To His Hell and Back
Chapter 60: Deepest Scar

Chapter 60: Deepest Scar

Throughout Arabella’s life, she had always found herself ensnared in misfortune. Misfortune could have been her middle name, considering how it always found itself lingering around her life like the annoying little mark on a blank white paper that refuses to be erased.

Her earliest memory was painted in red, the sight of her sister, Ariel, lying motionless beneath the old oak tree, her small body limp, blood pooling beneath her like spilled ink.

Panic had gripped her young heart, her sobs mingling with Ariel’s silence as she clutched her frail body. Desperation clawed at her throat as she screamed for help, pleaded to the gods above, willing them to spare her sister’s life.

And then... Ariel moved.

Despite the blood, despite the stillness that had gripped her only moments before, she stirred. Her eyes fluttered open. Her breath returned. Her small fingers began to work again, and her warmth returned to her once cold body, which made Bella extremely pleased, extremely thankful.

It should have been a miracle.

But when Arabella rushed to tell their father, expecting relief, expecting joy, she was met with something else entirely.

His green eyes locked onto her, wide with something she couldn’t name. His expression, frozen in shock, was not one of gratitude.

She was instead greeted with fear. Even until today, her father’s face is still clear in her memory, red from anger and dark blue from fright. He had then raised his hands and slapped her, striking her cheeks until they had turned scarlet.

That was the first time her father ever struck her.

The first time, but not the last. It had only opened a new misfortune for her, and perhaps that was ever the reason that her father had begun to despise her even more so than before.

From that moment on, the weight of his hand, the sharp sting of his fury, became a shadow that loomed over her life.

So she made a promise to herself. She would never cause trouble again. She would live quietly, find a simple life, a normal one. After all, everyone is normal, and she could also live normally. It shouldn’t be a tough dream to have in life, it was easier than wishing to be a wealthy young mistress.

But misfortune clung to her, as relentless as a lover she wished to escape.

Just like now.

The first thing she felt was pain, sharp and unyielding, tearing through her body like she had been cast from the highest tower. A groan barely passed her lips before the putrid stench of rot invaded her senses, turning her stomach.

Her lashes fluttered, her instincts screaming, her muscles tensing in a flinch before her mind had even caught up.

Something was wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong.

When she lifted her hands did she smelled the stench that had stuck into her hands. It had come from a liquid that had attached itself to her skin, and when she moved did she heard the dull creaking sound of something that had been crushed under her boots. The sound of... bones.

"AAAAAAH!"

A scream tore from Arabella’s throat, raw and panicked, as the nightmare around her took shape. Bones. They were bones! It was not just scattered remains but a mountain of them!

Skulls leered up at her, hollow sockets gaping as if they had all died screaming. The sickening crunch beneath her shifting weight sent a violent shudder through her body.

She scrambled, desperate to get away, but her back slammed against something slick and wet. Cold seeped into her skin as her breath came in ragged gasps.

How come there’s already a wall over here and one pressed against her back?

Her trembling hands reached out, pressing against the damp stone. The space was tight, too tight. Her arms barely stretched out before they met resistance on either side. Panic surged as she lifted her hands above her head, reaching, searching, only to find nothing.

No ledge. No escape.

Just endless, suffocating darkness.

And then it hit her.

She’s somewhere that’s constricted, yet so deep and wet. The water, these skeleton.

The well.

The wishing well.

The very place Agnes had told her about. The same one she had stood beside before something struck her from behind, plunging her into oblivion.

And now... she was inside it. The person who had hit her had not only made her head bleed but also made sure that she would die here inside this darkness, perhaps by starvation.

The intense fear struck her like lightning. Her nerves tremble, her eyes shot wide with her upper lips that trembled uncontrollably.

Arabella couldn’t control herself. The moment that realization had hit her, the fear shook her entire body. Her gasps became louder, echoing as they hit the walls. She wasn’t only kept in a place so small, so suffocating, and so pitch dark. She was also left here with skeletons, and perhaps of those people who had been pushed into the well, left to die, like she was.

She couldn’t control the fear that had seeped into her mind. Once she had realized that they had also closed the lid to prevent her from walking upward, she was sent into a panic. She raised her hand, her fists hitting the cold walls that, in turn, caused her bones to ache.

But she didn’t stop, she kept hitting. She hit until she felt her nails crack and blood that warmly spilled around her wrist. But the fear had made her entire head numb. Now, only the urge to leave and survive enters her body, she doesn’t want to be here- trapped, left to die.

She doesn’t like the darkness; she always despises it, and yet she was going to die in the place she fears and dislikes the most?

Tears spilled out from her eyes as she yelled at the top of her lungs, "No. NO. NO. No. Not in this darkness again-"

She was also locked in a place like this too in the past. Somewhere dark and cramped, somewhere that no matter how loud she had yelled, no one would hear her. It was a place that had made her so scared and hopeless, and the only place that had taken away all her courage.

"Help. Help!" Tears spilled down her cheeks. This was much more frightening than the time she was almost killed by Rueben or sold by her father. It was even more frightening than the day when she realized she was going to be abandoned by her parents.

Arabella’s sobs broke through the suffocating darkness, her voice shaking as she pounded against the slick, unyielding walls. The wetness of the walls or her blood, she couldn’t tell. It was too dark for her to even know whether these skeletons were looking at her actions in pity or in a smile.

The more she thought about it, the more her fear caught over her. She felt her voice break apart when she yelled, "Please! Someone— anyone! I’m here! I.. I don’t want to die here!"

Her fingers clawed at the stone, trying to escape by climbing, only to slip against the damp surface, nails splitting as she tried desperately to find a hold. But there was nothing. Nothing but endless, crushing confinement.

"Help me!" Her voice cracked, raw from screaming. "I don’t deserve this— I don’t—" A choked sob cut her off as she slid down, her knees knocking against bone.

The stench of decay curled around her, the scent of death creeping into her lungs like a curse.

Death. Death. Darkness. Loneliness. Alone. Hopelessness. Fear.

"This isn’t fair," she whispered, her voice breaking into a whimper. "Please. I swear— I swear I didn’t do anything wrong! I just wanted a normal life! I just wanted—"

She sucked in a ragged breath, rocking against the wall, pressing her hands to her face as the tears fell fast and hot.

"Papa..." The word slipped from her lips before she could stop it, "I’m sorry papa.. mama... Ariel. Please! Ariel.." Her teeth clashed against her jaw, trembling.

The bitter reality crushed her even harder. No one came for her. No one was there to help her.

No one ever did.

And the thought of dying here, alone, forgotten, buried beneath the remains of those who had screamed just like her, who had begged just like her, made her chest tighten in terror.

Her fists clenched, pounding against the walls, weaker this time, her voice trembling as she tried once more.

"Please... Someone save me. Please..."

"Cassius..." The last name she thought she would ever speak out left her trembling lips, a name so unexpected in her head that had just suddenly left her own mouth against her will.

She looked up at the dark sky, wondering if he would come.

Why would he?

But as she thought she was going to die her all alone, the lid above her suddenly moved.

Light seeped into the well, a bright glare of light then shone over her face.

A face she last thought would appear had found her first. The striking black hair that matched the raven night and those bloody crimson eyes that, for once, appeared full of emotions- as if he himself was having a hard time understanding those emotions within him.

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