The flickering candlelight cast long, trembling shadows across the cold stone walls of Isolde's chamber. The quiet was oppressive, a suffocating silence that wrapped around her like a noose. She sat at the small writing desk, fingers trembling as they clutched the quill. The parchment lay before her, the ink barely dry, words trembling with desperate hope.
"Dear Elsa,I do not know how long I can bear this. Otto's kindness is a mask that falls each night, revealing a darkness I cannot escape. Please, if you receive this, send help. I am trapped in a house that suffocates my soul.— Liesel"
She folded the letter with hands that shook so violently it was a wonder the paper did not tear. Greta, the only light in this grim existence, had promised to deliver it. A single thread of hope in a world painted in shadows.
But hope, Isolde was learning, was a dangerous thing.
That night, the servants whispered of strange events. Greta, attempting to slip from the castle with the letter hidden beneath her skirts, was stopped by Otto's guards. Her protests were silenced with a harsh grip, and the letter confiscated before it could see the light of day.
When the news reached Isolde, a cold dread settled deep in her chest, tightening its grip with every heartbeat.
Otto came for her that night with an icy fury lurking behind his eyes.
The door to her chamber burst open without a knock. The fire in the hearth flickered wildly as he stepped inside, tall and imposing, the scent of cold steel clinging to him like a shroud.
"Did you think you could speak against me?" His voice was low, a predator's growl.
Isolde shrank back, but there was no escape in these walls. The once comforting drapes now seemed like prison bars, and the silken cushions mere mockery.
His hands were rough and unyielding as they grabbed her, twisting her to face him. Her breath caught in her throat, eyes wide, heart pounding a frantic rhythm of terror.
"No, Otto," she whispered, voice trembling, but his hands silenced her, covering her mouth as his other hand tore at her gown.
He dragged her to the cold stone floor, the chill biting through her thin dress. Every touch was violation, every movement a brutal assertion of control.
"This house is your body now," he hissed into her ear, voice cold and merciless. "It will obey me, or rot."
The words burned into her like acid, a vow etched into her flesh and soul.
She felt herself fracturing, shattering into pieces no one could piece back together.
When he finally released her, she lay there, gasping for air, tears stinging her eyes. The silence that followed was heavier than any scream.
She curled into a ball, trembling, tears slicking her skin, the night's darkness folding around her like a merciless shroud.
From that moment, sleep betrayed her.
Eyes wide open in the pitch black, she lay rigid, listening for every creak of the fortress, every breath that was not her own.
She became a ghost haunting her own life, watching, waiting, afraid.
The next days passed in a haze of pain and fear. Her reflection in the mirror became a stranger, pale, hollow-eyed, and haunted.
Greta's worried glances did not go unnoticed, but Isolde could say nothing. The weight of shame was a cruel gag, silencing any plea for help.
In quiet moments, she pressed the letter she had written to Elsa to her chest, the fragile hope buried deep beneath layers of pain.
And somewhere in that fragile hope, a spark remained, a fragile, flickering flame that whispered of survival, of resistance, and perhaps, someday, freedom.