𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙙𝙚

Chapter 2

Euryale

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     Time is a concept.

Inside these walls, it didn't matter, because it lost all power along with the rest of us. 

We remained perfectly preserved without sustenance. It was the curse of Daesmire: eternal torment without the mercy of dying a death of starvation. Constant hunger for all but more air proved quite the penance.

     Eventually, when I could no longer tell night and day apart, my body went into a vegetative state.

The darkness inched closer, and I let it, suffering in solitude as it slithered across my skin and clawed at my bones and settled in the vacated corners of my body — while we fought a neverending war over the sole place I wouldn't surrender to its patient clutches: my mind.

I detached it from the agonizing present and began dreaming with my eyes open, dissolving into a ghastly image of what I once had been, damaged beyond hope of restauration by the slow burning poison of this hellhole:

absolute desolation

Because on the inside, some vital part of me, languished away.

Time

It could have been years or centuries, before I was reminded of its existence again.

* * * 

     The sea had been especially unquiet the day the castle quivered at the presence of primal magick.

It woke us all up, a voiceless call into the abyss, luring us back to the surface.

Come see, come see

A ruse, perhaps meant to mock me, or I'd gone mad at last. Either way, I didn't give it the satisfaction of seeing me scramble to my feet. My brittle fingernails dug deeper into into my scrawny thighs, a very effective way to draw my attention back to the dire reality of my situation.

Maybe the shadows had sifted through the shield of sheer willpower I'd built around my head, and was I already at the mercy of a cruel joke played on my lucid consciousness. Would I even realize if I were?

I crossed my legs, focusing on the stiffness in my limbs, and the amount of strength it required me to bend them. If anything, I'd be unsurprised if something had finally come to wipe this godless prison from the face of the earth. Good riddance.

     I ignored the clamor of the spirits stirring below.

They were not the ones captive to a secluded tower, robbed of even the tiniest chance to reach out to another soul ever again. In the very beginning I'd found that detail highly flattering. Needless to say that thought didn't stick very long. Vanity was a very human emotion. 

Dried up patches of blackened blood still decorated the door to my personal hell. The dents were evident, the proof of my defiance, a trifling memoir that I had not gone willingly.

Exasperation was all I felt when I looked at those marks now. I couldn't nurse what little of my soul was left. Not when this vessel hadn't stood a chance against the barbaric hatred of this world to begin with. The darkness had stolen pieces I'd never get back.