Thánatos

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Bars

Robin

Robin had spent his fair share of time behind bars, the cold stone room was a familiar unforgiving atmosphere that made them choke on his breath. They hadn't been caught in a long time, not since he was young. But it was easy for him to step back into that world, clustered cold bodies forcefully pressed together from overcrowding, the scent of bile and faeces thick like the condensation against the wall.

Robin in his tunic, the only item he was allowed to keep when he was thrown behind the rusty gates of Arcon's prison, Alsatar. A tower of stone leaning dangerously to one side, twenty stories up and seventy stories down, cruelly placed at the foot of the volcano Casadar, which had long since died by the first Arcon ruler.

Robin swears he can still smell the ash that fell through the small gap for a window too high for any of the children to reach, sometimes he'd hear birds, distant chirps that would remind him of the sea. But he knew he was hearing things, nothing would come this close to Casadar, nothing living anyway.

Robin has few memories of his time in Alsatar, fewer were pleasant, many were snippets that plagued his dreams. Dead bodies, cruel punishments, corrupt guards, and little hands clinging to his. Robin didn't have the strength to get himself out, he didn't have the strength to pull one small child aside and slip them through the window, because risking the drop would be a better chance at life than fighting to survive here. He never had the strength to pull himself out, but Linae did.

Robin didn't know how long he had been in there, long enough for his voice to drop a few octaves and hair to grow down to his hips. Linae the scrawny woman had been thrown into his shared cell with six other boys, spitting a string of profanities that even Robin winced at.

They knew who she was, the rabid teen who ripped the ear of a guard off with her teeth. Too violent to be with the younger girls, so she was thrown here, like that would stop her violent outbursts. They all clustered to the corner away from her, her fiery red eyes burning through them. That's when she saw him, and he saw the devil.

"You" she grabbed him by the collar dragging him to beneath the window "Give me a boost."

Robin had been the tallest of the boys at the time which unfortunately didn't stay with him into adulthood. "It's a twenty-story drop" he had managed to get out as she forced his hands together by his knees, wedging her foot into them, he wasn't exactly thrilled to help this psycho with her suicide.