I do not remember how they brought me here.
Was it night? Was there rain? Or was it silence?I do not know. I only… awoke.
Dampness. Stone.The faint stench of mold and something rotting.The air was heavy, as if the very spirit of the mountain pressed upon my chest.At first, I counted the days — by the drop of water falling into a crack in the rock from the ceiling above.Then I lost count.Then I forgot.
In the beginning, I screamed.Whispered names.Begged.Then I raged.Then I laughed.And then — I fell silent.
I was not alone.Sometimes there were footsteps.Sometimes — voices.Muffled, indistinct, as if they came from another world.I thought perhaps they were demons from my dreams, returned to haunt me.Or perhaps… I had become one of them myself.
Time... it vanished.The notions of morning and evening dissolved.Pain — did not.It remained.In my body.In my heart.But it became familiar.Like an old enemy you no longer fear.
I began to read.Books were thrown to me.Sometimes.Why — I never knew.Perhaps to mock me.Perhaps to test me.Perhaps to hasten the decay of my mind.But I read.In the darkness.By touch.
And the more I read — the quieter I became.The silence of the cave became my teacher.The stone — my mirror.
I remembered.Battles.Cries.Celebrations.Smiles that hid lies.Shoulders I had leaned upon… and that had betrayed me.
But I no longer bore hatred.Not anymore.
Hatred is fire.It burns bright… but swiftly burns itself out.And then there is only ash.And ash — is nothing.I did not wish to become nothing.
I began to think not of vengeance,but of why I had lived at all.
Who was I — if you stripped away the sword, the name, the pride?Would anything remain?
The answer did not come swiftly.Not from books.Not from memory.
It came from within.From silence.
I understood — I did not wish to destroy.I wished to build.Not a temple of stone,but a place… where others like me would not be forgotten.Where strength was not a reason to crush,but a chance to protect.
Where respect was earned, not inherited by blood.
It took time for this thought to ripen within me.Like a seed buried deep beneath the earth.But one day — I felt it:within me, there was no longer a scream.Only an intention.
And if one day I were to escape this place —I would not return the man I had once been.I would become what I had always yearned to be.One who could bear the weight of others' hopes.
But before that…I would yet have to die.Or be reborn.