They called it mercy.
Locking the child away instead of killing him.
They were wrong.
The Cell
Deep beneath the palace, in the black belly of the earth, they carved a space too small to stand, too narrow to stretch.
A pit.
A prison.
A tomb.
No light touched the stone.
No warmth reached its air.
Here, the third prince of Verdantia — nameless, hated, forgotten — grew.
If it could be called growing.
Death, Repeated
He was executed every day.
Poison in his food.
Knives in the dark.
Boiling water. Hanging. Blades blessed by priests.
He was stabbed, crushed, drowned, burned.
But he would not die.
So they changed their goal.
If they couldn't kill him, they would teach him what death felt like.
And make him live with it.
Pain Without End
The first year, he cried.
The second, he screamed.
The third, he stopped doing both.
They brought snakes and insects, fire and acid.
He learned to catch them. Crush them. Endure them.
Every injury healed. Every bone regrew.
But the pain always remained.
They couldn't end his life.
So they tried to end his mind.
The World Above
Above ground, festivals continued.
The queen bore no more children.
The king ruled with steady hands and a cracked heart.
No one spoke of the third child.
Most forgot him.
Those who remembered… paid to visit.
Nobles came to watch the "demon" suffer.
A public spectacle of blood and silence.
Some laughed. Some vomited. All left unchanged.
Only the boy remained.
Chained.
Breathing.
Waiting.
No Name
They never gave him a name.
He was "it.""The thing.""The cursed one."
Even his mother refused to visit.
Even his siblings avoided his name like disease.
His sister called him a stain.His brother promised to kill him.
But no one succeeded.
And still… he waited.
Inside the Silence
In the dark, time had no meaning.
Seasons didn't reach him.
Years didn't matter.
He didn't know what day it was.
Didn't know his age.
Only pain marked the passing time.
But deep in that darkness… something waited.
Not hate.
Not madness.
Something colder.
Something sharper.
Something that remembered.
The Child Remains
By his tenth year, he had no reason to speak.
No reason to cry.
The guards beat him. He didn't flinch.
They poisoned him. He didn't react.
He just watched.
With eyes too old.
Too quiet.
Too dangerous.
The world had tried to break him.
But it had only buried him.
And something buried…
Eventually rises.