The man hung suspended in a coffin, shackles cruelly binding his wrists and ankles. Chains and molten metal encased his body, a sword piercing his chest, entering the coffin from the top and exiting, he guessed, from the bottom. He had struggled for what felt like days to free himself, tearing his skin raw on the sharp, rotting metal with every attempt to liberate even one limb.
His efforts had left him exhausted and—if he were honest—no better off than before. Worse still, the molten metal mask obscured his vision, making it impossible to discern any means of escape. Breathing was unnecessary, which was fortunate given that molten metal had been poured into his throat, welding his mouth shut. Metallic, wood-shaped objects protruded from his cheeks, piercing in pairs from both sides.
"Please, Gods," he begged, "Save me. I will do whatever you ask." Silence was his only answer.
"My life is yours. I promise. No, I swear it!" But his life was theirs anyway; even in this enclosed space where his lungs ached with each breath and the air grew increasingly sour. The gods had abandoned him to his fate. It would have helped if he could remember their names.
His fury at his predicament had evolved into bitterness and despair, only to circle back to false hope and renewed fury. Perhaps he’d missed an emotion along the way, but he had cycled through all the ones he knew.
The darkness around him was absolute, a suffocating void that seemed to stretch into eternity. In the stillness, he could hear the creak of the coffin’s wood, the subtle shifting of the chains with every feeble movement he made. He tried to distract himself from the pain by counting the seconds, the minutes, the hours—anything to stave off the maddening solitude.
Memories began to drift into his mind, unbidden and unwelcome. Faces of loved ones long gone, moments of joy and sorrow, all blending into a painful collage of what he had lost. He recalled the feeling of sunlight on his skin, the scent of fresh grass, and the sound of laughter. All of it seemed like a cruel joke now, a life that had slipped through his fingers like sand.
His thoughts wandered to how he had ended up here, though the details were murky. There had been a betrayal, he remembered that much. Trusted friends had turned on him, casting him into this nightmarish prison. But why? What had he done to deserve such a fate? The questions gnawed at him, unanswered and perhaps unanswerable.
He had tried to keep track of time, but it had become a futile exercise. Days bled into nights, weeks into months, or so it felt. His body was a constant reminder of his suffering, the pain never ceasing, only ebbing and flowing like a relentless tide. He wondered if he would ever escape, or if this coffin would be his tomb for eternity.
Desperation clawed at him, urging him to keep fighting, to not give in to the darkness. Yet, a part of him longed for release, for the sweet oblivion that death might bring. But even that seemed denied to him, as if the gods took perverse pleasure in his torment.
Laughter was the only thing on his mind. He welcomed madness and begged for it, but that only made him more conscious, more aware, more than slightly hungry, more ravenous, and eternally hungrier the more time he spent within his prison. The darkened crises of his mind whispered to be satiate.
"Please," he whispered, his voice barely more than a rasp against the metal sealing his mouth. "Please, let it end."
But there was no answer, only the echo of his voice, hollow and mocking. The silence pressed down on him, as heavy as the chains that bound him. He was alone, utterly and completely, in a world that seemed to have forgotten him.
And so, he hung there, suspended in his coffin, a prisoner of fate and time, waiting for a salvation that might never come.
He’d shrieked at his gods, cursed them, and called for the aid of demons. Begged for help from any dark, wicked being to the most benevolent. None answered. And if they did, how would that help him other than a more open prison?
What crimes did he commit to be thrown here, what great evil had he done to the world, what malfeasance had he caused to warrant such a sentence?
Murder. Rape. Treason...
What else merited being walled up alive? His crime was a mystery. What was the point of punishment if the prisoner couldn’t remember what he’d done? No memory of why he was locked in a confinement smaller than an average coffin which was made out of steel.
Every time, once every few seconds or was it minutes he didn't know and it didn't matter much anyway. He wondered if he was in hell or a variant of it. He could have been if it wasn't for the worms and other creatures underground he could hear, the breeze that blew unencumbered, the leaves that fell from the trees, the rain that covered the land, the snow that froze it, the wilderness that enveloped it, wildlife that conquered it...
There was so much to recover, experience, explore, and many others to do. So many things for the world yet so much more was denied to him.
This could have been his imagination, a figment to maintain himself, for his will not to be crushed, to not be obliterated, for any chance of hope, false or otherwise to be erased forever. Because that was even more cruel.
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Thoughts were the only thing he had because it was only his mind that worked these days, as his body turned into stone ages ago, unable to make even the slightest movement no matter how much he forced himself.
He was becoming weaker, not the strength that he was capable of how the sun rose, the dawn breaking the horizon, illuminating a world of possibilities, dreams, and endless adventures.
Yet here, in the oppressive darkness of his coffin, all he had were dreams of a past life and the ceaseless, gnawing hunger for freedom. His mind oscillated between lucidity and madness, a pendulum of torment swinging with time, untethered by any mortal measurement.
He pondered the nature of his imprisonment, wondering if there was a lesson to be learned or a penance to be paid. Was there some cosmic balance being restored by his suffering, or was it simply a cruel jest of fate? The ambiguity gnawed at him, a relentless question mark etched into the fabric of his consciousness.
Each memory he clung to was a lifeline, a fragile thread connecting him to a world beyond this iron tomb. He recalled the warmth of human touch, the comfort of companionship, the joy of simple pleasures—each recollection a beacon in the endless night of his existence.
Yet, with every passing moment, those memories grew dimmer, fading into the abyss of his unending incarceration. He feared the day would come when he could no longer summon them when his past would dissolve into the same darkness that enveloped his present.
As he hung there, a living monument to anguish and endurance, he found himself contemplating the possibility of redemption. Could there be a way to atone for his unknown sins, to earn his release through some act of contrition or valor? The thought was a slender reed of hope, one that he clung to with all his remaining strength.
The agony of his existence was profound, a ceaseless barrage of physical and mental torment. But within that agony, he sought fragments of meaning, shards of understanding that might offer some semblance of solace. If he could unravel the mystery of his imprisonment, perhaps he could also uncover the path to his salvation.
In the end, he realized that his struggle was not just against the chains and the coffin, but against the despair that sought to claim his soul. His mind, though battered and bruised, remained his final bastion of freedom. As long as he could think, remember, and hope, he was not yet defeated.
And so, in the dark, suffocating confines of his prison, he resolved to endure. He would hold onto his memories, his questions, and his faint, flickering hope. For in the battle between despair and defiance, he would choose defiance, clinging to the belief that one day, somehow, he would break free from this infernal cage and reclaim his place in the world above.
Over the long unspecified time that followed, sleep would come, but sometimes his wits were sharp. Mostly, however, he inhabited a blasted wasteland inside his skull where his memories should be. Paying attention to his surroundings was the only thing he did for however long, his mind and ears listening for every sound for miles from his estimate. He didn't stop regardless of how little important the sound was, from the most benign to the most revolting.
So he did. He heard the sounds of mother rabbits feeding their kittens, the violent squabbling and dismembering of animals after said squabbles, the wailing of the winners as they too were pounced upon, the defecation of the dead and alive, and the intercourse both consensual and not. So many actions and so many words for things that he hadn't experienced before.
Time passed, the forest grew, and the seasons came and went. The animals who fought for dominance were either killed or died of age (the latter was most common) and were replaced by their descendants who fell into the same perpetual cycle.
Over time, as the body began to become more stone than flesh and his blood metal hardened, the mind continued no longer able to feel sleep and despair and lose access to emotion, he became cold, empty, deprived of anything resembling humanity.
Something changed, something foreign to the forest, something the thought he'll wouldn't hear again. A Voice. Though not just one, not two or even three, no many many more with seemingly not end. He heard foot steps, wheels, other vibrations, of children and mothers and fathers trying to shush them or playing with them, and they laughter with each other, of men shouting to other men to bring something another. He heard builders speaking, metal workers decussing, residences being designed, discoverers checking the agriculture.
Maybe the Gods hadn't abandoned him after all. He really Hopes so.