The Ordeals -Short Story Collection

The Unbroken

Screams echoed, though from where no one could not tell. Damp, cold and clammy, and from somewhere out in the darkness, someone was dying. Dying slowly in the worst way, in a fate worse than death itself, smothered by a pitch black loneliness that enveloped every spark of light and hope and feeling. Except the pain.

Madness spread like a disease. Where lies, starvation, a stinging chill, and the fearful cries of your other captives, insanity is sure to follow like a blood hound caught on the scent of your fear. Sometimes - which is all I can use to describe it for day and night were indistinguishably dark - the hysterical giggling of some poor soul who had fallen victim to the tricks of the mind found it's way to your ears, yet another reminder of the inescapable prison you were doomed to remain inside until your final hour. Every sentence had its end, but you would never make it.

Existence was short lived here. Whether one succumbed to the starvation, the torture, the madness, or any number of horrid things that happened within the confines of that nightmare, they all did. Resistance was futile, escape was impossible, and the weariness overcame everyone who ever entered. Until one.

They had no name, as all names were stripped of their owners the moment you were sentenced to face that place, but was only called The Unbroken. Indistinguishable between male and female, The Unbroken told no tales of their capture, though whether they were unwilling or unable, we could never tell. The scars on their skin told of a kind of horror that was, perhaps, indescribable.

Whatever the case, one thing was clear from the look in their eyes; they truly were Unbroken.