[fullofsecrets]

Hunched over the kitchen floor Heather scrubbed endlessly at the stains that it had worn for so many years before. She was just now getting used to the bowling ball bulge in her stomach. It was harder to bend over, harder to do the chores she had been assigned, and caused her back a terrible aching. She hated all of these things, but to her the worst torture was feeling the demonic thing moving inside her.

She no longer looked like the radiant black haired beauty that she had oh so long ago. Now, her hair was so thick and tangled that if tried to be straightened out it might just break a brush or comb. Her eye lids drooped and she wore darkened bags under them due to a lack of sleep. Pale skin swept over her and bones protruded through skin due to a lack of self nutrition. Her hands were dressed in scars, dirt, dried blood, and red marks. Whip marks covered every inch of her body except for that of her stomach.

Sometimes she could hardly remember her name as she had not heard it in so long. She had seen no company except for that of her capturer. Jack had not been seen in months. He was hidden away in a cellar in the back yard, but Heather never knew that as she was never permitted to leave the house. To her she believed he was dead.

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Most of Jack's muscles had been eaten away by his own body due to starvation. He was free to roam around the cellar at his will, though most of the time he did not have the energy to do so. There were no windows and the walls were made of wooden planks, between each plank you could see pieces of dirt pushing through from outside the underground cellar. It had one door, but it could not be opened from the inside. It was bolted and locked with several security devices.

There were no blankets for him to keep warm with and the air was so chilled and cold that goosebumps never left his skin. He believed himself delusional, sometimes imagining Heather was there with him, where he could protect her. He had not known what had become of her; even though the man that came to give him water and little food remarked that she was alive, he could not be sure to his own abilities.