Rose moved in discomfort. What? This could not possibly be paradise, right? The thing she laid on, whatever it was, was so hard and uncomfortable reminding her of when she was in the orphanage. Or was she in hell? She doubted that since the sister always told her that hell was hot.

Remembering that, she suddenly felt sweaty. She felt the uncomfortable feeling of heat as well as cold – fever. Since she felt the presence of cold, she knew she was not in hell but where the hell was she then?

She then attempted to open her eyes and they opened immediately, her two eyes stared around at the familiar ceiling. Was she back to the orphanage? She immediately went through her mind and the memories of why she felt she was either in hell or paradise and not in her bed in the orphanage came to her mind.

***

Rosaline noticed the tight thick ropes holding hands together behind her back and her legs as soon as she woke up. The ropes were too tight and uncomfortable. She shivered visibly due to the cold she felt from being drenched in a bucket of cold water. She was sitting on a chair. The place was large with her right eye which was her only functioning eye hurting from the bright light from the large door that opened in front of her. The cold wind coming in from the door also did not do her any good in her state and she kept shivering.

Turning to the right, she noticed her stepmother seated with her legs crossed on a brown leather sofa and her step-siblings standing beside her. Behind them were a dozen royal guards in their blue and black uniforms awaiting orders and protecting those three before her. She remembered going to the palace and getting stopped by the guards at the gate and she told them she was the princess. She was knocked out after giving them the proof of her identity.

The orders the guards awaited finally came, "Beat her up." That order came from her stepmother sitting with pride as the only thought she had on her mind was to have her rival's daughter beaten and abused until she was satisfied which she would only be if the girl was dead.

The guards immediately took the order of the queen to beat up the tied-up teenager. Walking to her with a baton, the guards did not hesitate to beat her.

"No, please I am sorry," she cried as a baton hit her lap. She could swear that that single hit had broken her bones. If it was because she was the daughter of the late queen then she did not want the identity anymore. The joy she once felt when she discovered she also had a father somewhere was all long gone. "I swear, I will disappear," she tried to beg her way out of dying.

The queen raised her hand putting the beating to a halt. She got up slowly and elegantly walked to her standing a few feet away from her. "Disappearing is not important. You should have been dead more than ten years ago and since you refused to die, I want to help you. You should not covet what is not yours. Do you think that by returning, you will be welcomed into the palace with a party and an announcement to the world that you have returned?"

"No, I never wanted anything but to meet my father. Please I don't want to die. Please," she continued pleading as tears ran down her cheeks.

The queen stared at the disgusting-looking girl before her and it took so much willpower for her not to empty her stomach of the lunch she had just had a couple of hours ago. The girl had an ugly large scar on the left side of her face that destroyed the left side of her face. It looked so unsightly that she wanted to look away but the joy she got from seeing her rival's daughter end up in such a pathetic state made her keep staring it was going to make her live the rest of her life smiling.

"You cannot see our father with that face. You are too disgusting to stand before the king," her stepsister told her as she walked to her with her hands folded on her chest.

"You are just like your mother but I feel better looking at you," her stepmother told her chuckling. "I will do this world a favor by eliminating such useless humans that are trying hard to claim importance."

"Please don't kill me," her pleas continued. She did not want to die. Life had not been beautiful and easy but she did not want to die. It had been hard living with the scar on her face and her left blind eye but that did not mean she wanted to die. She had hoped that perhaps she would be able to make enough money for her surgery in the future.

"Lose her," the queen ordered. The guard loosed her and she immediately sighed in relief at least her begging worked but little did she know that it was only to make her more miserable.

"Thank you, Your Highness," she appreciated standing up but her body dropped to the dusty rough floor her legs being too weak from the beating. She winced and made another attempt to stand up already making plans on how she would run away and hide forever.

"I haven't decided to forgive you yet," the queen told her making her hope shatter.

She fell again to the floor and did not bother to wince despite the pain she felt from her numb hands and sore legs. She felt as though the muscles of her lap were crushed. The cold, and the pain all seemed to vanish and she was simply waiting to be killed since her legs could not support her.

"Beg. I can't tell you how much you want to live. Beg for your life," her stepmother her in a soft tempting voice carrying hope.

The hope that Rosaline once lost was restored she had a hope that if she succeeded in begging for her life, she might be given another chance. She lifted her head towards her stepmother and began another session of begging this time, she tried to let all her emotions and desire to live show.

Her pleas only made the queen giggle in amusement but naïve Rosaline felt she was not persuasive enough and kept trying harder. "Please, please let me live. I will leave and never return. I will leave this kingdom and never return. I will become invisible. Please let me live. I beg you, please. Give me a chance to live. Please let me live. Please. Please, Your Highness, grant me the grace of not dying. I beg for mercy," her pleas continued. She thought of anything, word, or expression that might make the queen let her go and make use of them all. Tears wet her face along with the water that remained on her taking time to dry up.

"Who are you to seek the king's help? Who are you to try and appear before me, with such appearance? Who are you to try to be a princess? Who are you to dream of living in the palace?" her step-brother asked now standing beside his mother.

"I am stupid, I don't deserve anything good. I am ugly and useless so please don't let me bother you with my death," her brain made new methods of begging, and that was making her importance reduced. Perhaps they won't take her seriously any longer.

"Yes, you are pathetic and unimportant," her stepmother agreed with her new method. It was like music in her ears, having Doris' daughter beg her in such a manner. She nodded to the beat of her newly found music. "Beg more, persuade me to let you live," she did not hesitate to motivate Rosaline to give her more of that music.

"I . . .," Rosaline began but got interrupted by the uncomfortable feeling in her throat and began coughing violently with a sharp unpleasant pain in her chest with every cough. The cold was getting the best of her. Her stepmother and step-siblings were well protected from the cold by the jackets they wore but she was only dressed in a white T-shirt and brown jeans, the coat she wore to the palace was gone.

Since she could not beg because her throat felt sore after violently coughing, she began rubbing her hands together towards her stepmother.

Feeling both angry and disappointed that her music had stopped, the queen turned to the guards with a new way to torture the eyesore before her. "You can leave," she said to Rosaline but gave a different order to the guards.