Darkness was a living thing in the black cells.
It crawled into your ears, pressed against your eyes, filled your lungs with each breath. The heavy iron door had slammed shut behind Eighty-Seven, the metallic clang of the turning key still echoing in his skull hours later.
Or was it days?
He'd stopped trying to count time after the first hour. Down here, beneath tons of stone and earth, time became fluid and meaningless. The only measure he had was his stomach, which had moved through hunger into something beyond pain.
The cold stone floor pressed against his spine as he lay flat, leeching warmth from his body degree by degree.
'It is here again.'
His dearest friend. The one who had been with him for so long - Loneliness.
It seemed to pierce right through his heart. Depressing. Suffocating. No matter how many visits to these cells, Eighty-Seven couldn't grow numb to it.
"Why won't you leave?"
His voice echoed through the empty cell, his friend keeping quiet as always.
He tried to ignore it and looked toward where the ceiling should be - but there was nothing. Everything around him was covered in pitch-black darkness. He couldn't even see his own hand when he held it inches from his face.
'How many times now?'
This wasn't his first visit to the black cells. Far from it. Fifteen? Twenty? He'd lost count after the first few punishments. Over six years, he'd been here so many times that he'd mapped its dimensions in his mind until he could navigate it blind.
Which was fortunate, since blind was all he'd ever be down here.
A rat scuttled somewhere in the shadows-he could hear its claws scratching against stone, could smell the musk of its fur. The creatures down here grew fat on crumbs dropped by broken men, on the tears of prisoners who still remembered what sunlight felt like.
Eighty-seven had stopped crying years ago.
The memory of tears felt foreign now, like something that belonged to a different person.
He closed his eyes-not that it changed anything-and let his mind drift to places the darkness couldn't reach. Anywhere but here. Anywhere his dearest friend couldn't follow.
If ever you feel lonely, think of my hands.
His mother's voice came softer now than it used to, growing fainter with each year that passed. He couldn't remember her face anymore - that had been one of the first things the pit had stolen from him. The color of her skin, the shape of her smile, the way she'd looked when she laughed-all of it had dissolved like sugar in rain.
But the words remained.
My hands that are holding you right now will be holding you always.
He'd been six when she said it.
A nightmare had torn him from sleep-something about shadows with teeth, about being lost in endless white space where no one could hear him scream. He'd woken gasping, crying, reaching for something solid in the dark.
His mother had come quickly. She'd slipped into bed beside him without turning on the lamp, pulled him close, and wrapped her arms around him. One hand cradled the back of his head, the other rubbed slow circles on his back.
"Shh, I'm here," she'd whispered. "I'm right here."
But he'd kept crying because even with her there, the fear wouldn't let go. That's when she'd taken his small hands in hers-warm hands-and held them against her chest so he could feel her heartbeat.
If ever you feel alone, think of my hands. My hands that are holding you right now will be holding you always.
There had been more after that-he was sure of it. Maybe she'd hummed a lullaby, or stayed until dawn, or told him the nightmare couldn't hurt him. But those words were all he had remembered. No matter how hard he tried-and he had tried, in countless hours of darkness just like this-he couldn't remember anything else.
Just then, footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond his cell. They were heavy and measured tread of guards making their rounds. Eighty-seven quickly got up and pressed his ear to the door, counting the steps. Three men, moving at a regulation pace. They'd check each cell, mark their ledgers, and return to their warm barracks to complain about the cold.
The footsteps faded, leaving him alone again with the darkness and the rats.
He got back, resting against the wall.
But something was different this time. A new sound drifted through the stone.
-Click, step, drag!
Again.
-Click, step, drag!
The rhythm was wrong and unfamiliar.
Definitely not the synchronized march of guards or the shuffle of broken prisoners.
This was someone walking with a cane or a crutch.
Eighty-Seven sat up straighter, suddenly alert. In six years of imprisonment, no one had ever visited the black cells except guards - so this felt ominous.
The footsteps grew closer, accompanied now by hushed voices. He caught fragments of conversation through the thick door.
"-you sure about this, sir-"
"-told you, I can handle-"
"-Captain's orders were very specific-"
Then silence, heavy and expectant.
Keys jingled in the lock.
Eighty-Seven scrambled to his feet, pressing his back against the far wall. Whatever was coming, he'd meet it standing. The pit had taught him many lessons, but the most important was to never show weakness.
The door swung open with a groan of rusted hinges, and light spilled into his world. The flickering illumination from a Winker's lantern seemed bright as the sun after so long in darkness.
He squinted through the glare, trying to make out the figure in the doorway. A man stood there, leaning heavily on a walking stick, his face a map of old pain. Bald head gleaming in the lamplight, leather eyepatch covering his left eye, nose twisted like it had been broken and poorly set. When the man smiled, Eighty-Seven could see the gaps where teeth used to be.
Behind the stranger, a nervous guard stepped forward and placed a cloth bundle on the floor just inside the cell. The smell hit Eighty-Seven like a physical blow. It was the smell of fresh bread still warm from the oven and of roasted meat.
After years of thin gruel and stale water, the aroma made his knees weak. His stomach cramped with longing, saliva flooding his mouth. But he forced himself to remain still, watching the stranger with the wary eyes of a cornered wolf.
"Eat," the man said quietly, his voice whistling through the gaps in his teeth. "It's not poisoned."
The guard muttered something respectful and bowed before retreating down the corridor, leaving them alone. The stranger made no move to enter the cell, simply stood in the doorway studying Eighty-Seven with that bloodshot eye.
Eighty-seven too examined the man for a few seconds before he decided to break the silence.
"Why?"
The word came out as a croak. Eighty-Seven's throat was raw from disuse, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"Why what?"
"Why bring me this?" He gestured at the food without taking his eyes off the stranger. "Nothing's free in the world. Everything has a price."
The man's ruined smile widened. "Smart boy. You've learned the right lessons."
He shifted his weight, leaning more heavily on his walking stick. In the lamplight, Eighty-Seven could see more details-the way the man's left leg dragged slightly, the pink stumps where fingernails used to be, the fresh scars crisscrossing his wrists. Someone had taken their time with this man. Had been very creative with their tools.
"I have a proposition for you," the stranger continued. "A trade, if you will."
"What kind of trade?"
The words hung in the air between them like smoke.
The stranger stepped closer, his walking stick clicking against the stone. That blood-red eye never left Eighty-Seven's face, studying him like he was a puzzle to be solved.
"First, eat. You'll need your strength for what comes next."
"I asked you a question."
"And I'll answer it. But not while you're half-dead from starvation. Eat first. Then we talk."
Eighty-seven hesitated. Every instinct screamed danger, warned him that nothing good ever came from mysterious strangers bearing gifts. But the smell of real food was intoxicating, and his body was failing him. He didn't know much time had passed without eating, adding the six years of malnutrition to it-he was running on fumes and stubborn will.
He knelt beside the bundle and unwrapped it with shaking hands. Inside was a feast by pit standards-thick slices of bread with a golden crust, chunks of beef that actually looked like they came from a cow, hard cheese that didn't smell of rot, even a small apple, red and perfect as a jewel.
The first bite nearly brought tears to his eyes. Flavors exploded across his tongue, reminding him that food could be more than just fuel for survival. He forced himself to eat slowly, despite every instinct demanding he devour it all at once. Eating too fast after starvation could kill a man after all.
When Eighty-Seven had eaten enough to take the edge off his hunger, he looked up. "What do you want?"
The stranger smiled as if satisfied.
"I want a favor."
"A favor? What kind of favor do you want from a boy mining in the pits?"
The cripple leaned closer, his walking stick clicking against the stone floor. The Winker's light cast dancing shadows across his scarred features as that bloodshot eye fixed on Eighty-Seven with laser focus.
"Exactly the kind that boy in the pit can do. Tell me, boy," he whispered, his voice carrying the weight of possibility and peril, "don't you want to see the outside world again?"
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