I awoke again to a fit of nightmarish ghouls pestering me of the past, haunting me. Reminding me of those I’d left behind, faces half finished and rusted with age as I slowly forgot the people who were once friends, family, rivals or enemies.

Although imprisoned, left starved and bound to a wall I found most anguish within my own thoughts, a hostile arena of mirrors, forced to face myself again and again, every victory over myself, a defeat, making me slowly rot from the inside as parts of myself were cut loose to drift away for eternity. I’d screamed so often that I’d lost the sweet memories of my voice, of how it tasted of honeydew on my tongue. All that remained was a ragged voice box, tired and weak.

This time I awoke however, I did not find myself bound, my wrists and feet left free floating. Bringing my hands close to my face, I inspected them, looking for any sort of damage or rot, however the century of neglect and bad treatment I was familiar with had disappeared, instead leaving behind scar tissue that ran along my arm into my chest. Then my gaze flew to the rest of my body, all the same. My ribs no longer pointed weakly out of my chest, my skin previously ashen gray now shone a healthy, dusky, midnight black. However in their place my body had revealed a criss cross weave of scars that looked built from a jagged whip or blade, the origin of which was left forgotten.

Uncertainly I closed my eyes, shivering as I felt within myself, for the one thing that my feverish nightmares could never recreate. Grasping tightly over my own heart I slowly began to feel the trembling power of my core. Cutting it off and returning to reality, I returned to looking over myself.

However as I stared dimly at my own body, a body I had long forgotten, I did not weep with joy, I did not cry out with excitement. I was numb. Completely and utterly numb. Years and years of suffering, time where I wished myself to die as a prayer of goodnight. Such a daunting process left little behind. Instead I was left empty, a husk used up so thoroughly that not a drop of hope or life wasn’t squeezed dry, or set alight in a useless attempt to stave off the eternal horrors my mind conjured.

I looked up from my hands, unsmiling as I stared at the door barring my exit, the one thing I was forced to look upon for the past hundred years, now left rusted and in ruin, barely holding onto its own hinges. I laughed. A chilling sound that could pierce through the souls of mortals. It was a sound of sorrow, of hate, of loss. The door I had spent my lifetime hating, always pristine and infallible now just as broken as I was.

I heard my own laughter reverberating off the walls of my chamber, a part of me scared, yet a greater part uncaring. So many times had I pleaded and wished for help, for these very walls to crumble, for that door to crumble. I had pleaded to any god that might hear the anguish within my soul, the only ones who could help me, the only ones that knew of my situation.

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In return for my hopes and prayers I was abandoned. 

I stepped forward gingerly, stumbling slightly as my legs, although healed were now weak and untrained, unsuited for the nigh impossible task of walking, yet I stepped forward, again, and again until I reached the door, I pushed, lightly enough that not a fly would perceive it, yet it fell. All my hopes, wishes, tears and hate for a century had failed, what had changed? The sound of metal clanging upon the cold floor barely registered as I stared, empty. I looked back upon my holdings. A box. Barely large enough to spread my arms fully length ways, I held no nostalgia for the place, I contemplated spitting disdainfully, screaming until the world died around me, doing anything to justify what seemed like a lifetime's worth of hate.

“What’s the point?”

My rough voice seemed unfamiliar, almost like a friend that was gone for so very long that it now pained you to see them, it hurt to hear it, it hurt to live, yet what else did I have?

“Let’s see what’s changed.”

Stirring the mana within me was like a slap in the face, so unused had it gotten that it was shriveled, slow, I tried summoning it to my hand, willed it to light up, after about half a minute a dim sickly glow began to emanate from my hand. Shaking my head and crushing the pathetic glow within my palm. I willed my mana again, this time envisioning something to cover my naked body. Before me I focused on forming a cloak, as I felt mana scraping across my channels, torturing my insides I didn’t flinch, imposing my will to twist my mana as it left me, compacting it and weaving it together to form a long cloak that would shroud my entire body in darkness. I watched slowly as in front of my eyes the hood then the body formed, however it was a sad affair, it came out in tatters, full of holes. 

Stumbling into the wall as I felt a sudden drain within me I caught myself on one of the walls feeling the cold stone chill my hands. Breathing slowly for a minute I draped it fully across me, feeling the rough fibers brush against my skin before pushing away the wall and leaning against the now empty door frame.

Closing my eyes for a moment and breathing a soft sigh I turned to face away from my hell, turned towards my freedom. Feeling sharp stones against my feet I continued, slowly walking up through semi darkness, keeping my hand strictly on the wall, securing myself and preventing me from falling down the cracked marble steps. All the while I experimented with my mana, using it to loosen up my mana channels. Unsteady step by unsteady step I slowly emerged from my chamber.

For the first time since my memories began I looked around at an area that wasn’t my cell. From where I had emerged I found myself in a room not too dissimilar from a shrine, although any offerings were either long stolen or decomposed. Curiously, I turned my head to look along the room, to perhaps find something of use, however it didn’t take long to come up empty. Among the pillars and braziers lining the room the only thing that remained were dust particles and broken shards of ceramic. Walking myself free of the room through an open doorway I found myself faced with the outside world.

Curiously I turned to stare into the sun, I felt the pain as it blasted through my retinas. Felt my eyes tear up, felt the urge to turn my head from the beauty of freedom. Urges I could barely register. I stood for an indeterminable amount of time with the sun, simply staring into the sky, tears running from my face to soak the floor.

“Freedom.” I whispered softly.

Turning away I looked upon my surroundings, registering almost nothing as my eyes blurred up.

Shaking my head lightly I stumbled away, leaving behind the doorway into my hell, attempting to forget it’s existence as I walked anywhere. Anywhere but here.