The stone slab was hot against my naked skin and the wind outside was howling.

I wondered whether it was night or day, though there was no day in this place, only an eternal and oppressive gray. It had been what, weeks, months since I had seen a light that did not come from a torch or lantern? Here, in the darkness, there was no passage of time. Here, in this pitch-black place of stone and chains and the dripping of foul water in the far corner to my left, any amount of time could pass without much notice, and for me, so much of it had passed that it had truly become uncounted.

It would’ve been useless to try to tear off the rust-covered chains, even though they were digging painfully into my wrists and ankles and hip bone. In the beginning, the restraints were cold and hard, but now the metal had almost become a part of me. It would also be useless to try to escape because the jailor who was also my torturer, always seemed to know when to come back, as to thwart those attempts.

The thought of escaping crossed my mind no longer and my jailor now only watches me from the corner, silently and with a hunger until he deems it the right time to add another chapter to our blood-soaked story.

It would be the easiest thing to let my body and mind go limp, and to accept this never-ending torture, the reason of which I knew not. In the beginning, I thought these wicked creatures wanted a thing from me, but now I understood I was merely a plaything to them. I’d told them all the things I’d done and thought, and then when they kept pressing, I’d also tell them of fantastical things I had not done, simply to ease my suffering, yet none availed me any respite from their dark appetites.

Pain and the deprivation of my senses for such a long time, had made it difficult for me to remember much of what happened before with any precision, and now I only knew how to endure. I had a faint memory that I held on to—my only and last connection to the life I had left behind so painfully. But that had, by that time, become only a memory of a memory and I couldn’t be certain of the details anymore. I couldn’t remember her face or smile nor how her voice sang when she was happy. It was now more as an inner warmth, instead of anything specific.

There were days that I couldn’t even tell whether this treasured memory was something that actually happened, or was just a phantasm that my jailors and torturers had conjured for me because a hopeful plaything for the most cruel desires was a plaything that kept itself alive out of desperate hope.

It had become an easy thing now, to endure the whims of my jailor—he, wearing his mask of terror, would beat me and use his sharp or dull knives or spikes or the rusty chains to cut and tear my skin, and when I had suffered enough and bled enough for his liking onto the smooth slab of stone, he would splash my wrecked body with that accursed water that smelled of foul poison, and the cuts and bruises and holes would close most painfully.

To block the pain from my mind was enough of a straightforward thing, and the jailor would continue this routine for as long as he would deem enjoyable, and I would endure it without breaking. That process I had come to accept and overcome it with the will and with the memory of that warmth that I still had left.

But there were times that he brought friends if such vile creatures had friends, that stood behind me, silently in the darkness, and never uttered a word. I never saw more than a glimpse of a cloak or a withered hand that held a gnarled staff of wood that had the look of ancient stone.

Why the jailor did not kill me, I knew not.

But for all the vileness and cruelty of the Jailor, the Monster was worse.

It would come, and every time I felt a chilling presence that came before the the monster itself. In all these days, I never saw it, not even for a glimpse as it was always out of sight, cloaked in darkness and shadow, but what that cursed beast did was worse than bodily pain.

When the monster stood behind me, and its cold gaze froze my body, I would feel its dark tendrils invade my mind and squirm there, touching and violating every thought and memory that I had ever made. It would then plunge me into lifelike dreams, during which I knew not this was altogether an imagination of the monster itself. There I would be fighting for my life against devils or madmen, and never was I allowed a win.

A man can endure worse torture within the confines of his own mind than he can through the burning or cutting of his flesh.

Those nightmares lasted until I blacked out. Then, some time later, I would wake up, the rusty chains still hanging above me. Those very chains served as a reminder of what the jailor and his friends had done to me in the very beginning. Clink and clank they hung, still stained with my dried blood upon it, and clink and clank they hanged low above me that I never escaped their sight.

After I came to, the monster was gone and for some time the jailor would be glad over my suffering. Soon after, our usual game of pain would continue.

That monster, that psychic torturer, had methods and powers that were mighty enough to break me, and with every cycle of passing time that I counted by the changing of the rhythm of dripping water, I knew when to expect its return. Even when the wind was howling loudly outside of the tower I was held in, I could prepare myself for its coming.

Then the monster would start appearing more often, and would stay for longer, and would dig its soggy, freezing tentacles into the recesses of my soul for ever longer times, and after every session, what was left of me, was less than had been before. I felt a growing limpness within me. It would be so easy to just give up and let the warm light fade from my heart. As the cycles of dripping water and howling wind stretched on, I could hardly distinguish the maddening nightmares from each other, and I knew soon would come the day I would lose myself in one of them.

I wanted to let go and fade into the everlong night before that happened.

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On that day, the Monster came again, its mind filled with a joyous glee that was to deliver me into another phantasm of horror that I knew I could not crawl out of. I felt the air chill around me, and my heart began to race as it had always done before the tortures. My entire body was covered in cold sweat, and I was certain this would be the end as I had no more strength left to endure the nightmares. I was stripped, mind, body and soul.

But this time, instead of the slick and vile attack upon my soul, I suddenly beheld a golden light piercing through the dark and dispelling the shadows of this place that I was held in. This massive, cavernous cell with black jagged rock walls and grim tools of pain and chains of bright orange and blood, all came into light and truth.

So bright was the golden radiance, that it blinded me, and I saw not how the Monster who would’ve been my doombringer, disintegrated before the Light, and it never again tormented me.

Then I looked up at this bringer of light and instead gazed upon a Mirror in the shape of a man with great wings of red fire stretched about it. And reflected inside that mirror I saw myself, in the sorry and broken state that I was.

Break ye not now before the work has been completed, the Mirror said and broke my restraints in a fiery explosion. I rolled and rose to my feet again, renewed by the might of the Golden Being and then He told me his name.

Thou need to get out of this dark prison of mind and soul and go forth, the Savior in Gold said to me, and cleave through the shadow and the brambles to make a new path for myself, for that is how it must be and we are ever at the mercy of what must be.

Then my Savior shone light to where I would find the exit from this prison, and there, at the end of the neverending caverns, I saw another light that was dim, gray, and dull and inspired no hope or courage. And the awaiting journey did not fill my heart with the strength to endure it.

Yet that is the only path, said the Savior, and thou can not refuse it for it has been forged already in the times before now from a place where thou have no admittance. There is only that single path out of the shadows of the caverns, and only through there can I find the true light.

But can you come along, I asked my Savior, but he instead floated gently off the ground. The Mirror, my Savior whose name was Hiskandrios, spread its fiery wings apart, and in the flames, I saw myself as it faded into the darkness.

And then I was again alone in that tower of neverending caverns, but my enemies were dispelled and there was only one light that was there to guide me forward.

If there is but a single path that goes on from this place of ending, I said, then I shall undertake it though it bears my heart no delight.

At length, I went through the dark and the jagged rock for what felt like a hundred lifetimes, until I came close to the new light that was grey, and a wind blew that smelled of fresh flowers, but it was tainted by salt and death and danger.

But I had a life given to me, and my body and mind were broken no longer. Through the mouth of the cave that was jagged as the teeth of a terrible monster, I crawled out and into the damp air of a forest.

Not a joyous place this was, though, and the trees were tall and dark and their bark was rough and stonelike, and the boughs grew twisted and gnarled and the branches were spread out wide and sharp as claws. There laid out before me through the wild was a single passage that was winding and heading upward to where the faint sun shone through the heavy clouds.

Yet for the darkness about me, my heart was gladdened for I had not seen the sun or smelled cleaner air or tasted water not vile for what felt like an eternity. This forest with looming trees and dangers was no cave with hanging chains and spikes made for suffering, but it was no place for relaxation or dawdling either.

Forget not the single path that shall lead thou into the light, said Hiskandrios one final time, as a quiet voice of whisper.

With renewed vigor, I went ahead onto that track and saw there lying on the ground a hacking knife with which this path was made a long time ago. The blade was long and the handle molded perfectly to my hand and its swing was known to my arm.

With this new tool, I hacked my way through the thickets and shrubs and hewed at the boughs that blocked the going forward.

This path was old, made before my time, and now grown wild from disuse, but I traversed it nonetheless. The road wound up and down sharply, and grotesque horn-like roots grew up from the ground and I tripped many times, but I rose up and went on.

And then suddenly from behind the trunks and through the bushes and through the night that was following me along, I saw a Jester ever spying and watching every move I made. Small was the mask the Jester wore, and massive was its body, yet never did it come close or disturb the forest with its presence. But it always watched with a wicked smirk as it had done for so long.

I made my way forward until I came upon a smoke-filled clearing of ancient tree roots where there was very little light. There I sat down for a rest for the road had been arduous, and I was finally exhausted. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light, and too quickly approached a small flame—orange and fierce. That fire had strayed too far and for too long and had lost its way. It came and swirled and twirled around me, as if happy for a reunion, and it perched itself around me, filling my heart with a warmth that I had long forgotten.

Accompanied by this courageous companion, the two of us went forward, over the low mounds under the roots and around the jagged stones, and through the shadows of terrifying shapes but now the going was bearable. No longer was my heart cold.

Long had been the journey until then, but onward we went, now helped by the trinkets and discoveries that I’d bring along. Amongst the treasures was a book that told about the Sun and the Moon and that kept my direction true, and over the gullies kept my balance the stout staff that I found guarded by a reddish mouse.

With them, we went along the treacherous path, flanked on both sides by the looming trees that bore the faces of monsters. But as the path unfolded, more wider and crowded it became, and soon I did not walk alone. Through the dark, I saw others also walk towards the same light, though their path was not mine to follow. Four of them were there, who went where I went, and I felt a companionship with them. One was clad in a raiment of vibrant colors, and the other had white hair and bear but with a wrinkled face but his head was adorned with royalty. The final two were much too far but walked the same track side by side.

But then as the going went ever on, came before me a great and proud lion with an old mane and wearing a crown of gold. And trailing behind it were two cubs—one strong and wise, and one frail and cautious. Led by that lion, we traversed the forest bravely, again through the brambles and thick places, until the old lion suddenly stopped where a narrow road split from mine. The proud lion turned its head and looked and behold! there was an ancient city that had been burned down. Suddenly the brave cub went on, but it now wore the face of a ghost and it lay down to rest to never again wake.

The old lion went stubbornly into that city, and it burst aflame again and the suffocating smoke enveloped both the old and the cub, yet on they went until I saw them not. But I could and would not follow them there, for my journey would go on towards the light.

I had to go forward.

Suddenly, the great trees swayed violently and a blinding white pierced through the leaves and boughs. Quickly fading, the world around me changed into the long and wide draping fabric, and the fiery flame that had been my companion for those days of travel sprang forward and suddenly faced me. Before me, I saw two green eyes take form and I remembered her name.

It was Florencia and she was crying.