“What do you mean you think you saw a ghost? Are you alright, are you sick?” Kamal said feeling Senna’s head to see if she felt warm and possibly sick.
“No I’m just...he just...that man looked like someone I knew,” She replied, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“It doesn’t matter, forget it”
“Alright Senna” Kamal said, knowing Senna hated when people made sure she was fine. She could get a bit stubborn about her health.
The day passed fairly quickly, and it had been time for their meeting with the treasury advisor. Aladdin, Jasmine, Senna, Kamal, the treasury advisor and a few others were seated at the conference table in the palace’s conference hall. For Senna the meeting dragged on for ever, and although she heard the attendee’s voices, she did not listen. All she could think about was that man she had helped earlier and she wondered about the man he reminded her of. The meeting drew to a close and everyone left the conference hall. Kamal and Senna went up to their room to get ready for lunch, or at least Kamal did.
“Senna aren’t you going to get ready?” Kamal asked with an incredibly innocent voice.
“You know what, uh...Kamal I’m not really feeling so good, go to lunch without me.”
“Alright Senna, get some rest, you’ve had a big day” He replied coming up with the excuse for her future absence at lunch. He then kissed her lightly on the head and left to go to the dining hall.
“You’ve had a big day...”
* * *
“You’ve had a big day Rasoul, you can take the rest of the day off.” Senna heard someone say to Rasoul, as the door of her prison cell was slammed shut and locked.
“Thank you sir, but I want to be back for the sentencing.” Rasoul said smiling in an evil matter.
“In a few days then, six, seven maybe. Don’t worry we’ll get someone to get you, we know you’ve wanted to get her in here for quite some time.”
Senna looked around the prison cell, her new home. Ha! A prison cell, well she never thought she would end up there. She thought she could do anything, run from anyone, steal anything. She had thought like a child, but now she knew, now she knew she couldn’t do all she thought before. She was just another thief, another street rat. And that was all she would ever amount to.
She hadn’t had anything, no home, no parents, no life, she was a nobody. It had all been taken away from her at birth, without a fight. Although, she did have her brother, she did have Aladdin. But not anymore even he was taken away from her, now she had nothing to live for. She forced herself to stop thinking about her so-called life, and looked around the cell once more.
Dark stones lined the walls spiraling up towards the one window quite a few feet above the floor, a window that barely showed any light whatsoever. Writings had been scribbled on the walls of the cell. It had lines, probably showing the days a person had been held captive in this awful place. One was a sentence which read “In here there is no life.” A sentence which described Senna’s current position exactly, or at least what she felt her position was at the time. As Senna gazed upon her future in the stone walls of captivity she started to feel sick. Her stomach churned at the thought of being there forever. The thought of what the guards would do to her in the near future. They would probably beat her or something horrible and for the first time in her very short, twelve years of life she was scared, frightened. She didn’t know what she would do, if they would kill her or if she would get to it first. The thought of suicide seemed like a good option at the time but she waited for the next day to see what they would bring her way. She would give them a chance to live in the glory of taking her as a prisoner, let them have their fun.
The days passed without food, full of fatigue, sickness, beatings, humiliation, boiling days, and freezing nights. After about a week of torture, (maybe even more) the door to Senna’s prison cell was opened and a gush of light seeped into the black room, now filling it with blinding light. Senna blocked her eyes and squinted from the light she had not seen for what seemed like a lifetime.
“Get up!” Rasoul said, for he was the one who opened the door. Senna didn’t move, first of all she couldn’t, the guards had beaten her mercilessly almost everyday, and she was too sick to get up. Second of all she wouldn’t have gotten up on Rasoul’s orders if her life depended on it.
She spit at his feet.
“You stupid street rat!” He yelled as he punched her left cheek. Her face faced the right and she stayed like that, her eyes locked on the position they were sent in.
“Get her up!” He ordered two guards. The guards picked her up and dragged her to a room where the sultan waited, not wanting to be bothered with such stupidities, he could have been doing better things, for instance playing with his toys, not deciding what to do with a criminal.
“Your highness” The guards said as they bowed and bowed Senna’s head for her quite harshly.
“Hm,” the sultan thought as he pulled his beard.
“Stealing you said?”
“Yes sir” Rasoul said
“Send her to the prison in Afar”
“Your highness, with all do respect, you d...don’t want to keep her...her here, in...in...in our prison?” Rasoul stuttered. Senna’s lips formed a grin. One of the guards saw the gesture and hit her.
“No, send her to Afar at once” the sultan ordered with a wave of his hand. Then he left to his throne room.
Rasoul had a wagon get ready for the journey to the neighboring city. He walked her to
the wagon, regretting every step closer to her departure. He would miss the pain he inflicted on her. The hell he had put her through for the past week. She got in the wagon and got comfortable, well comfortable for a person who had just been beaten for the past week. The wagon started it’s journey.
“Well it was fun while it lasted huh?” Senna called out in an exhausted voice to Rasoul, who was a good twenty feet away. At least in that week of hell she had gotten her sense of humor back (funny how that works out).
Rasoul just grumbled, then turned and walked back towards the prison.
Past by senna1