Forgive and Forget

 "Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience"

~ John Locke

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The guard took a deep breath as he descended into the musky depths of the royal dungeon. Why did it have to be today...? Against his will, a knot of guilt had formed in the pit of his stomach, tightening with each step he took down the spiraling stone staircase. Why was he feeling guilty all of the sudden? He'd brought many a prisoner to their death before and most had been much less guilty than the man he was about to march to the slaughter. Yet for the first time in a long time he felt a pang of guilt. Too lost in his thoughts, the guard didn't notice that he'd reached the bottom of the stairs until a deep voice brought him back to the task at hand.

"So my time's come at last huh?" the prisoner spoke as he faced the wall of his filthy cell. You never would have been able to tell who he was from the way he spoke. Who could of guessed that such a notorious assassin like himself could be so polite? You would think he would be rude, cruel, animalistic even; that he would fight against his captors at any chance he got. And yet from the day he had been brought to this dismal place, he had not resisted. Not even once. Every punishment. Every "interrogation". He'd taken them all without complaint.

"I'm afraid so..." the guard answered lighting a nearby torch and grabbing the ring of jailer keys from their hook on the far wall. " I'm sorry about this you know. You're really a good man..."

The prisoner chuckled half-heartedly."You shouldn't be so kind to me, Thomas. People'll think you've gone soft. What happen happened. Just because I can't remember it doesn't change that... This is the only way I can come close to atoning for my sins."

Thomas found it strange that the prisoner and him were on a first name basis. Not even most of his fellow guards knew his name let alone use it. He'd grown so close to this man over the past three months that Thomas felt he knew him better than his own family. Not that he'd ever been close to his family...but still. This man whom everyone saw as a monster had become his best friend... and for the life of him he had no idea how.

Pushing these thoughts from his mind, he shoved the key into the sturdy padlock, struggling against the years worth of rust to turn it. Thomas cautiously made his way into the cell careful not to step on any rats as they scurried across the floor. Hearing him approach, the prisoner turned away from the wall and held out his cuffed hands for the guard to free. Thomas couldn't help but gasp as a beam of torchlight struck the man's disheveled form.

He'd seen the prisoner's state so many times before and yet each time it caught him off guard. The bruises. The scars. They decorated his eerily pale skin in some sadistically artistic manner. His limbs long since reduced to the width of toothpicks. His clothes, if you could even call them that, were ripped to shreds and coated in three months worth of grime, blood, and urine. Thomas felt himself gag from the smell and it took all his willpower to hold in his sick. Then there was the man's face. In only 12 weeks time, his face had gone from one of dashing, young man to that of a withered corpse. His cheek bones had sunken in and dark shadows had formed under his eyes from relentless nights of interrogation. Oh, those eyes... like glass orbs. Glazed over from spending so much time in the pitch black depths of the royal dungeon. Thomas took a deep breath to keep from throwing up (not that it would make much of a difference in the cleanliness of the cell) and released the man from his bonds. The prisoner let out a sigh of relief as he massaged his aching wrists.