Prison of the Mind

No Light, No Life

In the dark corners of a person's mind lies twisted forgotten fragments; the guilt over every lie they have ever told, the shame over what they have turned into, the hatred of the people that made them that way, the fear of having a corrupted soul, and the glee of having finally gone too insane to care. The fire rages inside their mind, burning and piercing, until it reaches their heart. Flame then turns to ice, ceasing the existence of emotion, rendering them into a shell, as hollow as every breath that passes their lips. It is at this point that they are ready to accept death as an old friend, willing it to envelop them with the last ounce of strength left.

Little do they know that a lifetime of misery awaits them when they make the final journey into what is supposed to be peace-filled bliss. Especially when that journey takes place in the mouth of a kraken, and the cause for being there is a betrayal from the person whom you trusted the most.

Every inch of her skin haunted his mind, every word she ever spoke echoed through the chasm that his mind had become, and the burning hatred for her filled his heart with a pain like no other, even though it no longer beat here.

"I'm not sorry."

A rock left his hand, and flew toward the wall, hitting it with a sharp crack. Leaning against the stone wall, wheezing from exhaustion, he tilted his head back, and closed his eyes.

"It's after you, not the ship. Not us. It's the only way, don't you see?"

The inky darkness behind his eyelids matched the thick air around him. In every direction he looked was a never ending passageway. He was almost sure that he had stumbled down every one countless times, but they all looked the same. Everything looked the same. Light did not exist here. Hope did not exist here. Life was never going to exist here.

This was his hell, the one that she had sent him to. He could live with his life being taken away. Death was not something he had been afraid of in all of the times that he had been so close to it, but this, this was torture.

She had taken it away twice. Once when she chained him to the mast, and now, as he sat on the stone floor, trapped in the endless maze of tunnels.

He had come back to stay with his ship. He had chosen to die for them, for her. He had wanted to do the right thing. Then she took that choice away from him in one fell swoop, and the unspoken words were so loud that she might as well have shouted them. She thought so little of him that she felt she had to force him into sacrifice, instead of trusting him to do it himself. She had taken away the one thing that he had always valued most, even over life itself. His freedom was gone, and he swore that he would make her hurt equally, if he ever saw the light of day again.

Scoffing, he picked at the trinkets in his hair. Time didn't matter anymore. It could have been years since he had been in this place, and he wouldn't know the difference. He placed his other hand over his heart, feigning the shock he once felt the first couple of times. There was no longer a heartbeat. Nothing. No pulse in his veins, no breath in his lungs. No life in him at all. And he was never getting out of here.

He lifted himself up off the floor, swearing that he could hear his bones grinding together. Right about now, he would normally feel his head ache for the sweet taste of rum, but he hadn't felt a craving for food nor drink in a long time. Perhaps this is what his mutinous first mate had felt when he had taken that last piece of Aztec gold. Even now, he didn't feel sorry for that worthless excuse for a man. He would still wish this and a thousand times worse for him.

"I'm proud of you, Jack."

Gritting his teeth, he took a couple steps forward, without aim or direction. His movement stopped when he heard a noise that was not coming from him. Cautiously turning around, he narrowed his eyes as the noise became more clear.