Day 1
I wake up in the cell after only getting a couple hours of sleep, my mind kept me awake until I was to tired to think anymore.
“Prisoner name” a voice from the entrance to the cell demands with a cold uncaring tone.
“Sam, Sam Ondale” The guardsman wearing a simple tunic and leather pants with a small wooden bat on his waist writes on the small leather-bound book in his hand
“Alright you, put your hands through the food tray” Looking down from his rather oddly square face I notice in the middle of the bars is a small square large enough to fit your hands through.
“O-Ohkay” putting my hands through the small square the guard immediately hits them with the wooden bat.
“FUCK!” I yell pulling my bruised hand back into the cell while taking a step back, I can hear one of the other prisoners snickering.
“when you put your hands through that hole you do it facing away from me” The guard calmly states like this is common knowledge to me. Perhaps I have trust issues but I get the feeling that if I do it facing the other way he’s just going to hit me again.
“If you don’t do it you get to eat the dead rats we catch here for the next week” The guard stares me dead in the eye to show he's serious, what’s with the imperials all being like this. I guess I have no choice, slowly turning around and putting my hands through the hole while facing the wall the guardsman binds both my hands together.
“Alright follow me your going to find out what your JOB is today” laughing a bit to himself after emphasizing job he opens the cell. “Also, don’t even think about running there are 2 floors to the exit and 20 guards to there, after that there are walls with archers and more guards with orders to capture or kill. If you are captured you will be tortured as an example for the rest of the prisoners.” Square-face talks while waving another guard over.
Stepping out of the dank cel Square-face begins to lead the way the other guard walking behind me. This is the point when I realize just how massive this place is, its like a maze of cells and corridors guards at every corner. Many of these cells seems to have an awful lot of blood in them, everywhere you go it smells and yet all the prisoners are practically silent. This place feels more like a graveyard than a prison, the more cells I pass and the more people I see the more I notice everyone has the same look of defeat on their faces. Except that guy, that guy Is just beating his head repeatedly against the wall.
“GRIS! SUV VRE VOLDRBEK!” square-face yells as he notices, another guard comes running unlocking the cage and tackling the man before another 2 guards come running to help drag the prisoner out of the cell screaming while violently clawing on the hard stone floor.
“That will happen sometimes” Square-face nonchalantly says in the typical imperial accent while facing the crazed prisoner being dragged.
Stepping out of the prison I realize that the whole prison is underground, just a small outhouse as an entry. Outside of the outhouse is what appears to be a large courtyard completely walled in by stone walls and towers, Square-face really wasn’t lying when It came to this place.
“you see that building over there” square-face points to a large 3 story stone block building with a flat top.
“yeah” I respond taking in the entireity of the compound.
“That’s where you work” square-face starts walking again. 8 towers 1 at each corner of the wall and one in between each section of stone, these must be at least 50 feet high, way too well guarded for a regular prison. The entire courtyard is hard earth and rock, it would take a lot of work to dig this out, I wonder how that Brian guy managed that.
“AH veist ist un roka!” a group of patrolling guards in tunics laugh as they walk by, for some reason I feel as though they are laughing at me.
A group of 4 plate mail soldiers stand guard at the entrance to my supposed place of work, each having shiny broadswords and full plate helms. Square-face promptly hands them a piece of paper that they check before letting him pass through the thick iron doors with a wave of the hand. Inside of the door is like a waiting room with 2 stairs on both ends, in the middle a man sits at a desk in front of a line of prisoners.
“Wait in line, once you get to the front the man at the desk will tell you where you go.” Square-face says before walking back out. Stepping into line I notice that all these prisoner’s wear clothes just like mine a brown shirt with the symbol of Gray dale on it. They must have all been taken at the same time as me, maybe Fred or Stew is here.
Stolen story; please report.
“next” the line moves up one, I can vaguely hear what is being said but I don’t really understand any of it.
“next” This continues until my turn is up.
“name?” The stone faced front desk man asks while still looking at his papers.
“Sam Ondale” I respond while staring at the top of his bald head. The stoic man looks up at me while mumbling to himself.
“brown hair, male, green eyes.. Age?”
“20” I respond
“height?” He adds one more question before turning back to his paperwork to scribble on a sheet of unknown words.
“5’11”
“fair complexion, alright you will be assigned E4 go up the stairs on your right and fourth door on the left” as he finishes a guard comes and moves me along the right hand staircase and to a room labeled E4. The whole corridor is just doors with labels E1 through E9, well no screams of pain can be heard so that’s good right? The guard opens the oak door leading to E4 waving me in before shutting the door behind and walking off. These bindings are so tight that my hands are beggining to feel numb.
Inside the room looks just like a study, old books a bookcase, chair and a table sitting in the center with various parchment and ink. A man wearing an oversized robe sits at the desk looking at me, if it wasn’t for the robes and where I was I would think he was an ordinary guy in his late 30s with long blonde hair, although blonde hair is fairly rare.
“So you are my new subject?” the man asks checking me out.
“uh- I suppose so?” I respond in a questioning and worried manner of my own. “What exactly is it that I do here?”
The middle-aged man smiles while looking up at me from his sitting position and speaks in a soft voice like one of the dentists about to beat a tooth out with a hammer.
“well if you haven’t figured it out yet, the E in E4 stands for experiment number 4. Every time we lose a subject or complete an experiment a new one opens up, which is why you are here now.” He says still smiling. “Experiment number 4 is the experiments on immortality” he finishes with a sad look on his face and looks back down before continuing “We were so close with the last experiment but unfortunately it failed and the subject died.” He continues after switching to a smile and looking back at me again waving his hand as if to welcome a guest “Which is why you are here”
Day 7
I wake up after repeating the same dream I have had since being stuck in the carriages. I dream of my family before the war burnt our village, when I was still a kid. Back when I used to sit under the old oak tree on the outskirts of the village with the blacksmiths girl, Bell was her name. We would sit there and look at the clouds trying to come up with things that they look like, I return home to my family and my mother welcomes me home while cooking, right as she starts to turn around I awake in this hell.
I have gotten used to my routine here now, I think I may have gotten off a little easier than most of the others. Since I have gotten here at least 4 of the 10 from the same cell block as I have disappeared. The first couple of days I could hear whimpers of pain coming from the cell block, I have yet to see the half man do anything but lean against the corner of his cell.
The same thing every day, wake up when the guard calls and meet with Algrix the blonde haired mage who for the most part this week has just made me drink random concoctions mixed by the alchemists. The first couple of days were hell, every night I was sweating and vomiting, my body would feel like its on fire in agonizing pain. Then I would wake up in the morning feeling just fine like it was just a case of the flu, however it definitely isn’t. Something about the things he makes me drink feel horribly wrong, whatever he puts in there I think I would be better off not knowing. Apparently these concoctions are to prepare my body for the real test.
“Hey Max, mind if I ask you something?” I ask the half man, being one of the only sociable people here Max has been the only person I’ve talked to, although I think the reason he’s willing to talk is because he doesn’t care anymore.
“Shoot” Max replies in his normal crackly voice while still leaning againsts the back corner of his cell.
“What exactly did they do to you?”…. silence, the sound of the occasional shuffle of the people in the neighboring cells, seems like they are listening in on our conversation.
“You ever notice a lot of us missing arms legs and more?” Max responded with a question of his own staring at the wall.
“Yeah at least 1 in 5 are missing something but what does that have to do with it?”
“I got unlucky, my first day here they set me up in E2. E2, they never told me what it was but they sawed both my legs off for it. Funny thing is that now I’m in E3 where they see if they can regrow limbs. Why do you suppose they have a separate experiment to take limbs and another one to give them, shouldn’t that be all in E2?”
“What?” I ask still confused on what he means
“They took so many body parts but I have yet to see any of those used in an experiment. These 4 years I have been here i've kept an eye on the other prisoners when the guards drag me to try something new. Those 4 from our cell block that disappeared, they were not sick enough that they would have died. All of em went to E2 whatever they are doing in there is bad news.
“I don’t understand, they take body parts and people for an experiment in E2? What on ea-“ Max quickly cuts me off by putting a finger to his lips, turning towards me for the first time this conversation.
“There’s a reason they don’t want us to know what it is, I think we are better off not talking about it. However, I will say this, Brian the guy who used to be in your cell before was the gravedigger.” For a brief second he pauses. “He was always saying we are missing people.”
Day 14
He upped the dosage yesterday.
The pain did not go away when I woke up.
So much pain.
The guards have to drag me to see Algrix today.