Nothing and no one

Cold, dark, damp.

Alone.

That’s all this world was. Darkness that no mortal eyes could see through, a chill that didn’t bite enough to kill, but enough to numb, to hurt, to burn. A slick to the rocks, leaving it impossible to escape, for to climb was to risk the fall, but if the fall promised death, perhaps it would be a better alternative.

It didn’t.

No voices, no breath, no screeches, no screams, not even your own. Isolation of the brutalest kind.

There was no escape, no chance for help or rescue, just darkness, the chill, the slick and the loneliness.

If you wished to stay, to sit, to cry despite no sounds ever escaping you, that was your choice. He was sure that was a choice many made, but if you wished for even the smallest hope of change, even the smallest break of the endless monotony, then you must move.

And so you did.

Every step promised something worse, never in your wildest dreams would you dare to think it might promise better. The only sound was deafening silence, making you feel like your eardrums had collapsed in on themselves, in order to escape the complete lack of noise. you could try to speak, or even grunt, squeak, anything to break the silence…

But, you had tried. Tried and tried and tried when you were first thrown into this pit of living agony.

No, that was not the right descriptor. There was no agony here, there was nothing else here but the cold, the dark and the silence.

And that, in itself, was the agony.

No matter how much you willed his mouth to form words, your lungs to produce the air to carry them, there was nothing. You had given up trying a long time ago.

There was no point in this hole, these endless tunnels of darkness.

Perhaps you were not alone, no, you knew you weren’t. But, the other tortured souls that roamed here was not what came to mind when you thought that. You wondered if, perhaps, some creature dwelled here as well. It seemed to be the place some horror of the night might stalk. What would a beast like that, one that lived down here, look like? Not that it would matter, if you were found by a beast, you would never see it, not here.

Would it kill you? Was there something worse it would do? Would it charge you, screaming and howling, or would it sneak up on you, silent as the corridors they walked?

When it caught you, would you be allowed to scream, or would this spell-like silence stay over you, leaving your screams to only echo through your own mind?

Was there even such a beast, down here? Or was the only true punishment to wander forever, starving, yet not starved? Frostbitten and numb, but still feeling, still walking? Skin being torn apart by the rocks you clung to in the darkness, but not a drop of blood being spilled? Broken, but still being held together, just to feel every bone scrape together with every step, as your whole being wished only to fall apart?

Was this Hell? Or something more? Something only the foolish would call ‘Hell’?

Was there even an alternative?

No, there was not.

You wander only to wander, to move, to have some sensation, however fruitless,  knowing full well there was no end, no change, nothing.

Nothing and no one. Not in this world.