I awoke in a dimly lit cell, a sight I was starting to feel was a little too familiar. The metal bars in front of me dug into the natural stone of the cave; around me, the rock was natural and rugged. I felt cold metal around my neck and wrists, a feeling I knew too well already, but something I should be able to break free from. The ceiling of the cell was flickering from the dim candlelight, and water dripped from above.
I arched my back, flexed my arms, and tried to break free from the restraints with all my might. Nothing, I was actually stuck, unable to get out. Why? I had escaped a similar situation in Hemwick with ease before; why did I feel so weak now? This is bad. I can't get up, I can't even stand. At this rate, I could easily be killed by a blade to the heart or have my head cut off, and I would be powerless to stop it.
I looked down and noticed something strange, or rather, the absence of something. My breathing quickened, and my eyes widened as sweat began to build on my brow. My legs were gone; in their place were two stumps cut off partway down the thigh. Below me, I was sitting in a pool of my own blood. I looked around the room to find them, spotting only one beside me and the other nowhere to be seen. I looked down at my legs, or rather my absence of legs, as my breathing grew calmer. It didn't hurt; this isn't the first time I've lost a limb, and it can regrow. But it wasn't. The last time it was my arms, but my legs, can they regrow the same? I don't understand why not.
With the chains rattling, I tried to reach over to the severed leg next to me. The chains that held my hands in the palace were short, holding my hands above my head, close to the wall, barely able to reach anything. My lower body was free to move, though without legs, it was difficult. I shifted my hips to the side and stretched out my leg stump towards the severed limb. As the stump brushed against it, it stuck. The leg began to reattach to my body, growing flesh that linked them together. I started to be able to feel my left arm again and move it. I let out a soft sigh, but the question remained: where was my other leg?
I sat in the cell for an hour, trying to concentrate on my severed leg, to try and will it to regrow as I had done with my arm. But when that happened, I was unconscious. Does Wrath have to be in control for that to happen? He said it was something that couldn't be done again, that it was dangerous for both of us. My only option was to sit and wait and pray that I regain some strength.
After some time sitting there, I started to notice something faint, a smell of something. Cooked meat? But there was something else in there, a faint scent of rot. As the smell grew more invasive, sound soon followed, footsteps approaching slowly, a wet thumping against the rock, rhythmically echoing and growing louder.
From the darkness emerged a figure, a lumbering man without any clothes on, covered in blood and other unidentified fluids. His hair was as long as his beard, his eyes unblinking, and what little of his face I could see was covered in small, long scars. The scars were small and thin, but in groups close together, they were on his shoulders and some on his chest and thighs. We walked forward, leaving footprints of blood with each wet step. Walking forward, he pressed his head between the bars of the cell, smiling at me with his half-rotten teeth, with the faint echo of a laugh crawling from his throat.
I sat in silence. I wanted to say something, but seeing his face, I figured it might be best if I stayed silent as not to provoke him; his eyes seemed closer to those of a rabid animal than a human. As he scanned my body, his creepy grin faded from his face, and his arm reached between the bar, pointing at my leg. No doubt he was confused about how it was reattached.
"Kreekh", he muttered. I couldn't tell if he was trying to speak or just clearing his throat. "Deeeaa, laaa. Heh" With a snarl, his eyes locked onto mine, his smile returning with a wide grin as faint laughter came from his mouth. With his arms through the bars, he started to clap his hands together, getting louder and faster along with his laughter.
He stopped suddenly and twitched his head to the side, looking away. "SHUT!" He shouted into the darkness behind him. He leaned back from the bars and disappeared once more into the dark. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't this. Goran didn't seem like someone who could be talked to or resonated with. The fact that he was naked, filthy with long hair and nails, clearly he had been here, isolated for a long time. Could he speak? Did he even understand Imperial or Viltin? He did say a word, though, does that mean he can be talked to? When he returns, I might try it, but what was with that clapping and laughter?
Several more hours passed, and I started to feel tired, but sleeping with a metal collar around my throat and my wrists cuffed to the wall above my head was not an easy task. Not only was my situation incredibly uncomfortable, but so too was the growling and churning of my stomach.
"HEY!" I yelled out into the darkness. "GORAN! You there?"
From the depths of the cave, I heard a bloodcurdling scream: "HELP ME!" The screaming voice stopped suddenly and abruptly. That wasn't Nigel's voice; that sounded like a woman.
Twenty minutes later, Goran returned from the darkness of the cave, covered in more blood than before, wet and dripping. His breath was deep and ragged as he approached. There were cuts on the side of his chest, fresh and dripping blood, scratch marks. He approached with both hands holding something; in one hand, he was gripping onto the ankle of a severed human leg, and the other held the blade. He pointed the blade towards me as he approached the cell door.
"Move, me eat." He pointed the blade at the leg. I assumed it was mine. I nodded as he lifted the lock on the cell door, pushing it open. He approached and squatted down, placing the blade behind him as he grabbed the severed leg with both hands, holding it to my body. He lined up where the leg had been removed and held it in place. We both watched as the flesh from my thigh shifted and stretched over the severed leg, reattaching it within seconds. A few more seconds passed as I could feel it again, a few seconds more, and I could move it.
I twisted my lower body as hard and as fast as I could, with the new mobility my reattached leg gave me, I had the leverage to swing the other one as hard as I could towards Goran's head. I prayed that Wrath's absurd might was something that persisted through my whole body, that with one kick, if powerful enough, could crack his skull open and kill him. My shin made contact with his head and flung him backward with a guttural yelp, but he got up right away.
He stood over me, gripping his sword in his hand. He spat blood onto my face with a smile. As I looked up at him with the kind of look that screamed, I'm going to kill you' I noticed something, he got aroused by this.
He sat on my thighs, the weight of him restricting my leg movement entirely when combined with the restraints around my wrists and neck. I was completely immobile. He brought his dirty, bloodstained face closer to mine as he started panning, his tongue hanging from his mouth, drooling. He lifted his blade and swiftly slammed it against the wall next to my head. Turning my gaze away from him, I noticed that the blade had gone through my hand, severing most of my fingers, but I didn't feel a thing. Thankfully, Wrath still had my ability to feel pain suppressed; otherwise, I feel like this person would get enjoyment from torturing me.
He did it again, swinging at the other hand to remove the fingers. He scooped them from the floor in his hand and scurried backwards quickly so I wouldn't have a chance to kick him again. He pointed the blood-stained blade towards my hands and laughed as he watched the fingers regrow. I suppose only my arms can regenerate body parts, and unfortunately, it seems he's figured that out as well.
He looked at me, flicking his tongue at me like a lizard. I looked confused.
"I don't think my tongue will grow back."
He pouted, like a child would when denied something he wanted, and he stormed out of the cell, not even bothering to close the door.
I sat in the still darkness, waiting for my strength to return enough to break out of these shackles, tugging at the restraints every few minutes to see if it felt any easier. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate, to conserve my strength as much as I could. Then I began to think, where the hell was Nigel?
He was behind me when that trap knocked me out. Did he move deeper into the cave? Did Goran already kill him? Or was he hiding somewhere, waiting for the right moment to strike? My thoughts turned inward to Wrath. How do we get out?
In the deep darkness of the cave, his glowing red eyes appeared as his voice rang through my mind.
"We are weak, the binding is strong. Survival above all… rip the flesh. I can't give you strength or hold the pain; I can not do both."
"Then let me feel pain again, I can break out, like last time."
"There are blades in your spine."
I had managed to move my arms slightly, my head could turn, my lower body from the hips down could move freely, but all this time, I hadn't once moved my upper body. I tried to twist my chest to the side, to squirm to move at all, but I could not; I felt something on my back, something holding me in place. Was it like the nail pit? Did he impale me against something just to hold me in place? I guess I don't have a choice.
I started to pull my arm down as hard as I could, the metal of the restraint stretching the skin around the base of my thumb. The blood that had spread down my hand from the removal of my fingers acted like a lubricant as I pulled my hand down. As I pulled, I heard a clicking sound come from my hand, the bone in my thumb breaking or dislocating. I knew it was better not to look; I couldn't feel the pain, but watching it would also cause me to hesitate.
I pulled with all my strength, my muscles tensing as I slid my hand free from the restraint, the sounds of squelching and gushing echoing softly, and with a pop, my hand was free. I looked at it, the skin had been removed completely from the hand, the red pulsating mass underneath oozing blood as the muscle tendons reformed together before my eyes. Slowly, the skin reformed, crawling up from my wrist and covering my hand until it looked normal again.
I grabbed the collar around my neck, wondering how I would get this one off. I can't pull it either way without decapitating myself. As I tilted my head up to make some room between the collar and my skin, I slid my finger in to feel around for something, anything that might open it. There was no keyhole or latch on the outside. I reached around the back of my neck and felt a groove on the narrow top and bottom of the collar that, when gripped, could be moved to the side. Releasing it reset the mechanism, which was held in place by a spring. I held the mechanism under tension and jolted my head forward; something clicked, and the collar fell away.
With only one hand restrained, I started to use my legs to shift away from the wall bit by bit until whatever was impaling me had been removed. After a few centimetres, I turned to find I had been pushed up against the wooden plank with dozens, if not hundreds, of long rusty nails coated in my blood. After a few seconds, I suddenly started to feel the pain of the metal biting into my wrist.
I focused on my restrained hand, the skin turning pitch black, the fingers elongating to a sharp point. With a hard tug, I pulled the chains clean from the wall, bending and warping the restraint as it fell from my wrist.
I turned towards the open cell door and the darkness that lay beyond it and marched into it with murderous intent.