Chained by Tessa Escalera

Essie's forehead gently as Travis took her from my arms.  As he bore the tiny body from my cell I felt as if he took a large portion of my heart with him as well.
     
    When he was gone I lay down on my cot.  I couldn't eat.  I lay there, staring at the wall. 
     
    God, I want to go home.  Please take me home.  I want to be with Jenny and Essie.
     
    But no matter how much I prayed, I guess it wasn't my turn yet.  I lay in my cot, unable to move, barely able to breathe.  I don't know how long I lay there.  I had no will do do anything.  A hole gaped in my heart where Jenny and Essie had resided, threatening to swallow me whole.  I stood on the edge, unable to jump but unable to step back either.
     
    I ate when Travis made me.  I slept, I went to the bathroom when the pain became too great. I bathed when I could no longer stand the dirt.  My journal lay on my desk, ignored and unused.  My hair grew matted and unmanageable without the aid of a brush.  I stared at the box of Essie's toys until one day Travis took them away.
     
    The only words that formed out of my mind were prayers.  I prayed for God to take me.  I prayed for Him to close this hole of pain that yawned in my heart.  I prayed for the sort of peace that Essie and Jenny now had. 
     
    I know none of my thoughts made sense.  I had new hope in God, yet I had no hope at all.  I wanted desperately to live, and longed just as intensely for death.  There was a hunger in my belly that matched only that in my soul.  A coldness in my bones echoed by the ice in my mind.  Even as I prayed for God to forgive my hopelessness, I prayed for Him to end my suffering.  There was no fear, no joy, no sorrow.  Only this all-consuming confusion of hope and despair.
     
    Some nights I heard Sophie scream.  Sometimes I heard her pounding on the door.  Some days she called my name, and some she was silent.  I never answered, not her, nor Travis.  I didn't even respond one day when the Master came into my cell and stood there staring at me, fists on his hips and disapproval on his face. 
     
    After a while, Travis started talking to me.  He would come into my room and force me to eat my food.  As I slowly ate each bite, he would talk.  I tried not to listen but it was impossible.  He talked about his family, his work (He really had once been a nurse in the NICU), about some book he was reading.  He told me how sorry he was about Jenny and Essie.  He talked about other girls that had once been here.  None had ever escaped.  He said they buried them in the shadow of the mesas.  He told me that if I didn't try to escape again, maybe he would take me to visit the graveyard once the snow had melted. 
     
    If he hoped to encourage me with this promise, it didn't work.  I had no energy left to respond.  I had no energy left to feel.  I was numb. 
     
    Then one day, I woke from an uneasy doze to a strange sensation in my belly.  It was like the flutter of butterfly wings on the inside of my skin.  Like the feeling of soap bubbles popping against your palm when you try to catch them. 
     
    I sat bolt upright in bed, my hand going to the bump of my lower abdomen.  The movement stopped, and I  thought I must have imagined it.  After a moment though, the sensation started again.
     
    Like butterfly kisses.  That's what Mom had always told me.  Some people said it was like gas bubbles, but Mom said that was far too crude a name for such a glorious feeling.  She described those first flutters like the feeling of a butterfly as it lighted on your hand, only to fly away a moment later. 
     
    I clutched my belly, staring at the faded fabric of my gown.  I imagined it was my baby letting me know he or she was still alive, even if everyone else around me was dying.  I'm here, Mama.  Don't forget about me.
     
    For the first time since Jenny and Essie's death, I cried.  Huge tears rolled down my cheeks to splash on the space where my hands caressed the