Andrew ducked as soup sloshed over his head. He heard the bowl smash apart against the cavern walls, but chose not to turn around to look.

Doesn’t matter, he thought. I’ll just make another one. From her bones.

“You’re a madman!”

Andrew lifted his lantern back up. Light sprawled across the small enclosure, highlighting the girl chained to the wall. Dishealved and filthy, Victoria looked like a creature of the woods. Her hair was in clumps and her clothes were soiled from 3 days worth of grime and sweat. When Andrew approached her again, she even hissed like an animal.

"Release me this instant, you horrible boy!"

Andrew felt guilty. The inside of his stomach churned like a fist was pushing his intestines through his abdomen. He stopped just out of Victoria's reach.

“I’m sorry,” was what he had planned on saying, but what came out inside was, “That was the only food I brought. And you just wasted it.”

Victoria snarled. “You can choke on your food, madman.”

Despite himself, Andrew snapped back, "And how am I to do that when it's all over the walls?"

Instead of answering him, Victoria lurched for his throat. But an inch away, the chain around her neck yanked her to a stop and she was forced to retreat.

Andrew stood his ground, watching as Victoria gagged. Outside, the ocean winds whistled. He thought he heard a wolf howl, but reminded himself that Ignar never went out to the beach. There was no one else here other than him and Victoria.

Andrew’s eyes fell from the girl’s face to her feet. They were small, with short round nails that were stained from the sand. As he stared, Andrew saw them shuffle back, like they were shy. But when he looked up, the color of Victoria's glare was red.

It reminded Andrew of the hate he’d seen in Constantia's eyes just before the Table took her. His gut wrenched again. Not knowing what he wanted to do, he reached out to Victoria but stopped when she cringed away.

“Get away from me, you mad ape! Don't touch me!"

“I’m not a mad ape,” Andrew said but his voice lacked any assertion even to his ears. He didn’t know what to do. He felt trapped. He’d saved Victoria from drowning, but thinking back he was simply acting on instinct. He knew he didn’t want her to die, but now? He hadn't the slightest clue why he thought that, or what he should do now.

Did I know that the transmutation with her sister would fail? Was I simply saving her from that fate?

The thought of Victoria on that Table disgusted Andrew, much to his relief. No, he didn't want that.

Then, what?

The jingling of chains snapped Andrew out of his daze. Victoria had her arms wrapped around her body. She was shivering. It made the links around her neck dance.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded in a voice too brittle to hold any command.

“Like what?” Andrew asked, and was surprised to see Victoria faltering.

“I don’t know!” Victoria leaned against the wall and turned away. “It's impossible to know what you’re really thinking and it’s just horrible.”

Andrew let out a long breath. He placed the lantern on the ground and turned towards the cavern’s entrance. He walked to the scene of the soup accident. The bowl was lying sideways among a patch of sand, so it didn’t break. What was more surprising was that not all the soup had been lost. Picking up the bowl, Andrew noticed that a sip was still left clinging to the bottom. He looked around and found a few of the mushroom and carrot chunks scattered nearby. Carefully, he picked a few of the biggest pieces up and deposited them into what was left of the soup. Then he went back to Victoria.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“You need to eat,” he told her. But this time, he didn’t hand her the bowl and instead put it down a few feet outside her reach.

Victoria’s eyes twitched between the soup and Andrew. They narrowed.

“You're torturing me.”

"I'm teaching you a lesson," Andrew said. "You’ll need to work for your food. That is the law of equivalency which governs the universe."

"That's a load of mouse droppings."

"That is the absolute truth."

Victoria crouched down and reached. Her fingers barely brushed the side of the bowl. She snarled. “I’m working for a drop of nothing. There’s sand in it too.”

Andrew shrugged. "It's not that far away. You will only receive that which you give."

"You are a monster," Victoria said. She changed tactics, this time leaning back and stretching out a leg. She had to cling onto the chain behind her for balance, but it didn't take her long until her toes were curling around the lip of the bowl. As she retracted her leg, bowl in tow, a huge smile lit up across her face.

Andrew was watching everything with the keen eye of a scientist. That was what he was telling himself anyway, so when his heart skipped at seeing Victoria's smile, he told himself it was the pride of a man witnessing his hypothesis being proven, and nothing else.

"There you go," he said. "Doesn't it feel better when you've put in effort -" He cried out as soup crashed into his face. "You manic!"

“I hate you!” Victoria screeched, flinging sand and rocks and whatever else she'd managed to grab hold of. “I hope you burn in hell! Die! Just die!”

That did it. With one hand, Andrew swiped cold mushroom from his eyes while with the other, he dug into his pocket.

“I won’t burn because I have this!”

Shouting, he pulled out the bottle of water he'd brought, and shattered it against the cavern wall. The sound of broken glass echoed through the cave.

Victoria fell silent.

Somewhere behind him, Andrew heard the sound of thunder rolling in the distance. Or it could've just been his heart. He couldn't really tell. He pointed the broken bottleneck at Victoria. Orange firelight sprinkled across its jagged edges. Through it, Andrew could see a hundred tinier versions of the girl chained to the wall, their eyes burning with the same hate and fear.

It would be so easy. A couple steps forward, a sharp jab and all of Andrew's problems would be solved.

He tossed the bottleneck aside. Then, before he could fully comprehend what he’d done, Andrew picked up the lantern and strode out of the cave.

He came back early the next day, before the sun had appeared on the horizon. Andrew couldn’t sleep at all last night, and it wasn't just because Doctor Davis kept screaming in the infirmary. He couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking if he’d just killed Victoria with his outburst.

I meant to feed her, but ended up destroying her water and tormenting her.

The sky was brightening but not enough to see without a lantern. As Andrew climbed the last few steps up to the hidden cave, he saw in the dim light that the entrance wasn't blocked. It was then he realized that in his hot-headed furry last night, he hadn’t put back the wooden board he used to act as a door.

Which meant someone could have found Victoria in the night, or worse, she might've frozen to death.

Andrew hurried in.

The cave smelled like feces and mildew. Andrew hadn't noticed it yesterday, or he was just trying his best not to. Now, however, it was impossible to ignore. He needed to clean this place up, but he reminded himself that he had more pressing matters at hand. Lifting his lantern higher, he cast its glow across the sandy floors, from one side of the cavern to the other.

He almost missed her, if she hadn't moved. Tucked away in the corner, Victoria was half-crouched, half-clinging to the wall. Her hair ran loose down her back and her fingers were bloody. There were lines on the stone where she'd been clawing.

"Oh, gods." Andrew threw aside his lantern and rushed over. He grabbed Victoria's hands and pulled her away from the wall. She didn't fight him. She wasn't doing much of anything. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open. Andrew couldn't tell if she was breathing. Heart racing, he lunged over to a nearby rock and dug out the key hidden beneath it. He came back over, jammed it into Victoria's collar and twisted it until the lock clicked.

The collar snapped open, falling to the floor with a dull thud.

Andrew almost fell back as Victoria slumped into him. He hauled her towards the entrance of the cave, where there was light. He laid her down, careful not to drop her. Victoria gave a little moan. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up, then to her side where Andrew was. He froze, expecting another attack, but Victoria’s gaze passed over him like she couldn’t see him. Then her head rolled and she was out properly.

Or she was dead.

Andrew reached over and shakily slipped a finger under Victoria's nose. Sunlight was beginning to seep into the cave now, and her hair took on the color of fire.

She was breathing. Yes. Her chest was moving too.

Andrew sat back. He exhaled one long breath, feeling like he just lived three lifetimes in the span of three minutes. He lay down next to Victoria and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of daylight as it found its way through the opened entrance.

After a moment of silence, he heard the sound of Victoria's breathing growing stronger, and then her voice, crackly but whole, saying,

“Did you really... hide the godsdamned key right next to me?”