Chapter Eight — Weeks of Silence
Days blurred into one another with no distinction, as if time itself had cracked and spilled through the cracks of the cell. The heavy, unyielding silence gnawed at Lucien's mind, a constant reminder of his solitude. Weeks passed — or maybe only days. He had long since stopped counting.
The only markers were the slow, steady rhythm of his breath and the faint scrape of food sliding through the narrow slot in the door.
Each meager portion was calculated with cruel precision — just enough to keep the ragged edges of his life clinging on, but never enough to revive him.
Thin slivers of bread soaked in bitter water, a few dry, shriveled fruits that left a sticky residue on his cracked lips.
Hunger settled deep in his bones, a hollow ache that never faded.
Thirst was worse — a dry, burning torment that clawed at his throat and twisted his stomach into knots.
He begged silently for water, but no water came.
The desert's brutal heat, the cold stone beneath him, and the dry, stale air were constant companions.
His skin, once soft and unscarred, grew rough and patchy. His muscles wasted away from inactivity, leaving him smaller and more fragile than the body he had awakened in.
The bruises from the beating faded into dull purple ghosts, replaced by new aches and pains that flared with each movement.
His bones ached with a cold that crept inside, deep and relentless, a slow corrosion that no warmth could reach.
His mind fractured beneath the weight of endless, empty hours.
The silence became a heavy cloak that suffocated him, pressing down until his thoughts fractured and scattered like shards of broken glass.
He tried to piece them back together — fragments of memory, scraps of hope — but they slipped through his fingers like dust.
He thought about his family, about home, but the memories grew distant, dim, as if they belonged to someone else.
Faces blurred, voices faded, and the bright colors of his old life dulled into a grey haze.
He no longer knew if those moments had been real or just dreams born from desperation.
Fear was his constant shadow.
Fear of the unknown. Fear of the men who had thrown him here, who returned only to deliver cold, silent meals or to glare through the bars with eyes that offered nothing but cruelty.
Fear that his body would break before his mind did — or worse, that his mind would shatter into pieces so small he could no longer hold onto himself.
Sleep was a fragile, fleeting escape.
When it came, it was fitful and haunted by shadowed shapes and muffled screams.
He woke drenched in sweat, heart pounding, gasping for air that never came fast enough.
Dreams and reality twisted together — sometimes he wasn't sure which was which.
In the dark, he whispered to himself.
Whispered prayers, promises, lies he barely believed.
"I'll survive. I have to survive."
The words felt fragile on his tongue, like glass ready to shatter.
His body shivered with cold, but inside him, something even colder had begun to grow — a creeping numbness that spread from his chest, swallowing everything else.
Hope flickered weakly, a dying ember against the vast black night of his despair.
He found himself retreating deeper into his mind, seeking refuge in the small, quiet corners where pain could not reach.
But even there, the loneliness was a living thing — a hollow, echoing presence that whispered he was forgotten, discarded, lost.
He hated that feeling more than the hunger, the thirst, the bruises.
He hated the way it made him feel invisible.
He imagined his family searching for him, calling his name — but no one came.
He imagined the world moving on without him, and a bitter cold settled in his chest.
Days passed without change, except for the slow fading of his strength.
His arms grew too weak to hold his head up.
His legs trembled beneath him when he tried to stand.
The faint light that filtered through the cracks in the door became a cruel reminder of the world outside — a world he could no longer reach.
Sometimes, when the guards were distracted, he pressed his hand against the door, willing it to open.
Willing someone to see him — to save him.
But the door stayed shut.
The walls stayed silent.
The emptiness stayed.
On one particular day, when the sun was low and bleeding orange across the horizon, Lucien felt a sharp pain in his chest — a sudden, twisting ache that stole his breath and left him gasping.
His vision blurred, and he crumpled to the floor, tears streaming freely for the first time in weeks.
He had no idea if it was hunger, thirst, or something deeper — a broken heart, or a body giving up.
But in that moment, the despair crashed over him like a tidal wave.
He was utterly alone.
Utterly broken.
No prayers, no memories, no whispered promises could reach him now.
Only silence.
Only darkness.
The cell was no longer just a prison of stone and iron — it had become a prison of his own mind.
And in that lonely, empty place, Lucien's will began to crumble — the fragile thread holding him together fraying under the relentless weight of nothingness.
He curled into a tighter ball, trying to disappear into himself, hoping that if he became small enough, the world would forget him too.
But even in his despair, something stubborn flickered deep inside — a single, faint pulse of life that refused to fade.
A whisper in the dark.
A spark of something that, despite everything, still wanted to survive.