Erin

It was long before I heard heavy steps on the stairs again, Danny coming down to see me. Hopefully give me a drink as well, but as the door opened and the light switched on - Danny was not there.

Rather it was a woman with golden hair, she smiled at me and pulled at her tiny red dress, which matched with her bold lips. Beneath her dress, toned legs peeked through fishnet tights. She walked to me, black heels clicking on the cement.

Somehow her presence was soothing, much more so that Danny's. Maybe it was because of her eyes, the same color and shape as my own mothers.

She kneeled before me, "Hello, young one. I am Viktoriya." Her voice was heavy with an accent I recognized as russian, last year my math teacher was Russian. "I work with Mr. Danny. I came to give you something to eat."

I hadn't seen it before, but I saw now that she was holding a small plate, adjourned with a small piece of bread and some grapes, still on the stem. If I wasn't tied to the chair, I would have reached for it like it was a life-line. Skipping breakfast that Friday had been a big mistake.

She sat on my knees, and though she weighed almost nothing, it sent a shocking sting up my legs and to my spine. I wiggled beneath her and she smiled, placing a palm on my cheek.

"Don't worry, Love. It will pass. You will get better." I nodded, though I felt like crying.

"Okay," I whispered. She smiled at my words, the first I had spoken to her, and grabbed one of the grapes off of the plate. She gently placed it in my mouth, which I had opened for her as she took the grape off of the plate.

I bit down, ready for relief to my aching stomach, and was met with rot. The horrible taste of grapes that had withered in on themselves on the stem. I scrunched up my nose, sucking bitterly as I forced the grape down my throat.

Viktoriya smiled, watching me with a kind of pleasure in her eyes that didn't seem human. I looked at her, a little scared. She grabbed another grape, seeing me open my mouth to speak to her, and placed it in my mouth.

I took it, too hungry to care much. After all, some food was better than no food.

This grape wasn't like the first, but it was strange nonetheless, it wasn't the rotten flavor, but rather it seemed salty. Saltier than any other grape I had eaten, so much so that it masked any trace of sweetness.

Seventeen grapes, I counted. And seventeen grapes, I ate. They were all that same salty flavor, so bitter they made my mouth feel dry.

But I didn't complain. Viktoriya had this look on her face that made me think that this made her happier than anything I could have ever done. And she reminded me so much so of my mother that I went along with it.

When it came for me to eat the bread, I was much more excited, bread wasn't hard to make - especially if you had made it before, then you could make it in your sleep. But as I bit into the small loaf, I almost gagged. How much salt did you need in bread? Three tablespoons, less? And how much did they add? A cup or two, it seemed.

I tried to spit my bite out, but Viktoriya shook her head and placed it back into my mouth, not even caring that it was covered in my saliva.

"Listen, каргa, you must eat this. You have to keep yourself alive, and this is all we have to spare."

I pursed my lips. "What does карга mean?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Lovely," she whispered, "For you are the loveliest girl I have ever seen."

I blushed. "Thank you. But you should see my friend, Michelle. She-"

Viktoriya shoved the bread into my mouth, so far I almost choked. I chewed sadly on it, imagining it was some of Mochi ice cream, my favorite.

I ate the entire loaf of bread within the hour, much to my taste buds dismay. When I finished, Viktoriya gave me a drink of water, which I could barely drink, I was so tired.

Funny, I had slept for such a long time before she came down. Then I remembered the fight I'd had with my mind over how long to chew the bread and I let it slide. Besides, sleep is good.

When I woke up, I began to cry. I was so sore, my entire body burned with some kind of exertion. Though all I had done was go to sleep.

I had been moved while I slept, it seemed, a rough mattress laid beneath me, tough to the touch. I had almost wished they had left me in the chair rather than keep me on this, disgusting thing. Just a thin sheet and hard metal. My turgid ankle was chained to a small ring embedded in the floor, and there was no way that I was getting out of it.

I looked around and saw I was alone, good thing too. Crying wasn't something I wanted to be seen doing right now. I curled in on myself and cried out at the sudden pain that shot through me, nothing like the soreness from before. A tearing sensation.

I whimpered, not even willing to move. And for a long time, I didn't. Until I heard the click of heels and knew that Viktoriya was on her way down the stairs with my food. She opened the door and smiled at me, ignoring that I seemed so incredibly unhappy.

"Good morning, каргa. I hope you see you seemed to sleep well, that mattress all to yourself." She chuckled and kneeled beside me. She placed a plate of the same food from yesterday beside the bed, just in my reach.

"I have food. The same as yesterday. I will bring down water once you finish it." She kissed my forehead and walked away.

She stumbled as she walked, I noticed that she stumbled. She didn't seem like the same woman as yesterday, bold and beautiful. She seemed more old, more out of it. More likely to be asked if she needed help crossing the street than to be extolled. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, why she was acting that way, but something told me I didn't really want to ask.

As she walked up the stairs I looked at the food and pushed it away, slowly rolling to my other side and leaving my back to it.

I thought about who I was, and what I was missing at home, when Viktoriya came back down. The glass she had been holding fell to the ground and shattered against the cement as she saw the sight of the food, still on the plate.

I jumped, shocked at her outburst. We made eye-contact and I took a breath, letting the tension in my shoulders relax.

It was then that she lunged at me. I gasped, squealing and trying to squirm away from her. She grabbed my shoulder, flipping me over onto my back. She let her hand fly and it smacked me square on the face.

I cried out, worming away. My mind worked overtime, wondering what I had done to betray Viktoriya's trust.

Her hand landed on my face again. She yanked at my hair so hard I could have sworn I felt half of it come free, tearing away my scalp and exposing bone. I screamed, trying to claw at her and get her away from me.

She didn't relent. She shoved down my shoulders and sat on my stomach, forcing bile to burn the sides of it.

Viktoriya grabbed the food I had left on the plate in one hand, squashing the grapes and destroying the grapes. She pinched my nose, forcing me to open it. Maybe she really was my mother.

She shoved the food in, forcing my jaw up and down. Tears rolled down my face as I tried to force her away from me. She shoved my chin into my chest, and I swallowed, almost willingly, it seemed.

I gagged on the salt, coughing so hard that I could the food creeping back up my throat. I rolled away from Viktoriya, who had moved away now that I had swallowed. I leaned over the side of the bed, clutching at my stomach as I was violently sick on the floor.

My head spun, and I took several deep breaths to try to keep myself from throwing up again.

Behind me, Viktoriya just sighed. "Look what you've done." She grumbled. "Now I've got to clean that up. Disgusting." She stood up, glaring down at me with eyes like coals. "I'll be right back. Don't move. Or else I'll get Danny."

As she walked away again, my stomach snarled, upset that it was once again empty. I sighed and placed my palm on it. In fifth grade, we had done a unit on bodies, and I had peer-reviewed another's essay, which was all about starvation and what it can do to your body. I wanted to cry, thinking of all the things it had described, bones sticking through the skin, the body slowly eating itself. The thought of that happening to me was almost too much to bear. I looked over at the empty plate beside me. It was by no means polished, and it was cracked and stained in many places, but I could still see myself in it.

My cheeks were stained with tear tracks, even though I had never even noticed I was crying. That seemed to be a quite regular thing now, crying. MUch more common than it had been a few weeks ago. I sighed and wiped my eyes.

"If only you were here, Michelle." I laughed bitterly. "You would have gotten a kick out of this whole no food thing."

"A good diet is the key to every problem." I recited, laughing to myself. I looked at the chained cuff on my ankle. "Not the key to this."