Pieces of the vase shattered across the floor. I held my mouth with both hands, gasping. My heart stopped. My body trembled. Everything moved in slow motion. I wish I could go back in time to prevent my clumsiness, but instead, I would be paying the price.

“Hey!”

I turned around. It was a Royal Guard wielding a baton. He hurried to me, and there was nothing I could do.

“You broke this, didn’t ja?”

I swallowed a boulder and shook my head.

“You fucking liar!”

He twisted his body and slapped me across the face. I tumbled away from the vase and onto my side. Why did I lie? I broke it. Was I that much of an idiot?

Did I think I could get away with it?

“I’m—I’m sorry,” I said with watery eyes. The slap almost sent my head flying off.

“Do you think I give a shit about your apology? Huh? How am I supposed to explain how an antique vase broke? You had one job: to clean its surroundings, and you couldn’t do it. You useless shit!”

He kicked me in the stomach with force. I curled into a ball, coughing, gasping for air.

I struggled to get up. The best I could do was be on my fours. I still coughed and swallowed heavily.

I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to take a sharp edge of the vase and stab his foot, though his black boots covered them. I didn’t care. I was tempted to rebel and make their lives hell, just like how they did to me.

What did I do to deserve this?

Oh… that’s right. I was born.

My parents were both sinners. Their crimes were so inhumane that they were locked in the dungeon of the Royal Palace. I was never told what they were, but they had to be beyond forgiveness. I didn’t know my father, and I barely knew my mother. She nurtured me until I could walk. From there, she disappeared, and I was assigned a caregiver.

Fear that I would inherit my parent’s sinful nature, I was locked in the dungeon. I’ve barely seen the outside world; when I did, it was for chores. There were eleven others like me. I was abused for free labor because of our parents.

We had to endure our parents' sins.

Why were we punished for the sins they did? Why did we have to suffer?

My answers were up in the air. There was no point in receiving them anyway. I’ll power through adversity and break the chain my parents bestowed on me.

I’ll do whatever it takes and leave this hell. Even if it meant being beaten to a plum, I didn’t care.

I’ll do whatever it takes.

I crawled to the sharpest piece in sight and grabbed it. The guard stomped on my hand before I could do anything with it, squishing my knuckles into the marble floor.

“You must be a special type of stupid. Great, now your hand is bleeding. Fucking idiot.”

I looked at my palm—crimson blood. I guess I squeezed my palm a little too hard.

He squatted to my eye level. Those black eyes never looked more alive.

“Next time, use your head a little.”

Those were the words he said before grazing my upper arm with the piece of the vase. It was a shallow cut with a burn. It wasn’t unbearable, but rather annoying. Blood leaked through and rolled down my arm.

He got up and yelled at someone. “Hey you, come here and clean her up.”

A high-pitched voice was heard from behind, with gentle footsteps that didn’t echo through the hall.

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“I’ll be back in thirty. Make sure to clean up the mess; otherwise, you’ll be in some serious trouble.”

“Will do,” the voice behind me said.

The guard disappeared through a door, leaving just us two.

“Wow, you don’t look so good, Jill,” she said as she took out a white towel.

She knew my name, but I didn’t know hers. Everyone knew each other. Children our age strive for social interaction, so it’s only natural they would speak to one another. I, on the other hand, was never interested in social interaction. The only way I knew was loneliness. I lived with it my entire life. There was no point in changing.

I knew most people were born into the dungeon, while some arrived at a very young age. For those who weren’t born here, their situation was different. I didn’t know the logistics. Trust me, I wish I did. But from overhearing the guards, I’d come to learn that some children come here through slave merchants.

People working as Royal Guards were involved with slave trafficking. The man in charge knew this as well, though he never cared. I’d never once seen him care for anything.

The ginger girl tended my wounds. Well, she was more of a redhead. I’d never seen red as a hair color, so it was pretty unique. It was the same color as blood.

“You have to stop retaliating and just listen to the guards,” she said.

“Why do you care?”

“I care for everyone—you, my cellmates, and others like us. I deeply care.”

A cellmate was earned through a good reputation. The majority of the children have cellmates.

I’d never had one, nor did I care to have one.

I grimaced through the stings as she patted my hand with the towel.

“Sorry,” she said. “It will hurt a bit.”

I knocked my hand away and snatched the towel out of her hand. “I’ll do it myself.”

“No.” She snatched it back with authority. “Let me tend your wounds.”

“You don’t care. No one does. You’re just doing this because you were told. Deep inside, you don’t care at all.”

“Jill, not everyone is out to hurt you. You have to learn to let other people care for you.”

What a joke. How could I let other people care for me? I only knew and trusted myself. Everyone else was either irrelevant or an enemy.

“Just hurry up.”

She sighed and continued to do her task. “You know, you can smile more.”

“Meaning?”

“I meant what I said.”

I knew what she said. I just didn’t understand. Why should I smile more? What was there to smile about?

Nothing. Not one good thing happened in my life.

Countless days of labor with little food. And even if we got food, it was terrible—scraped from the bottom of the pan with a metallic taste–type terrible. I’d never once eaten anything and deemed it tasty. I’d never had anything sweet. Everything I ate was disgusting.

I slept on harsh concrete with hardly any hay. I could not sleep during winter, shivering in the intense, frigid weather. Shards of frost cut my fingers and forced them numb. I didn’t even have a quilt to cover myself. Ignoring winter, the year-round back pain from sleeping on an awful surface irritated me. I suffered constant neck and back stiffness, which affected me during duty.

That wasn’t even the worst part. It was the guards. They tossed us around for fun, even tortured us. I was their favorite, maybe because of my attitude. I drove myself to being hated. I have to live with it.

I was whipped, punched, stomped, kicked, burned with a metal rod, a swallow cut to the arm. I experienced a variety of beatings. Mainly, it was because of my behavior. But even the best of the best sometimes gets the treatment for one reason only.

Entertainment.

We were the guards' entertainment. They treated us like animals, and we couldn’t do anything about it. It was hell—worse, even.

So what was there to smile about?

I couldn’t name a single thing. But it got me thinking:

“Do you smile?”

She answered my question with an expression that represented a smile. I hadn’t seen a genuine smile in ages, so I forgot how it looked. But if I were to guess, it looked like this one right here.

“No matter how bad things get, I always find a way to smile.”

I scoffed at that hideous answer. “You’re weird.”

“My cellmate calls me that too.”

“Who is your cellmate?”

“Rickey. He’s a little shy, but he’s a sweet person.”

I never spoke to Rickey. It wasn’t personal, but he never talked to me, so I never talked to him.

Wait, I knew one thing about Rickey. People call their cell the “Double R’s.” So if he was one ‘r,’ what was her name?

That question bugged me, so I had to ask.

When I did, she gave another warm, pure smile that could fill a heart with genuine care.

“It’s been how many years, and you don’t know my name? I didn’t do a good job introducing myself back then. Oh well, I have a second chance, so I might as well make it good. Hi Jill, nice to meet you. My name is Raphtalia. I hope we can get along.”