Groggily, I opened my eyes.

A dark gray ceiling welcomed me.

I was lying on my back, on a cold, hard floor, and as I slowly sat up I felt small pebbles shuffle uncomfortably from beneath me.

“Where am I?” I asked aloud.

“In a cell.” A deep voice responded from behind me.

Hastily, I jumped up and spun around to face the owner of the voice, yet saw only darkness.

“Who just said that!” I yelled into the darkness.

No reply.

Taking a step back, I raised my arms in front of my head and balled my hands into fists, ready for a fight.

In the darkness, I heard a low groan and creak, and the shuffling of feet moving around.

“Sorry, I forgot to light the candle.” The voice said.

I tensed, and clenched my toes to the floor to keep myself steady.

‘Come to think of it, why am I barefoot? Where did my shoes go?’ I thought, a feeling of dread growing within me.

‘If I died earlier, why am I not back in the courtyard?’

The shuffling sounds in the darkness grew louder, and then stopped. Suddenly, a bright orange light bloomed in the darkness, and I could see the other side of the room clearly.

In front of me were two large bunk beds standing parallel to each other on each end of the room, with foundations made of a polished dark wood, with tan coloured mattresses and tan coloured pillows filling them. A form, reminiscent of a man, lay prone on the top bed on the left, and in between the beds, a tall man stood holding a platter with a lit candle in his left hand and a match in his right.

As I stared at him closer, I gasped lightly, and lowered my arms to my sides.

His face was a mess of reddened and twisted flesh that folded in on itself, and his eyes were small black beads that stared at me from within deep swaths of rumpled skin. Where his lips were supposed to be, instead were two large pink swells of flesh, with teeth sticking out of them at different angles. His ears were flattened and stuck to the sides of his skull, and a slight amount of black hair lay slickly stamped to the top of his scalp.

I stumbled backwards a few steps more, and felt my body bump against what felt like large metal bars held sideways behind me.

“W-what happened to you?” I asked the man, careful not to speak too loudly.

“Burn.” He answered, his lips parting slowly and then closing as he spoke. It looked painful.

“Burn… how?” I asked in response.

“Duke Craitor tortured me to find out my use for my master. He failed, and decided to lock me here to rot for the rest of my life.”

“Duke Craitor?”

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“The lord of this castle. Do you not know? From what I heard, you teleported into the ascension courtyard and then immediately collapsed on the floor, spasming like an eel on land. Did you perhaps fail a spell and end up here by accident? How else would you appear here with no knowledge of who owned the place? Are you an idiot?”

I looked at the man as he finished talking, noticing his attire that consisted of ripped and dirty rags, and then looked up that the other man who laid motionless on the bed, and seemed to be wearing much grander clothes of many colours, made of cotton or silk, and adorned with golden lines at the edges that shined in the glow of the candlelight.

“Who’s he?” I asked, motioning with my hand towards the man on the bed.

The man with the candle turned to look at where I was motioning, and then let out a deep sigh.

“Stoney’s his name, or at least, is how he introduced himself. He’s probably some lost noble or something. Anyways, what's your deal? Why are you here?”

He looked at me with his small beady eyes, and I saw a glimmer of something move in them.

What the hell, does he have parasites in his eyes or something?

“Before I tell you anything, I will have to know your name, so that I will have a way of addressing you.” I responded absentmindedly, looking carefully for worms in his eyeballs.

“Ah, yes, I apologise for the delay, my name is Clarence.”

“Clarence?”

“Yes.”

“Um, you're really named Clarence?”

“Indeed, why would I not be?”

“It-its just, I didn’t expect…”

“Expect?”

“Whatever, doesn’t matter, anyways- can you explain again how I got here?”

“Did I not tell you before? You teleported into the fortress, ignoring the wards somehow, and then fell to the floor and started flapping around like a fish. The Cardinals then dragged you to the changing room, stripped you, found nothing of importance on you, then changed you into standard rags and brought you here.”

I leaned backwards on the bars behind and began to think.

‘So, for some reason, the second the loop began I started having a seizure or something on the floor, and that led them to- for some reason, not kill me, and instead bring me to a holding cell. They also stripped me of my belongings, which included all of my winter clothes and my phone, which- for some reason, they deemed useless. Also, in the last loop, I had clicked that weird button, and instead of opening a doorway out there, I had gotten a light blue substance injected into me, which also managed to kill me, and then give me a seizure. This is becoming really confusing.’

“Uh, hello? Are you all good there?” Clarence asked, breaking me out of my reverie.

“Yeah, I’m all fine, I was just wondering… what did you call that courtyard before? The ascension courtyard, or something? What’s that?”

Clarence stared at me with what looked like an amused expression.

“You do not know what an ascension courtyard is? Were you raised in the mountains?” He asked lightly.

“Just humour me.” I replied impatiently.

“It is where mortals are given the chance to ascend to power, and reach the rank of Cardinal. The blood of a Predom is injected into them and if their physical foundation is strong enough, they will ascend. If not, they die. Yet you should know that already, as you are obviously a Cardinal- since you teleported into the castle in the first place, and even got past the wards. Even pure blooded Cardinals should know this stuff. Are you from a barbarian clan of the west?”

‘Alright, so I guess I know what people with powers in this world are called. Cardinals. What a dumb name for a superhuman.’

“I am not a barbarian, I think I just somehow managed to lose my memory. The first thing I remember is waking up in this cell.” I answered, lying through my teeth.

“Ah, memory magic, twisted thing that is. In fact, Stoney here was shot up with that stuff too.” Clarence said, pointing towards Stoney with a shaky finger.

I looked up at Stoney as he slept. Was that guy even alive? He wasn’t moving at all.

Turning to look back at Clarence, I spotted a shift under his eyeballs once more, and noticed for the first time that he had no pupils, only a sclera and iris.

“I am surprised. I expected you to be irked by my appearance and believe me wicked. Yet you showed no signs of disgust, only surprise and remorse.” He said carefully, as if the words were difficult to share.

“Why would I be disgusted? I don’t judge people based on their appearance.” I replied heatedly.

He looked down at the candle he held in his hand.

A moment of silence pervaded.

“You would be the first.” He muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

We stood there in silence for a few moments, before a movement in my peripheral vision caught my eye.

Stoney had moved.

Me and Clarence stared at him as Stoney sat up on his bed and stretched his arms up into the ceiling, pushing against it.

“Is it morning yet?” He asked with a yawn.