Moonstruck

𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷 | The Dungeon

The dungeon of the House of Red Ochre was exactly how you'd expect a dungeon to be: dank, dark, and damp. Sentinel-like stone walls, much like the ones that had constituted Caleb's lab, stifled every sound; even the drip, drip, drip from the knife-sharp stalactites overhead was swallowed by the leaden silence. Feeling like the very air was being crushed out of her lungs by hundreds of tons of brick and stone, Ellie closely followed Kiera down steep, spiraling steps. She watched her footing with care, hating to think what would happen if she slipped and tumbled head over heels down the serpentine twists and turns of the staircase.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs and began their passage through a seemingly endless series of branching, labyrinthine corridors, unoccupied cells of every size began popping up on either side. Each of them had a dirt floor and was enclosed by rusty metal rods—Mateo had told her they were made of copper-silver alloys—as thick as Ellie's arms. Ellie gulped when she saw that, strewn here and there amongst the cells, were what looked like century-old skeletal human remains.

"How long have those been there?" Ellie wondered aloud. Then she winced at the jarring echo her voice produced, which was immediately swallowed by the surrounding stone and silence like a lion devouring a lamb.

"The dungeons came with the House when it was first built back in the 1500s," Kiera said. "My guess is that the oldest of these remains belong mainly to the indigenous."

"Goddess, that's awful."

"Right?" Kiera said. "You'd think the founders of this Pack would've had a little more sympathy, considering how they were treated by the other Europeans and all. But werewolf or human, people are all the same—they always jump at the opportunity to oppress others."

"Like Seth locking up the Azure hostage here," muttered Ellie, shivering from a damp draft slithering through the passageway that sounded like forlorn wailing. "I wonder, what exactly does he plan to do with her?"

Kiera didn't answer. She had told Ellie all she knew about the hostage—the young daughter of the Azure Pack's Alpha—earlier when she had burst into their room, eyes wild and hair flying.

"But why?" Ellie had asked. "Does he want to swap prisoners with them for Mateo? But what's the point of doing that, since we're going to go to Lazuli anyway for the invasion and retrieve him?"

"I don't think that's all there is to it," Kiera said. She had then told Ellie of her suspicions: that the hostage would become a subject in Caleb's illicit lycaine experiment, both as a means to his ends and as a way to simultaneously demoralize and humiliate the Azure Pack—if not to seek a twisted sort of revenge against them.

Suddenly, a sharp cry sounded from around a bend in the corridor. It sounded like a girl yelling in terror, screaming for someone to stop. Ellie jumped.

Kiera grabbed Ellie's hand, looking as shocked as she felt—evidently an instinctive reaction to being spooked. "That must be her. Hurry!"

As one, they rushed forwards and rounded the corner. Inside a large, otherwise empty cell sat a small-framed, dark-skinned girl of about thirteen to fourteen years old. Right in front of the cell, clustered just outside the thick bars, stood Seth, Caleb, and Darlene.

"Luna Elaine," said Seth, lip curling. "And Kiera. What a surprise."

Ellie realized she was still holding Kiera's hand, and immediately released it and stepped away from her. "What's the meaning of this?"

Crouched upon the ground with her chin tucked into her knees, the girl stared back at them with wide eyes. She didn't look terrified so much as horrified. When Ellie's eyes alighted upon Caleb, she finally realized why.