A TALE OF NIGHTMARES

She hated cages. She could swear that she hated them as much as she despised crips. The only time she'd ever gone to the zoo, she'd almost had a claustrophobic attack just from watching the poor animals live behind bars. She just couldn't come to terms with any creature having to live that way. Most times she'd even felt bad for criminals condemned to life in a cell. She'd certainly never expected to spend her life in one, though lately, life seemed to be throwing her a lot of things she'd never expected, because here she was, locked away.

Georgia Martinez, seated with her knees up and her head tucked between both knees, shivered from a tiny blast of early morning January's air. She could hear the distant murmurs and laughter of several other inmates which only made her wonder how people could bring themselves to laugh in a place like this.

'You'd learn to laugh too after a couple of months,' her exhausted mental companion chipped in.

With an increasing tide of hopelessness Georgia forced the voice into silence, and concentrated on her sense of hearing, trying hard to expand it past the indistinct voices coming from her neighboring cells. Aside the low ramblings of the prisoners who were awake, the entire prison yard could be modeled off as a cemetery. At a point, Georgia was certain she'd hear the sound of the fluorescents burning away somewhere down the hallway if she'd listen hard enough. Plus there was no way she could tell what the time was, except that it was plenty of hours later since she'd been shoved inside this plain and sterile compartment. On a second thought, she wasn't sure if the hours were truly plenty just as she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

Alone with nothing but her thoughts for companionship, Georgia Martinez started to sob quietly. She realized with a painful sting how easy it was to cry when the fear of being caught wasn't looming over her head. As a matter of fact, she'd cry more in the last fourteen hours than she'd cry in the last seventeen years. And even more painful was the realization that her cries wouldn't change a goddamn thing. But that didn't stop the crying as her tears will continue to stream down her face with freedom. And when Georgia did indeed put a restriction to the tears, with nothing else to do, she was immediately thrown back into the pool of unanswered questions piling in her head since the minute the cuffs were slapped on her wrists.

How the hell did she get herself into a situation like this? Well she couldn't say for sure as no one had bothered to brief her on anything aside she was being charged and arrested for the murder of Elena Martinez, her own mother. And that should have been absurd except that it was true. Elena had been truly murdered and for some reason she, Georgia Martinez, was being locked up for it. It wasn't a secret that she and Elena had the most stormy relationship any daughter could manage with her mother, and Georgia was willing to argue that that wasn't enough reason to be accused of the murder, but there was also the thing about the evidence. She'd overheard a conversation between two officers during her procession, and there had been the mention of several solid evidences which proves Georgia had indeed committed the crime. Only that she didn't. She did not kill Elena and the idea of evidences trails leading this crime to her scared her more than the idea of killing Elena originally had.

Tired of thinking and piling up more questions that she can't answer, Georgia stretched out her knees and sat straight, her eyes glaring at the steel bars that isolated her from the rest of the world. The fluorescent lighting made the metal gleam in a way that felt harsh and irritating to her eyes. She quickly looked away, her eyes running the perimeter of her dungeon. Okay, this wasn't particularly a dungeon. Not in the dark, rusty chain sense. Georgia was inside a small cell with plain walls, plain floor and well... plain everything. Sterile and cold. Even more depressing than any musty dungeon might have been. Rats and cobwebs would have at least given her something to watch other than this plain, stark room. She gazed up and immediately had the disorienting feeling she always had when trapped. The claustrophobia wrapped around her like a cloud of oil smoke, making the ceiling and walls look like they were closing in on her. Like the ceiling and walls would keep coming towards her until no space remained, pushing out all her air and......

Georgia stood up abruptly, gasping, concentrating on anything but the closeness of the walls and gradually, the panic slipped away.

Breathe, girl. Breathe! Georgia chastised herself until she had her breathing under control. She sighed and returned to the cot in the cell's corner, refusing to think about her life in present. As she lay on the hard and unyielding cot, she let her mind travel to wonderful times before now. Before long the edges of her lips curled up in a lazy smile as the first image of her subconsciousness took over.

Georgia Martinez awoke with a start to the clink of metal on metal, but it was the rowdiness of the environment, the continuous distant yelling and screams that kept her awake. Or maybe she just didn't want to return to the nightmare she'd been having a minute ago. She'd been on an exotic island with the man of her dreams.

His eyes so dark they'd ignite her entire body in just a glance. His hair black as pitch was so perfectly styled like he modeled for a hair ointment organisation. They were both lying on the sand by the ocean with not a piece of clothing on. Her naked skin gleamed under the cool sun and she'd been pleased to spot a ruby colored piece of jewelry on her belly button, an action Elena had always rebelled against.

Dye your hair, bleach your skin, wear heavy makeups, but don't you dare pierce your skin and don't even consider putting ink on that skin.

His naked skin equally shone under the sun. His erection gleamed as well making Georgia blush. She felt so sexually exhausted after hours of s*x but she was still pleased to see he couldn't have enough of her. She blushed harder and cuddled up against him then suddenly everything started to disintegrate away. The ocean became a cemetery, the sun turned into a blood moon, the sand was no longer white and soft. It was dark and overgrown with thick weeds and it was gradually sucking her underneath. And her lover also disintegrated into her dead mother, which had made Georgia scream out in fear still Elena continued to cuddle her tight till the ground swallowed them both up.

Georgia rubbed her eyes harshly, she hated how her nice dream had burned into ash in an instant, but she hated being in this hellhole even more. She didn't know what was going to happen to her in here except that Elena wasn't letting her off the hook so easily. She might as well come for Georgia in the form of an inmate or a prison guard or a disease or food poisoning and the numerous other bad things that could happen to her in prison. She began pacing about the little cell, her thought buried somewhere in the past, until a guard appeared to unlock her cell.

"Hit the showers Martinez," the guard drawled, her fleshy face had a nasty grin plastered on it. She wasn't a fat person, Georgia noticed instantly, regardless she still happened to be hugely built. "Daddy is here to hug you."

She thought of delivering a sarcastic reply, say like, 'Yeah? cool, lemme go get my toiletries... Oh, I can't cause they ain't here. They'