No footsteps. No voices. No screams anymore.
That’s how I know time has passed.
I’m shackled to the wall at shoulder height, wrists spread wide, iron cuffs gnawed raw into skin that never gets a chance to heal. My legs are chained too, just enough slack to kneel if I’m lucky. Most days, I’m not.
They moved me weeks ago. Months maybe.
Different cell. Same stone. Same stink of damp and despair.
They do that sometimes—relocate us so we stop hoping someone might be close. So we stop listening.
Because listening is dangerous.
They told me Ronan Pierce was dead on my third interrogation.
Didn’t shout it. Didn’t gloat.
Just slid a photo across the table.
A mountain. Fire. Twisted wreckage.
“He died trying to be a hero,” the man had said calmly. “So did the woman.”
Lena, she was Ronan’s one true love.
I remember her eyes. Sharp. Unafraid. The kind of woman who never belonged in the background.
That broke something in me.
Not because I doubted Ronan, I know he did everything he could to keep them both safe.
But ifhedidn’t make it out…
None of us were ever meant to.
After that, they stopped asking questions.
That’s when the punishment changed.
The Warden likes silence.
He believes men unravel faster when left alone with their thoughts.
He visits sometimes—not to speak, but to observe. To stand just outside the light and let youfeelwatched.
I haven’t seen him today.
But I feel him.
The air changes when he’s near. Guards straighten. Breathing slows.
Then—something else.
A sound that doesn’t belong.
A crackle.
Faint. Almost imagined.
