When she looked in the corner,she saw three girls,who looked her age,cramped in the corner. They were cowering in fear,looking as though they wanted the wall to swallow them up.
Regia shifted her gaze once again to look around the room, which had only two windows which didn't look like normal ones as they were covered with thick rods across their length leaving only a little space to see through.
Logic began to roar in her head,telling her to run out now that she had the chance,but as though she was under a heavy hypnosis,her leg continued to move forward.
The sound of a door closing seemed to be the counter trick to break her out of her daze. She gasped slightly as she turned to face the the door, only to the door had been closed.
She rushed to the door and searched frantically for a door knob but there was none ,it seemed like the secret latch could only be opened from the outside.
Now it dawned on her,she would be always doomed to ill luck.
Her neck turned stiffly towards the girl still cowering in the corner, they all looked her age if not older.
Once they saw that the door had been closed, they began to move individually and sit on their mats,looking emptily ahead, staring into nothing.
Time seemed to have stilled as she stood there,looking at the two sealed windows. An unfamiliar voice broke into her solitude.
"How did you get here?", a low voice said causing her to turn to see the person who had spoken to her.
It was a young lady with dark hair and wide dark eyes. She was sitting on her mat,looking up at Regia, then she patted the mat, signalling her to come sit down.
Regia looked back at her and at the other dark haired lady sitting beside her,before making a move towards the mat. She sat down a fair distance from her.
The girl repeated her question,
" How did you get here?",she asked,
her tone low and as though she just broke out of sober reflection.
Regia shifted her gaze to those in the room,all of whose eyes were fixed on her,before returning her gaze to the person that asked her a question. She answered the question to the beat of her knowledge.
The lady looked at her,nodding her head before she sighed.
"We all have stories similar to yours,I was kidnapped along with my friend,Nayu,we were on the run from our abusive husband who we were both betrothed to,Evelyn over there,killed her husband,she's got anger issues", she said,whispering the loud part which was loud enough for Evelyn to hear.
Evelyn,a red haired lady with tiny but beautiful eyes,threw a shoe at her but she ducked it right on time,as though anticipating the attack. She smiled weakly,her smile crashing on her face.
" I'm Olivia, what's your name?",she asked,her gaze sullen but she tried to sound cheerful.
What Olivia said made Regia realize that she wasn't the only one in a predicament such as this. There were people suffering under fate's clutch and were probably lots more out there.
She looked at Olivia who looked like she had gotten fed up with life. She felt sympathetic for a reason,then wondered why she should be,since they were both suffering the same fate.
"I am Regia, it's nice to meet you Olivia", she said and Olivia tried to smile again.
" So,how long have you been here and what do you even do in here?",she started with her inquiry,looking around the stuffy room.
"For just a few days now, we met Evelyn here,we normally go work in the front counter and Madame Lettie introduces us to her customer until Someone got us all in trouble", she replied,looking in the direction of Evelyn who was sitting alone in the corner, scowling at her.
Regia took quite a while to process the new information.
" And introduce you to who exactly ",she queried, curious to know the details of what she had just said.
" I might be wrong,you know I have only been here for a couple of days now,but I think Madam Lettie runs an underground brothel,I see Mara prepare a large quantity of meal and carry it through the other path to God knows whom,and there was this one time, I noticed Mara lead two men there,all alone",she said,adding the last part softly, her dim eyes coming alive with the thrill of gossip.
Nayu's eyes widened upon the revelation while Evelyn rolled her eyes. The atmosphere around them suddenly became lighter with the chatting.
Regia reflected upon her words thoughtfully,she wasn't even surprised by the turn of events. She had just gone from a hot pot into fire.
Now she was going to use her body as an instrument to make money for someone else,and she wanted to make sure it was never going to happen.
She had no where else to go sadly, neither did she know just where under the heavens she was exactly, but one thing she did know was that she wasn't going to sit put and watch passively.
She lifted her face,new and fierce determination burning in her eyes.
"Why don't we plan our escape from here", she spilled and all the ladies, including Evelyn looked at her looked at her like she had gone mad.
" Do you have an idea where we can escape to",Nayu spoke this time, her eyes trained on Regia.
"And I thought I was the irrational one here", she said with sarcasm in her voice,causing them all to look at her,
" Please tell me if you want to commit suicide and count me out",she said and laid back on her mat,shifting to face the wall.
The remaining three women returned their gazes to each other and Regia continued to address Nayu's question.
"I don't know but do you want to be treated like a ragdoll or enjoy some liberty for once", she stated and scanned the faces of the two women before her,who just turned to look at each other.