Forgotten Stories

Eternal

The ceiling once again started to leak, each drop that hit the ground echoed in the cold and dark room. Three walls build of dark stone, wet from the loosely built construction and a fourth where the bars were had been the cell of a man that committed no crimes but still ended up there. He was sitting down, completely naked, the hard floor had make his feet black and they ached all over, the lack of movement made him unable to walk even from one side of the room to the next, his arms were so thin that the skin looked like it was stretched on the bones. His hair long covered his face shoulders and half of his chest and back, filthy, oiled up that had become dark even though before they used to glow golden in the sun.

On the wall across from the cell door was a small window that sun only shone from morning sunrise to just before the early afternoon. It was the only ray of hope the prisoner had left inside his soul. He looked everyday up to that small window and didn't stop until the last ray of sunlight pierced the coldness of his cell. After it was gone he would close his eyes, he had seen everything around him so many times that it was as if he never did close them.

The man was going over and over in his mind what had occurred, the actions and choices he made that made him end up as a prisoner, the magic that was weaved around him so he was unable to die, he could still feel hunger and thirst but no amount could break the spell and allow him to find the release in death.

He remembered the first days in the prison, he screamed his lungs out that he was innocent, that he was the victim, he banged his head on the hard still cell door and punched the cold wall but the only thing he managed was to feel the pain of his actions. Later on he decided he would go on a hunger strike, he wouldn't eat, but it was hard to do when no one was bringing him food or water to begin with. He later thought that he would create a world in his mind, a place where he would go for as long he was inside that prison, but the immortality spell was more than just him not dying, he was unable to make that fantasy, he was unable to dream, he was back at square one.

The months passed, his eyes adapted to the darkness, his body still shook from the cold and his mind still plagued by his situation and what he had lost, his wife, his kids and his career, his sick mother and the debts his family should pay now he was gone. His immortal body could still feel the pain, hunger even aging, he was paying the ultimate punishment, an eternity in prison, literally.

More months passed and he saw his body change, becoming thinner, he felt the weakness in his muscles, eventually he thought he wouldn't be able to even stand on his feet. His hearing was gone or at least that's what he thought, he didn't know if he had gone deaf or simply there were not sounds around him. The other prison cells were empty and despite his time here, he was the only "visitor".

The months turned into years, his tried speaking but his voice wouldn't come out, he had forgotten how he sounded, how anything sound. He began forgetting what his wife and kids looked like. He cried, he didn't want to forget them but he couldn't help it there was nothing he could do.

A decade passed since he was imprisoned, his hair and beard stopped growing, his body couldn't get any thinner and his mind still remembered he had a family but he could neither remember their faces nor their names. The hunger and thirst were a constant bothering but he grew used to it, the feeling of his dry throat and mouth and the stabbing pain in his stomach didn't bother him as much. His mind unable to make any new thoughts, and his body unable to do anything but move his eyes, he was praying for death, a release that would never come.

He would look up to that window every day, he would see the rays of the sun come and go, he would feel the hunger and the thirst, the pain of losing even the memories of his loved ones, his conscience would forever be trapped into a broken body and his mind would never be able to use imagination. He would be trapped there forever, he was a prisoner into that cell but even more he was a prisoner in his own skin. The ultimate punishment for a crime that he never commited.