"Lyr!" Leah bounds over to me with a worn satchel in her right hand, a thick cloak in her left. "Do you mind going to the food storage and retrieving some herbs for dinner? Maria wants to make soup today— it's getting really cold outside, isn't it?"

I nod in agreement, taking the satchel and the cloak from her. As I quickly do the class around my neck, I'm grateful at how warm the material is.

"I'll be back in like a minute."

Leah laughs at my playful confidence. "You know it's going to take way more time than that, Lyr. Good luck out there— it's super freezing with the snow last night."

Making a face at her, I exit through the back doors into temperatures that would freeze fire itself. Drawing the cloak tighter around my delicate body, I hurry down the snow-covered road to the common storage at the end. I want to get this over with quickly— the chill is already getting to me.

I'm relieved to find that the storage is completely empty inside— it would've been awkward if other Darks have been in here. After scanning the rows and rows of herbs, I finally pick out a couple that I know Maria would want in her soup.

As I grab bundles of sage, parsley, and basil leaves, the storage door suddenly opens with a loud clang, revealing a heavily built man. He walks towards the herbs section as well, and I ignore his gaze as he trails his eyes over my stature.

"You're the Light Slave."

His voice is gruff and resounding inside the storage room, and a cold, haunting chill shoots up my back. That usually doesn't mean good things.

In a second, the man's fist crashes into my back, and I'm hurled into the shelves and shelves filled with herbs. My head cracks directly against one of them, and dizzying pain overwhelms all my senses.

"Worthless Lights. You don't deserve to even live as a slave— you only deserve painful death."

I barely avoid the next blow to my chest as I dive to the side just in time. Panic and fear pounds through my mind, clutching my heart in a tight, closed fist. Adrenaline flows through my blood as I grip the first bottle I find and smash it over the Dark's head.

I'm more than happy to know that the bottle was a bottle containing vinegar brewed from onions. The smell immediately clouds the entire storage house and the man's painful screams are more than enough to know that my attack was effective.

Agony flashes through my head as I stagger up to my feet, and the ground tilts violently in front of me as I struggle to find my balance. I must have been struck harder than I had first expected.

"You little rat!"

His hand encloses around my arm, and I scream as he jerks it upwards. The snap of my arm breaking is loud enough to hear it through my pained shrieks, and spots dance in my vision as I collapse to the ground like a rag doll.

I can't feel my arm. Only pain.

"You've gone too far." The man grips my body and slings me over his shoulder like I'm a limp sack of potatoes. I struggle helplessly as he drags me outside into the freezing snow, and into the Iliad Forests.

"No," I whimper as I claw at his back. But with a broken arm and a bloody, dizzy head, what was a girl to do? "Let me go! I'm not yours to take!"

I'm Jungkook's. I'm his property.

"Damn right you are." The man walks deeper into the forests, and my cries grow weaker with the loss of blood. Pain shoots through my body with every movement, and agony plus cold is a terrible combination.

He stops just before we go too deep into the maze of trees, and binds my hands together with rough, coarse rope. My right arm throbs as he pulls them up violently, making me scream in agony. It hurts. It hurts so much.

Tears blind my eyes as he finishes tying my arms onto a tree branch, so that my body hangs from it like deadweight. I thrash, ignoring the pain as he binds my ankles together as well.

I can't move, I can't think.

Then I hear the sound of fabric tearing as his knife digs into the back of my cloak, tearing the material so that my back is left completely bare for the cold.

"You can freeze to death slowly. Remember what you could've done when you draw your final breath."

Sniggering mockingly, he stalks away back to the village, leaving me alone in the bone chilling cold. My back is already numb and my senses are filled with pain.

Everything blurs into a single blob of white as my head lolls to the side limply. Something drips down onto my bare shoulder, forming a sticky trail down my back as it falls to the ground in thick, red spots.

My blood.

I can only watch my life liquid slowly drain out of me as I lie suspended on a stupid tree branch.

Am I really going to die freezing to death while suspended on a damn tree?

Then my vision of white colors dark with blood, and I surrender myself over to the cold, awaiting for my death sentence.