Bereft: Demise

20 | Of Murderers Dangerous and Doomed

My fingers played across the river rocks molded into the cold wall before me, though I knew better than to search for an exit. Crow's End had opened another passageway and I couldn't fathom the reason why. I had wanted to clear my head. Thrusting me into a narrow, dank passageway with no windows or visible escape was not what I'd had in mind. 

Water trickled somewhere ahead, and I could hear the plaintive drops tapping against the stone. The ceiling was only a few inches taller than me, meaning a man like Darius would have to crouch to walk through the corridor. The light coming off the torches was heavy and oblique, hovering about the greased heads of the metal torches while illuminating little else. 

"Darius?" I called again, expecting no response. I wasn't disappointed. My voice echoed for a way before dying in the dark. "Marvelous."

I kept a hand to the wall as I walked. The bare torches revealed only sections of the floor, and its grimy pavers were slick and uneven. My shoe tripped on the lip of a raised block and I caught myself by clinging to the protruding stones on the walls. Crumbling mortar grated beneath my nails and fingertips, creating a loose sound of falling scree as it sifted over the wall. 

My chest became tight as I moved and the corridor seemed to close in around me. The space between each torch grew in length until I was submerged in long stretches of utter darkness. I could not fully extend either my left or my right arm without smacking one of the walls. Panic burbled in my heart as claustrophobia set in, but I tamped it down. 

My hand crossed something cold and metallic. I paused, running my fingertips slowly over the newest discovery until I decided it was some type of bar. I waved my hand before my nose and smelled the bitter odor of oxidation and rust. Exploring behind the bar, I felt wood paneling.

"Weird," I whispered, my voice loud in the prevalent hush surrounding me. I craned my neck to spy into the distance, where the next torch was a glimmer at the extreme end of the passage. I kept going, touching more bars along both walls as I walked. An eerie, ominous sensation gripped my stomach with each bar my fingers thumped against.

My suspicions were confirmed when I reached the torch. The light gleamed upon the lusterless structure of a cell's iron framework. The bars blocked access to a door, the wood of which was rotting, the corners and edges mottled by old mold.

Whatever Crow's End truly was—refuge or prison—this corridor was undoubtedly part of a dungeon.

The door beyond the bars abruptly creaked, then swung inward. I jumped with a soundless gasp as a man appeared.

He wasn't an intimidating fellow. He was only an inch or so taller than me, strong in build but somewhat round-shouldered, as if he spent a lot of time at a desk. His brown hair stuck out at odd angles and was liberally streaked with silver and darker patches of black. He wore a well-appointed duffle coat with silver edging and a light, steely blue lining.

There was a short rip on the breast of the black coat, as if he had torn off a patch and had stitched the tear closed. 

"Hmm?" the man mumbled, rubbing his stubble-strewn jaw. He was roughly forty in appearance, possibly forty-five. He would have been roguishly handsome, if not for the circles imparted under his eyes by sleep deprivation and the unkempt nature of his hair. His nose was crooked as if it'd been broken in the past, and a series of razor thin scars decorated his right cheek. 

There was silver ribbon tied about his neck. Its loops were uneven, the trailing ends frazzled.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen him somewhere before.