I heard the other doomed fated mates in adjacent cells moan and wail.
Others sang sad songs that bounced off the cold flagstone walls, so melancholy and forlorn that I doubted it didn’t touch the heart of every creature in the prison.
About six hours ago, the door at the end of the hall swung open and the prisoners turned deathly quiet.
Heavy boots of maybe three or four Shadows marched along the long row of cells and stopped, turning on their heels, before the cell next to mine.
They unlocked a door and the prisoner screamed as the Shadows entered and dragged the prisoner out.
And the rest of us sat there, immobile and silent.
They carried the doomed mate away and by the time the thick door at the end of the hall slammed shut, she was gone.
They came at regular intervals after that, every twenty, thirty minutes, by my estimation, although it was difficult to know due to the lack of natural lighting in the place.
And every time I heard those jangling keys and hard heavy footsteps, I feared they might be coming for me.
I shut my eyes and prayed as the boots approached my door…
And then disappeared further down the hallway as another door was opened and the fated mate would once again scream and fight.
I couldn’t understand any of the words they bellowed but I didn’t need to.
Every living creature could understand what was said:
“No!”
Sometimes the jailers chuckled, sometimes they didn’t.
Only once did I have the courage to pull myself up using the bars in the door to peer out.
The jailers scowled with the prisoners who put up a fight and grew angry when the fight was a good one.
Their fists tightened and their muscles strained, wanting to smack the prisoners around but dared not bruise them.
Instead, they wrapped their powerful arms around them and encouraged them to tire themselves out.
Only then did they carry them away.
The female fated mates were as scrappy as the males.
They all met with the same end and were dragged, kicking and screaming down the hall.
The door at the end of the hall would slam shut and a key would turn in the lock, turning the world silent once again.
Then the sadness and the wailing and the forlorn singing would kick in.
After the fifth prisoner was taken, I snapped awake from my dumbfounded stupor.
Losing hope was too easy in a place like this.
It was harder to stand and fight.
And I had never been one to take the easy road.
I had to find a way out of there.
There always was a weak chink in the armor.
It was just a matter of finding it.
I scanned the wall for a sharp protrusion to cut the bonds about my wrists.
I turned my back to it and jockeyed for position.
Then I found it.
I crouched and rubbed the bonds over the sharp beak of stone back and forth until the bonds snapped.
I massaged my wrists and got to work.
I fell to my hands and knees.
I scrambled over the floor, feeling at the large and uneven flagstone blocks beneath my feet.
I scrambled over them, feeling with my fingers and the palms of my hands, checking and prying at them in case one was loose.
I had read the Count of Monte Cristo at high school.
Could there be an escape tunnel somewhere?
Could someone have begun and completed it already?
Finding no uneven stones, I shifted to another idea.
I moved to the distant corner and immediately pulled my head back, my nostrils stinging at the stink.
With no access to toilets, I supposed it was inevitable the occupiers of this cell would choose to go in one corner rather than spread it around.
I backed away and decided to search the rest of the cell first.
I went up onto my tiptoes and crouched down low, slipping my fingers in the concrete joints.
I caught my index finger on a corner and hissed at the pain.
Blood seeped from the edge of my nail and I moved to slip my finger in my mouth before thinking better of it.
Who knew the kind of germs crawling over them right now.
I proceeded around the room, careful to keep my forefinger perched upward to avoid it getting infected.
My heart sank as I came to the final corner.
The toilet corner.
I held my breath and stepped over to it, reaching up with my hands and going up on tiptoes, feeling each of the flagstone blocks.
I worked my way down but steered clear of the worst of the stink.
I coughed and gasped as I backed away from the corner.
I landed on my ass and panted with exertion.
No secret tunnels.
No wobbly stones.
No easy way out.
The Shadow had brought me here for a specific purpose and I couldn’t allow it to come to be.
When every prisoner so far had failed to fight off the jailers, what chance did I have?
I seized upon the only scrap of hope I had left:
What if I let the mating ceremony happen?
What if I didn’t fight and allowed Iav to use me?
I shuddered at the thought but it was the only viable plan I could think of.
I could slip away once Iav was done with me.
Then I could hop on a shuttlecraft and get out of there.
I buried my forehead on my arm, the tears coming freely.
But I didn’t want to be “claimed” by an alien species.
And I especially didn’t want their seed inside me.
And what made me think there was even the possibility I could escape like that?
They’d been breeding fated mates here since forever.
I wondered if anyone else had managed to escape.
And if they had, what had become of them?
Were they made examples of?
That was how they used to do it in the old days on Earth.
And what sort of future would I have in this place?
It was like being sentenced to the worst hellhole in the world for a crime you hadn’t committed.
Then was there a way I could distract the Shadows while
