Game Of Survival •in editing•

5 Prisoner Of Will

Four walls. No window. The air is thick and suffocating and I take care in inhaling heavily due to the unknown stenches lingering in the air. I was escorted to who knows where last night by two guards who oh so politely dragged me out of the house with a bag tossed over my head. That was hours ago. My sense of time has been jumbled, the darkness making my head spin with uncertainty. I couldn't see a thing, although that heightened my other senses. I really wish it hadn't.

I sit on the cold ground, huffing, hungry, tired and smelly. I shift uncomfortably, thinking of a way to get out. But I can't. Generals usually host trials for their prisoners in a matter of hours. Soon, I wouldn't have to worry about the smell from the other enclosed rooms. Soon, the life I'd been thrown into will cease to matter. My brain and heart fight for dominance, I do not yet know if this a good or bad thing. I slump against the cold ground, willing sleep to come before the guards greet me once more.

There's a voice from the other end of the hall. Muffled and laced with years of torture and imprisonment. Most of us who are caught are either killed under the Crown's rule or are brought here to be tortured for information. I know it is not one of mine due to the fact that one of our rules state we are bound by tongue. Any information regarding the Creepers shall be taken to your grave. Within a week, if the information is not given, we die by the blade of our region's General in the circle of the Rig. Sometimes we may do it ourselves. It is why I despise the General status. They're the ones that wield the blade to take lives they have no idea how to understand.

All death sentences are carried out by the General once they are given the death penalty from their Trial. I should be glad. Some of them don't make it to their Trials.

I dream of nothing that night, and I thank the heavens for it. I don't dream of the fire that ripped my parents from my arms. I do not dream of Alec's tears upon my leave. I do not dream of colour or faces or what has happened in the last six hours. But I feel a presence whilst I sleep. Calming. It means no harm, and it is not here to kill me. It is not the Creepers. I want to wake but my body is so tired, so drained. I just wanted a normal life, instead I am stuck in a Royal Guard's cell under his complete beck and call. His protection as a prisoner of question. I cannot overpower him, but I hope for a chance to outsmart him.

I wake with a start, sweat beads on my forehead and the leather on my soaked body clings uncomfortably to every inch of my being. It does not help that my thighs are plump and muscular, and they chafe in agony.
I stay up until dawn, at least to my assumption, plotting how I can get a message to the Creepers, holding back the inevitable. I think of ways to withhold the trial, to not face the wrath of the Rig and it's blade. Will I ever get a chance to become close to the General? Will I ever learn the important information I need? Yes, exactly that. Why take a life in exchange for yours when information holds more power than spilled blood ever could.

The door clicks open, and my hands curl into fists, immediately in defense mode. His silhouette is not the General; this man is shorter and stubby with a broad hat that shadows his face even in the fading moonlight.

"It can't be..."

"It is not." He responds. His voice is grating and hard to listen to, as if he's been smoking since he was nine years old. I want to clamp my hands over my ears. He assesses the cell, eyes gleaming grey from the light behind him. I feel them settling on me when he approaches and asks, "Did you do as the boss asked?"

"No. But—"

"How disappointing. Another young life lost to such stubborn mentality." He flicks his hand with ease, a knife flashes in his palm, mocking my inevitable death.

"Wait. I can provide you with something more useful."

He does not startle, as if this isn't the first time one has offered the Creepers an ultimatum. "And what might that be?"