I grab both our bowls and hand the girl hers. The oatmeal doesn't exactly seem appetizing but I'm so hungry I eat it anyway. I look up from my bowl; she has set hers aside and is staring at me contently. She's filthy and I can only see her skin clearly where her tears have traced lines down her face. I can see the question forming on her lips even before she utters it.
"You never did answer my question, she says. "Why does this crazy king want us anyways?"
A shiver of dread courses through me, I look away. "It's complicated."
"Don't you it's complicated me! If I'm going to be stuck in here forever then I at least want to know why!"
I take a deep breath, "you know that key you wear around your neck? Is it there?"
Her eyes widen as she loo ks down, and reaches for a key that's not there. She looks at me and I can see a whole new load of questions ready to come out. But before she can say anything, I take a step closer to her and say,
"That's why we're here, because of our keys, The Keys of Chaos."
~~~
I don't know how long we were imprisoned, simply that it felt like an eternity. Every second that ticked by felt like an hour. There was nothing to do underground but sit there staring at each other. So I slept often, my sleep was fitful and dreamless, with only a lingering darkness in the back of my mind. At one point I gathered the courage to ask the boy what his name was he answered, as alert as ever "Cas, just call me Cas. What's your name?"
"Chelsey"
Well Chelsea he says with a sad smile it's nice to meet you"
He then continues gazing into the darkness as though he's searching for a way out. I slowly fall back into my fitful sleep.
I awake to the jangle of keys and a gruff voice saying.
"Get up and stand one behind the other." So I drag myself off the stone slab and stand behind Cas. The guard is wearing leather armor and a sheathed sword with a plainly carved wooden hilt at his side. He grabs shackles from his belt and attaches our hands and feet together making it hard to walk. I hear the screech of his sword being unsheathed and feel the cold bite of his blade on my neck.
"Move."
That's all I need to hear as we shuffle as fast as we can out the door and down the cold dank hall. The corridor is illuminated by torches set at irregular intervals making it hard to see. But the smell is enough to tell me that this dungeon does not have a working sewer system. We walk a tad further and finally come to a huge spiral stair case, so narrow that we would've had to walk single file anyways, shackles or no. The stair case goes on and on, and my legs start to feel like rubber.
The guard finally leads us into a small room with a high, narrow window letting in a single beam of golden light, dancing in it are little motes of dust. And I remember how much I miss sunlight. The guard sheathes his sword and locks the door to the staircase. Turning to us he growls, "Stay here" and I hear him slide the bolt into place on his way out the door.
I hear a loud sigh behind me and I turn around to see Cas sitting up against the grimy rock wall with his head in his hands. Suddenly I feel bad; I was so busy freaking out that I didn't even bother to think that Cas was probably just as upset as I was. I sit down beside him and before I have the chance to say anything he says,
"I've always wanted to escape from home, and see the big wide world in all its splendor. But that's not what happened at all. Instead I got captured by a nightmare before I could even head out and am now stuck sitting in a dirty old castle awaiting my doom".
