A/N: Prologue coming soon. It's currently in my English book, in my English class.

The castle: a remnant of beauty; a ruin; a skeleton of former glory. Here the cursed children are kept, in the dungeon; the children doomed to no existence; those lost to the world. A new boy was brought in just today. He did not speak as his captors locked him in, and he will never speak again.

I looked at the new boy with interest from my cage. That's right. My cage. As a "punishment" for trying to get out of this hell hole, I get put in a cage for an hour. Every time. So I'm in here about half my life, if you can call my miserable existence that. I shouldn't be here. I'm just this girl with a mass of brown tatty hair, "amber" eyes, and a scowl that totally reflects my do-I-give-a-fuck attitude. And I'm stuck in a cage. It's just... wrong. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. The new boy. He had these weird scrutinizing blue eyes that made you nervous, and black-as-night hair which just looked... odd against his pale skin. Didn't say a word while they dragged him in, didn't even struggle. I put up a proper fight when they tried to bring me in here. I even manged to kick one of my captors in the... yeah, anyway. Either the boy was exceptionally stupid or there was more to him than there looked.

Which is good, 'cause I could do with someone to help me escape. They're totally mad if they think I'm gonna stay in this fucked-up environment until I die. Totally and completely fucking mad. The only thing that stops me... there was this boy and girl a while back here, twins, and they escaped together but they were brought back. And before they had spirit. But when they came back they were hopeless. Wouldn't wanna end up like that or something.

The guard came up and I didn't move, just looked at him without blinking. It's this thing I do to freak them out. They'll start thinking I'm crazy. But let them think that. They think I'm cursed already, which is just bloody mad. Sure, I'm cursed. I have a little circle on my shoulder so of course I've got to be locked in a cage. Damn cage. Damn guards. Damn world.

At least I have a name. Loads of the kids here don't even have that. Not a proper name, like "Sarah" or "Kate" or "Lauren". No, my name's Liliha, which means "Angry Disregard". Don't like it personally, but at least it's a name.

So the guard took me down to the dungeons. I was feeling pretty pissed off because that's the worst bit, all the others seeing you being dragged along in chains. So I gave him a flood of furious oaths, and guess what? I'm gonna go back in the cage tomorrow. How bloody wonderful. As I arrived I saw the two twins playing some pathetic paper game, Noughts And Crosses or Hangman or something like that. The ones who ran away. I glowered at them but the girl, the only one who saw me, she just gave me a weird sort of smile. Don't wanna end up like them. Rather die.

The new boy, he was just sitting by himself. Walked up to him when they got the chains off. Asked if he was new. He nodded and turned away.

Don't be so fucking rude, I thought, but I decided to give him one more chance so I said, "Welcome to Hell. I'm Liliha."

That if nothing should've got him talking. We don't usually have names. But he just sat silently. Beginning to think he's mute. I tried talking to him a few other times and he never replied. So that was a waste of my time.

I watched him all evening. He didn't do much, in fact didn't budge at all until dinner. Dinner was "pasta". They call it that, I call it cat sick. Why do they bother feeding us? Much easier to let us die. Our entire existence is just a waste of time, only when we're "grown up" we get the chance to become captors ourselves. Wonderful. Get to bring more innocent kids to Hell.

After dinner the kid just went to sleep. Not only were the lights not off, but it was his first day. Usually the new ones don't sleep for ages. But I decided I'd investigate him more tomorrow. I need sleep.