Who knows how many hours or days I’ve been in here now. She has robbed me of anything that might mark time. While it flows on as usual outside the room, I am trapped in here. A slow murder.

I no longer attempt to escape. I slump into my own shit. A new piece of Ariah’s story slots into place. Perhaps the six men before me didn’t escape either. How stupid of me never to wonder where they had ended up. Perhaps all of them were addicted like me, even on their day of repentance, surrendering themselves to her fatal experiments. And this is where we have all ended up: in the dark.

I crouch in this clammy and suffocating enclosure, imagining her out there, laughing scornfully, revelling in her hideous face. A pocked face that invites the mirth of maggots. Rotting. Bewitching.

The Well

‘I won’t be home too late.’

‘I wind up in pain when you come back late. A lot of pain.’

‘Yes, Pa. I know. See you later, Pa.’

Dahlia, the youngest daughter, cared for her sickly father. Her siblings survived on her blood, leeches that they were. Their right to movement, procreation, business, labour and leisure – all of it depended on Dahlia’s existence. Beloved daughter, Pa’s little girl, youngest sister to all the siblings. She was the last born, frequently overlooked. And see how powerless he had become: he whose voice had once boomed through the halls of the household, he who could ferret out the trembling lies of his children as they cowered under the table, a tyrant who wielded an iron fist in the name of love. Now he was merely a pensioner. His grey hair stank of pomade and he was helpless without his afternoon nap. His 78-year-old heart was weak and he was so dependent on his daughter that he had a constant need to grasp her hand.

‘Your grip’s too tight, Pa.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

Do you depend on me, or do you refuse to let me go because I’m a brittle hair, easily uprooted from your scalp and swept away? Are you afraid of losing me?

Dahlia was her father’s favourite. Her siblings knew this. When she finished her schooling in the mediocre little town where they lived, they asked her to put off finding a job, to take care of the old man. The former authoritarian hated nursemaids and only wanted his beloved daughter. Come on, he won’t live long. Her siblings shared the burden of financial support, and two years ago she, formally a princess, joined the ranks of the unemployed.

They bought her a wide-screen TV so she wouldn’t get bored. She never complained, even though she couldn’t go out with her friends much, or date. Besides, no suitor had come into her life. Of all the many knights, as yet none had had sufficient vigour to vanquish the father.