The Broken Swan

It was dark. That much she knew.

The blindfold over her eyes had slipped long ago, back when the yellow light slipped through the thin crack of the box she had been squashed into, but that had waned long ago, after the artist had cleared away his equipment and his heavy, booted feet had stomped up a creaky staircase into the silent world above her. Clare was hardly aware of it all. She'd been in and out of consciousness, ever since she'd felt the edge of something hard cracking against her skull, felt her feet scraping the pavement beneath her, and then the searing sharp pain of her limbs being twisted.

That could have been days ago. Weeks. Hours, maybe. She didn't know. She knew nothing other than the dull aching of her body, the migraine pulsating her temples and forcing her eyeballs out of her skull, the sandpaper taste of her tongue in her mouth. The fear. The fear, she knew. Oh, and the song.. She couldn't quite place it at first, heard it in her dreams as her body forced her to sleep through her pain, something light and classical and pleasant to the ears. Tinkering piano keys like a waterfall. Slow, seductive violins.

The music had a lilt to it, a kind of tiptoeing grace- something that might have played in a ballroom decades ago, or at one of her shows when she had been twisting like a spinning top to soothing cheers. Clare let it carry her for a moment, if only because the pain dulled when she did. It was better than thinking. Better than knowing.

But then, beneath the delicate rise of violins, something tugged at the edges of her mind. A wrong note. A sound not meant to be there. She held her breath and listened harder. There- between the gliding piano notes and the long, mournful swell of cello- a rasp. A strain. A voice?

A scream.

No, not a scream. Not at first. A gasp. A sob, warped and slowed down until it crawled along the melody like oil on water. Clare’s body went cold. The longer she listened, the clearer it became. It was a scream that had been tuned, fractured, stretched across keys like a broken instrument. A woman- no, a girl- howling in agony, looped and layered beneath the gentle soundtrack like a perverse harmony.

Clare’s stomach lurched. She knew that voice. It was hers.

*

The realisation hollowed her out from the inside, a cruel chill flooding her veins.

He had recorded her screaming, and she hadn't known.

Even worse, he had blended into music. Her music. A favourite song of hers, desecrated. What else did he have planned for her? Panic took hold.

Clare tried to move, to break free of the suffocating wooden box that was fast becoming her tomb, but her body betrayed her. Limbs pulsed in dull protest- bones distorted at impossible angles, joints crushed to gravel. She was packed too tight to move. Her skin felt heavy, like she had been pulled inside out and her tender muscles anchored her to the ground. Clare let out a frustrated groan which was swollen by the elegant sound of pianos and the sharp scream where the violin used to be.. She could feel her eyes pricking but no tears would come.

She was going to die. She could feel it. Something inside her was already folding inward, preparing for the end.

Her neck flopped like melted rubber when she tried to lift it. She tried to peer through the crack in the side of the box. Nothing but inescapable darkness.

She tried to rouse her mind back to the beginning. How she came to be here in the first place. She had been at the park. Scrolling through her phone, waiting for his "I'm on my way" text message was her last clear thought. Everything after that was a haze, a memory she knew she couldn't trust.

The music stopped mid-note. No fade-out. Just a cold, clinical click.

Silence crashed in, thick and absolute, and it punctured something in her chest. The room seemed to exhale around her- and take her breath with it.

A screech split the quiet, metal grinding against stone. Then footsteps. Not one set- but many, descending the stairs in perfect, unnatural sync.

Out of nowhere, a gentle voice oozed from above the box.

"Gently now. She's very delicate."

Her fading heart jumped in her body. She hadn't realised anyone was there.

But also, there was something about his voice.. Something unnatural in how calm he sounded, like a man admiring brush strokes, not giving orders about a broken woman in a box. There was something in the way his tone scraped at the edges of her memory. A buried discomfort. A face she'd tried to forget. Something..

The other footsteps approached. Two men, heavier, rougher, less graceful, grunted as they lifted the box from the floor. Pain shot through her broken body as the box rocked her from side to side, bones grinding inside her like broken glass. She tried to scream, but her broken voice caught in her throat, causing her to choke.

Wood groaned under the pressure of the box as they carried her, each step creaking with each footfall until cool air swept through the crack in the box and they carried Clare into a wide open space and gently placed her on the floor. Fluorescent lights brightened her through the slats. Then came an echo- Cables dragging, metallic clinks, clicking buttons. "Stage first," the man said. "Secure the platform and the angled seating. Check the lines are in tact. I want her to fly." The lights changed, flashing diffferent shades of white, yellow, diamond. Feet shuffled on the stage, more metallic clinks.

"She's a ballet dancer," the man continued. "Her grand jeté needs to look.. effortless."

The men said nothing, just went about their grim task. Clare strained her eyes towards the slit. All she could see were flocked- cables snaking across the floor, scaffolding. She wasn't sure.

Then a glimpse: the corner of something silver. Metal harnesses dangling above a throne-like shape.

Panic rose. Was it... a chair?

No. It had edges. Sharp ones. Angled too precisely to be furniture. It was more like a plinth. A sculpture base. A seat designed not to be sat in, but to display.

“Bring the light down a little. I want the shadows to hit her cheekbones. She has very expressive features. The mouth, especially.”

Clare’s breath hitched.

She tried to scream, but her voice had now completely gone. All that escaped was a rasp. A dying thing.

The voice again:

“We only get one take. Understand? One performance. Then we move on.”

The men murmured in agreement.

One performance.

Her stomach twisted.

They weren’t just going to kill her.

They were going to make it art.

*

The lid of the box was opened with a slow, deliberate creak. Clare's skin trembled from the awful realisation of what was happening to her. Any dignity that she had was stripped away as the remnants of her clothing were gently sliced and pulled away from her aching body, and replaced by a stiff harness clipped into place, cold metal biting into flesh.

She was nothing but a puppet, her limbs stiff and useless beneath the weight of her broken bones.

Her eyes prickled again as brushes began painting her exposed skin. Cold, wet, layer upon layer closer to death. Her hair was chopped, close to her head, brushed back neatly against her scalp and sealed in wax, just like she was.

A voice behind her broke through the torturous silence and echoed all around her.

"Ladies and gentleman, thank you for joining me here tonight." It was him. The man she still couldn't quite place. "For one night only, I have created something new. Something special. An installation I like to call The Broken Swan."

Every inch of Clare was screaming in agony as her twisted limbs were pulled into the metal clips that dangled in front of her. She barely heard the rushing sound of clapping hands with every slow click of metal. The voice, calm, satisfied, continued.

"An elegant young ballerina, caught between the black and white swan personalities. The Prince, full of love for her, sees the beauty in both aspects — but she is incapable of accepting it. She spurns his love, rejects him, unable to decide whether she should live or die.”

He paused, letting the words hang in the air, knowing she was listening. Through the pain, something in her memory began to stir.

“So he decides for her. The Prince cannot live without her, but the world cannot continue on with her in it. He brings her the end she couldn’t choose. She is broken, so he breaks her.”

Her body was hoisted up, every part of her burning as she felt herself rise, limbs pulled like a branch from a tree, every joint complaining under the strain.

"The bidding on this peice will begin once the show has concluded.." He paused briefly before adding: "Let's hope it remains as.. fresh.. in your own galleries." The words and the fraudulent, cacophonous laughter slammed into her like a blow. She was nothing more than a commodity now, her suffering for sale. She'd do anything to hang her head, to hide her face, but it was no longer hers, pulled taught towards the sky by the metal line wrapped around her neck.

The stage lights flickered, a grand sweeping motion of curtains pulling back as the harsh, cold lights blazed to life.

She knew what was coming. The final piece. The grand jeté. A graceful leap that should have been full of life — but in this moment, was being bent into a mockery of dance.

She was brought down slowly, her body forced into a grotesque imitation of flight, bringing her closer to the sharp sculpture base. The gleaming metal waited below. Its jagged edges promised an end to this nightmare.

Her body trembled as she felt the position of the fall being carefully adjusted. Her limbs bent painfully, already cracked and bruised. She was perfect. A display for all to see.

The swoosh of the curtains, the clinking of glasses, the soft murmur of unseen voices all blended into one horrific symphony as Clare’s breath caught in her throat. She closed her eyes tight, and steadied her nerves, hoping that she wouldn't be alive to see the curtains closed.

As the lights burned white and the crowd held its breath, Clare gave them what they came for: one final, flawless fall.