Object R106. Two words that define his entire existence. Two words that remind him every day that he is not human. That he has no right to freedom, to his own life, to a home, to a family. He doesn't even have the right to his own name. He is just a...
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A rough, tattered fabric the colour of old ash wrapped around his face like a funeral shroud, concealing his amber eyes from the world. Darkness always accompanied him—dense and impenetrable—embracing him with motherly tenderness; it was an inseparable part of his life. Closer than the mother he had never known and whose presence he had never even felt. Each breath came with difficulty, as if the air around him had thickened into hot, tarry fumes. He struggled, but it was futile. A thick, long linen rope tightly coiled around his slender neck, pulling him forward, while strong cords bound his wrists behind his back. At the slightest attempt to rest, the merciless linen fibres tore at his skin like a predator's claws. Each convulsive tug intensified his agony, tightening the noose around his throat and carving ever-deeper wounds. Breath caught in his chest, and each step became a battle against mounting pain and exhaustion. His heart pounded desperately within its cage, as if it longed to escape its bony prison and flee into the unknown, but the darkness—possessive and inexorable—absorbed him into its maternal embrace. He accepted it as an inseparable companion of his being. He had long since resigned himself to this fate, aware that he never was and never would be the master of his own life. Therefore, he did not fight; he did not resist the inevitable.
Like an animal on a leash, he was forced to tread the path laid out for him through dense thickets. The barefoot march became an ordeal on a road strewn with sharp shards of stone. Long hours stretched into eternity, and the suffering intensified with each step as the jagged stones tore the skin of his feet, leaving deep, bleeding wounds. Blood oozed from them, tracing a crimson trail behind him like the marks left by a wounded wild animal fleeing an unrelenting hunter.
His captors showed not the slightest shred of mercy, dragging him relentlessly forward, utterly unmoved by his suffering. In the distance, only the growing murmur of waters could be heard, seeming to be the sole witness to his torment. He was merely a puppet in the hands of his masters, moving helplessly to the rhythm of the rope's tugs. Each of his steps, every gesture, was dictated by the inexorable will of the puppeteers who, with sadistic delight, pulled the strings of his fate. In his mind, only one desire flickered: for it all to finally come to an end. He longed for the darkness, like a merciful mother, to lull him into his final rest, freeing him from suffering and endless torment.
For the first time in unremembered ages, he had left the damp, cramped cell. For years, his world had been nothing but four walls and the darkness reigning within them. Until now, he hadn't smelt the scents of the ancient forest, never felt the warmth of the sun on his skin, nor known what a sunny sky looked like. Perhaps that sight had faded from his memory, or perhaps it was never granted to him. The other chambers to which the youth was occasionally dragged brought only new forms of torment and agony. Life confined within the cell was all he had known from his earliest memories. Human voices mingled with desperate screams of agony, creating a symphony of suffering that echoed within the grim walls of that underground abode forgotten by the gods. His life was continuous torture, an unending series of sufferings through which he had to pass over and over again, like traversing the circles of hell.
From among the green branches, the last rays of the setting sun streamed down, illuminating the forest thicket with a mysterious, ruby glow. The leafy crowns of trees swayed gently in the evening breeze, rustling like hundreds of quiet elven whispers. The silence was broken only by the murmurs of wild creatures and the growing splash of a stream. Ahead of the youth resounded the voices of two men engaged in lively conversation. He recognised those voices, though he had never been allowed to see their true faces. He knew only their masks and crimson cloaks, in which they hid like phantoms from a nightmare. Now those voices echoed in the depths of his memory, conjuring horrific images of the Pit—the place the Crimson Cloaks called his home.
But they were not phantoms but flesh-and-blood men, members of a brotherhood known as the Bloody Comedy. At its head were those who hid their faces behind masks of jesters—white, cold as ice, with black numerals in the ancient language of Morrok inscribed on their foreheads, and twisted black mouths that seemed eternally stretched in a hellish grimace. These masks, along with their blood-red garments, were symbols of their absolute power, which they wielded underground.
The voices leading him by the rope belonged to masked men marked with numbers. The first bore the designation ninety-one, which in the ancient language of Morrok was 'Mirnir'. The second had the number eighty-four engraved—'Rekar' in that forgotten tongue. Their cold, impassive masks concealed their faces but could not suppress the authoritative tone of their voices, which echoed through the forest thicket. Their words were like cold daggers piercing the soul of the youth, who lived in constant fear of the terrible tortures and humiliations prepared for him in the Pit. Those voices had not a trace of human warmth—only merciless cruelty and contempt for all life, cruelly toying with the fate of the prisoners there. They, like the other masked ones he had encountered within the underground walls of the Pit, had become for him the embodiment of all the world's evil. Every word and every movement reminded him that, in their eyes, he was just another number, an easily replaceable toy—something devoid of value, to be discarded without regret.
Suddenly, the footsteps fell silent, and the youth realised that his captors had stopped near flowing water. One of the men approached him. Without a word of warning, the executioner swung and struck the boy directly in the ribs with a powerful kick from his iron boot. A wave of searing pain flooded his entire body. The force of the blow was so immense that he felt as if his bones had shattered into splinters. He doubled over, gasping for air. Tears welled up in his eyes as he fought not to lose consciousness from the excruciating pain.
The executioner looked at him with icy disdain, deriving perverse satisfaction from the suffering he inflicted. His eyes gleamed with cruel delight at each spasm of pain that coursed through the victim's body. In his mind, new and ingenious ways of tormenting defenceless prisoners—who had the misfortune of falling under his care—constantly sprouted.
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