger, bigger, thicker. It spreads from corner to corner, covering up any hints of sight.

Soon it has swallowed the girl whole.

And all that is left are the bars- and the dark.


I wake up with tears streaming down my face.