How long had he been lying here? Minutes or hours? Aziz couldn’t tell, groaning as his ribs throbbed with each shallow breath. If they weren’t broken before, they most definitely were now.
Closing his eyes made no difference; not a shred of light penetrated his underground prison. How long would it be before someone found him? Surely, when the sun rose, the villagers would notice they were missing and send a rescue party. The thought sparked a brief flicker of hope, quickly extinguished by the sobering reality that none of the other missing children had ever been found. It was unlikely anyone would even know where to look.
“Idiot,” Aziz muttered, hating himself for his foolishness.
If they left him here, he would eventually… die. The thought chilled him to his core. Shaking his head, he forced himself to move, rolling slowly onto his stomach and beginning to crawl forward. After a few agonizing seconds of dragging himself across the dirt floor, his hand brushed against a wall. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he propped himself up against it, taking deep, laboured breaths. Each inhale sent a sharp stab of pain through his chest, but he needed to calm down. The immediate danger had passed; now, more pressing problems loomed.
It didn’t take long for the cold to seep into his bones, reminding him of how alone he was. There was nothing around him—only the oppressive darkness pressing in from all sides. Then, Mal’s face flashed in his mind. Aziz’s bottom lip quivered as tears began streaming down his cheeks. Before he knew it, he was sobbing, the pain and loss crashing over him like a relentless tide. There was no going back now. He was all alone. No Mal, no Mama, no elders to guide him. He curled into himself, trying to shrink away from this cruel world, wishing everything would just fade away.
Countless more hours passed. Time had lost all meaning to Aziz. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, a relentless ache that worsened with each passing minute. Just as despair began to tighten its grip on him, he heard a sound from above. The entrance to the pit creaked open, bits of earth crumbling from the ceiling as morning light pierced through the darkness of his man-made hell. Like a cornered animal, Aziz scurried to the far side of the pit, pressing himself into the shadows. He squinted up at the figures silhouetted against the light, his eyes unable to adjust quickly enough. Two men stood there, their attire unmistakable—his captors from the night before.
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“He’s probably the weakest of the batch, Captain. The boy won’t last long,” one of them said, his tone detached, almost bored.
The Captain’s ghostly blue eyes locked onto Aziz, who was trying to meld into the wall, away from that piercing gaze.
“A shame. We’ll have to retrieve a carcass soon, then, won’t we? Come, let us check on the others.”
As quickly as it had come, the light was snuffed out again. Aziz scrambled forward, desperately reaching for the sun as the pit was closed off once more. The men in the masks watched him with cold, emotionless eyes.
“Show your worth, boy,” the Captain said, dropping a satchel into the pit. It landed with a dull thud. His words echoed in Aziz’s mind as darkness swallowed him again, wrapping around him like a suffocating blanket.
“Please…” Aziz whispered, licking his dry, cracked lips.
He fell to his knees, his hands limp at his sides. He had wept for hours, and no more tears would come. Only emptiness remained. Despair was a constant presence now, circling him like a vulture, but it hadn’t fully taken hold—yet. Clinging to the smallest thread of hope, like a rat scavenging for scraps, Aziz remembered the satchel. He had seen it fall.
Blindly, he began feeling around the ground, muttering prayers under his breath. Soon enough, his fingers brushed against coarse leather. His heart leaped with a mixture of relief and desperation as he fumbled to open it. Inside, he found the hard, stale texture of bread. Food. He brought it to his nose, sniffing cautiously before devouring it, not wasting a single crumb. The taste was heavenly despite its dryness. It soothed the gnawing hunger, if only temporarily. Aziz savoured every bite, cherishing this small reprieve from the nightmare.
But the moment of peace was fleeting. A faint sound from the other side of the pit made him freeze. Instinctively, Aziz swivelled his head, ears straining to catch it again. There had been no noise in the pit before; it was as if the walls had been designed to muffle any sound from above. He remained deathly still, the memory of hunting with his father flashing through his mind. That same gut feeling had warned him of danger then, saving their lives from a bear’s ambush. And now, that same feeling twisted in his stomach.
Hiss.
Aziz’s blood ran cold. He scrambled back into the opposite corner, heart pounding in his chest. A village boy could never mistake that sound.
Hiss.
A snake.