Despair. No other words would best describe a soul that lost its sanity, its purpose and its hope.

Days had passed, although it was impossible to count how many. Guards sometimes would throw water down the dark pit, awaking the thirsty young woman at its bottom. Her body would violently shake from the splash of the freezing liquid, and she would sit up and lick the floor and side of her thin prison to drink as much as she could.

Margo had lost sense of time, sense of will. Her mind wandered aimlessly, memories of a time long past blending in a thick fog that made it impossible to focus on a thought. Sometimes the sight of a conversation between her mother and herself would surface, watching the scene like a spectator unable to intervene. At first, the discussion was nothing but mumbles, whispers echoing all around her as she began to push herself forward, leaning in to try and understand it better.

Her mother, of whom she had forgotten the face, was sitting in her room near her bed, looking down at Margo who was just a child playing with dressing dolls. It was a calm, tender memory which brought the young woman a feeling of yearning, wishing to live in this souvenir eternally. Margo only stayed with her mother in her early years of life, being disregarded slightly after she turned 10 - she was confined in her room ever since.

Her mother’s warm eyes gazed upon her daughter with a caring look on her face, content and happy to watch her child play innocently. She opened her mouth to speak to her little one, but a violently loud squeal came out instead. Margo’s visions blurred, as every word her mother utter was nothing but the deafening acute scream of a pig, resonating in her mind. She watched as her younger self got up and spoke in return, only to hear the same cacophony. The ear-shattering noise shook her awake, and curled up, she would be unable to regain sleep.

That’s all she could dream about, her mother and herself squealing. A memory she had long forgotten before her imprisonment, yet tried to grasp nonetheless as it was the only thing keeping her sane. Her appetite had greatly diminished, only being given rotten apples to nibble on; even though soon enough the guards too will forget to feed her. The scent of urine and feces paired with the rotting food she received gave her nausea more time than she would admit; as time passed however, she could no longer tell the difference. Light rarely graced her face, only seeing the shadows of flames casted on the stone walls, alerting her that food might be served. But sometimes they would skip her, and she would go to sleep starving. It is how it began, one day they would forget and soon she would be forgotten.

Screaming was useless, for all the guards assigned to the deepest parts of the dungeon were deaf. Some, though, would still shout and howl in distress, like a pleading dog waiting to be fed - all calls went unanswered however, and so were prayers. When Margo was first thrown in her pit, she spent the first nights listening to the echoing words of worship that the other incarcerated men would preach. She tried to speak to someone, anyone she believed was near her vertical prison, but no one bothered answering. Mumbles of cries, whispers of praises to The Great One scattered the dark alleys of the dungeon; some women were talking to no one, like an inner monologue everyone could hear.

That’s what she had been living in, a jail where everyone was slowly surrendering themselves to madness. Maybe herself too, she sometimes hoped, so her mind could trick her into thinking that maybe it was not such an awful way to end her life. Margo would comfort herself in the idea that the people of this empire were suffering much more than her, until she would need to relieve herself in this little confined space. During those moments she cried in anger and frustration, cursing her family into oblivion.

Margo had tried climbing, though the walls of her prison were covered in oil and constantly wet, making it too slippery to hold on to. Desperate, she was slowly giving up, despite having such rage boiling inside her. Her brown eyes would look up to the entrance of her cell, wondering if anything had changed since she was thrown in there. Margo knew that her presence had always gone unnoticed, always being brought to events purely based on the nobility standards, her family unwilling to bring bad attention to the turmoil behind closed doors. She realised how passive she had been, how she could have fought for her place within her own blood yet never did - maybe it was her way of rebelling, not comforting into what people expected a young woman to react, to please her way in and gain sympathy. From a young age she had always refused to charm men, abiding by the laws of the female implemented by men dimmed wise enough to impose the worth of her gender to the world. Maybe this was ultimately her curse, unable to birth children; trapped and hidden away like a kind of horrifying beast that did not deserve to breathe. Part of her was glad: she would rather die now than to submit to anyone.

She would vehemently curse her father who never bothered raising her, her sister who only treated her as a nuisance and her brother who was too afraid to step up and defend his kin. Time was losing its course, and it became harder and harder to count days passing. Slowly, amidst the moans and cries of other dying men and women she would hear a faint chant. It sounded like a hum at first, but when the dungeon was silent she could clearly hear people singing, a choir perhaps, that resonated through the walls of the palace.

Margo found peace in this melody. It was calm, gentle, and she would fall asleep listening to the echoes of these angelic voices singing tenderly.

All of the sudden, a warm liquid poured over her head and she jolted awake. Soup, she immediately thought, thinking she smelled boiling carrots before waking up. Leaning against the wall so she could get up and stretch her legs she opened her mouth, delighted to have some warm consommé, probably a leftover from a past dinner. She thought how Eliza never liked soup, and most likely ordered for it to be taken away.

The moment the liquid touched her tongue she spat it out sharply, her face twisted in disgust. She coughed and gagged as much as she could, and horrified that the liquid kept pouring over her head, she lifted her eyes to the small gate of her cell. A guard gazed back in amusement, a bright smile on his lips as he kept relieving himself. Margo screamed and shouted at him to stop, as the man looked at her seemingly entertained by her reaction - although all he could see was a girl gesticulating, opening and closing her mouth frantically. He guessed she was yelling, but he could not hear a thing, and so he kept at it until he was empty.

Margo desperately tried to remove the pee from her dirty blond hair, vainly. Warm tears welled up in her eyes, and for a brief moment she swore she could hear the choir singing louder. For a little while she remained standing, shocked and defeated, as she looked straight to the wall before her, unable to form a single thought. When her legs finally had no more energy, she sat down on the little space that was available, and hugging her legs dozed off as she listened to the chants growing closer. She would hum the repeating melody, and would imagine herself singing alongside the beautiful choir, until her misery would be swept away.

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Everytime that she would wake up, the choir sang louder. All the times that she was not fed or received water, the choir would sing louder. She did not mind however, as she hummed along all day and all night long. Her frail and skinny body could barely stand anymore - when her eyes observed her hands, she could barely recognise them. It felt as if her fingers grew longer and thinner, and the bones would pluck out at any given moment. Margo would hum while moving her arms in the air, thinking of herself dancing with a partner to this haunting melody blaring through the walls of the dungeon. Soon enough, she did not bother licking on the walls for water or nibbling on rotten apples. She would sit there, humming along the choir that now grew deafening. The only thing she could hear were these angelic voices chanting in pure harmony: Margo felt at peace, unplagued by the feeling of vengeance. And as soon as she fell asleep, she would see herself dancing along the notes, as she would get out of her cell crawling like a snake, and gracefully leap around the dark dungeon like a ballet dancer, uncaring of what would happen to her.

Margo would dream of herself passing the guards, as they cheered her up to continue spinning gracefully. She would make her way downwards, in places of the palace she didn't even know existed; every person she would encounter would dance and clap their hands, enchanted by her movements. All worries were irrelevant, as only the haunting choir mattered to her. Descending into the darkness through stairs illuminated by dazzling colors she would twirl and prance, happiness of freedom enveloping her warmly. Her body would pass many knights and men that would brightly smile and bow at her, while she danced around humming with the choir.

She would pass countless doors and rooms she had never seen, people she did not recognize yet all danced with her - it seemed that even the fire on torches would spin around as she went by. All places she entered would be brighter than the one before, the long corridors filled with paintings singing, clapping at her passionate movements. Margo felt lighter, as every leap she took seemed to make her jump into another part of the dungeon. Down her steps would take her, and soon enough she grew closer to the choir she so long sang to. Her heart pounding in her chest with excitement, she would stop before a door layered with beautiful ribbons and colourful silk laces. On her tiptoes she’d jump swiftly, hearing the voices chanting right behind that door. With a graceful movement of her hands she would grab the metallic handle, and slowly push it forward, anticipating the marvelous choir performing their beautiful song…And she would open her eyes.

Margo stared for a moment in front of her, a darkness engulfing all she could lay eyes on. She sensed her feet being drenched in a warm substance, as she realised that she was standing straight up. Puzzled, her body wobbled, unable to identify where she stood while her mind was trying to rationalise what was happening before panic could take over. It was nearly impossible to see anything, and while her vision adjusted she slowly paced around with uncertainty, confirming that she was indeed not in her cell.

None of this made sense. Was it possible that during her sleep she was let out, or at least put in a normal cell? The floor under her feet felt cold and wet, and the room she now was in appeared humid and vast. Margo could sense that this place was much bigger than what she could make it out to be, and she suddenly noticed something alarming: the chants were completely gone. Her heart started pounding, the silence exemplifying its beating through her chest as her lips shivered feeling the cold crawling in her body.

She needed these voices to sing so desperately. Her will had clung to the haunting melody through the bottom of her pit, and the comfort of humming this chant made her forget that she slept in her own feces, drank teardrops of water left on the oily walls, and endure the annoying cries of pain and misery that filled the dungeon. Margo slowly lifted her head up, humming once more, praying that all she had heard was not the start of her own insanity. Her skinny legs walked painfully, on the verge of collapsing under the famine and exhaustion she was in - and yet through the pain she kept moving, waiting for the choir to sweetly sing to her ears once more.

Her scrawny fingers waved around in the void, resembling a lost ghost wandering in the bottomless abyss of stone walls and metallic prisons. At a certain point her voice cracked, and stopping in her tracks she covered her head in disbelief. It suddenly felt like she could hear properly, almost as if her ears popped from being underwater for too long. It came to her attention that a thumping noise echoed around her - a muffled sound of a slow beating heart that she had not picked up before starting to hum. Margo let up hands around her neck brushing it softly as she began to sing slightly louder, in hopes of guiding her feet to this low pulsating sound. The moment the first notes left her mouth she stopped, confused. Frowning, she faintly shook her head and sang again, only to stop once more. This time, her face twisted in terror and shock, as she tightened her grasp around her neck.

Her brown eyes widened in horror as she came to realise that she was not singing or humming. In fact, she never was: Margo has been moaning and howling in pain. This entire time, she had been screaming in agony, thinking she was singing a song. What she thought was a choir was instead hundreds and hundreds of men and women crying and yelling in pain and despair. But how could she hear something that grew so loud overtime? How could she ever mistake the screams of misery to a beautiful song?

A loud thud. Margo’s head tilted to her right, gazing in the darkness trying to make out what made this sound. The beating heart was now louder, more rapid, as if someone suddenly started running. Voices arose. All mixed and twisted in one another, a cacophony resonating all around the room. Man and woman crying, moaning in distress, pleading. Some words were comprehensible, but most were just groans and shouts of different intensity. All, though, were in despair.

That was what she heard, the choir. The chants. The angelic voices.

They were all screams of agony.

She began to weakly walk to what she thought was where the voices came from. A very dimmed light shone more as she approached, taking the odd shape of an egg. Cries of terror and pain doubled in intensity - the more she walked to it, the more the shrieks and whimpers would grow deafening. Margo however, paid no mind to the sounds as she was staring straight at the strange object that seemingly called to her. The pulsing noise felt familiar, gentle, sweet, like a newborn sleeping soundly. When the object was within her reach she stopped, observing it more intensely while the screams blared out like a thousand people being tortured in the same room.

The surface of the egg was smooth yet looked tough, it was a material she had never laid her eyes on before. It looked like the thinnest silk, yet seemed harder than steel. A faint dark blue glow emanated from it, and the size of it could be compared to that of a cat curled up. Her whole body demanded to seize the egg, her eyes shining with anticipation. She wanted to hold it so dearly, and a strange excitement buzzed inside of her as she approached her skinny fingers to its surface. Margo felt entranced by the object, her body was shaking with exhilaration, a sudden happiness taking over her as she abruptly snatched the object and pressed it against her chest.

The voices ceased in an instant. Only remained her, a heavy silence and her egg. It felt warm, comforting and Margo found herself smiling with joy. She did not understand why she was feeling such bliss holding an object that she had never seen before. But here she was, happy.

Until the egg started pushing into her body like an earthworm digging through the soil.