Victoria

By Indriya Inesh

Lockhaul was a small town filled with beggars along the long deserted streets. Victoria grew up here, a little girl who limped holding her mother’s hand. She was born in this town with a paralyzed leg to a loving mother but a father who desired for having a son and saw Victoria as a burden to their lives. Soon after she was born, her father decided to give her away but her mother refused to agree with this and fought for keeping her child. One night, the father took her away from her mother while she was asleep and gave her up to the streets. A woman named Elize who walked down the streets at night found this baby girl with a tag on her little hands saying Victoria. Elize waited alongside her for her parents to find their missing baby but they never came. Elize, a beggar herself, took Victoria to her small hut in the outskirts of the town. She raised her ever since as her real mother. Victoria grew up to be a talented young girl who walked along the streets of Lockhaul with her mother everyday from school.

One day on their way back from school, a stranger appeared who introduced himself as a scientist from a nearby town. He soon felt that there was something very mysterious about Victoria's leg. So he asked Elize about Victoria and her paralyzed leg. Elize walked away with Victoria as they felt uncomfortable with his questions about her leg. That night, Victoria and Elize were captured by his robots and Victoria was locked up in a cell in the scientist's laboratory. Victoria sat in the corner of the dark room clueless about everything around her. Soon enough, the robots opened up the cell and tried to take her away to the scientist. She saw Elize being taken away from the laboratory. Victoria tried to crawl towards Elize but she was never able to reach her before she vanished from the end of the room. The scientist ordered his robots to take Victoria to lock her up in a big glass capsule.

Cold, sweaty and panicking, Victoria opened her eyes to find herself in the capsule as if she woke up from a sound sleep. She looked at her hands that had grown much bigger. Her leg was somehow cured. Banging the door and crying for help, a few robots saw her and opened the capsule. They told her that many years had passed by and that the earth had been destroyed because of the carelessness of cruel human beings. But the scientist had replaced her leg with another person's leg before his death. Fifty three years had passed by while Victoria was stuck in the capsule. She was seven years old when she was locked up and now she was twenty one as her aging was slow because of the capsule. Victoria needed some practise for walking but she was fine. The robots also said that the scientist was dead and so was everyone else. There was no human being left on earth other than her and they explained to her what her life was and what had happened over these years. The robots also confessed that they themselves captured her and that they regret it so much. They said sorry and took care of her for many days until their battery went out.

She was sad but she had to try finding her mother because maybe not everyone on the earth was dead. She searched almost everywhere but could not find anyone. She was very hungry and tired. She slowly started to faint but that was when she suddenly saw her mother running. She followed her while she asked her to wait but she kept running until she stopped by and told her that Victoria does not have a mother. Elize told her that she was stolen and teleported into a world of imagination and that this was all a drama made by Elize with her puppets and now Victoria was one of them!

By Indriya Inesh