#3 Chains

Acreus

Drip. 'Water. Please… water.' Thought Acreus. A foggy mess shrouded his mind, the words swirling inside his head and washing over him with a wave of sickness.

His words had long been pulled away along with his magic, drained from within him by the chains that held him suspended inside the darkness. A dull green glow emanated from the chains that were pierced into his wrists and coiled around his arms like a serpent a ship. Small follicles of green drifted from the chains, like small fairy's dancing as they fell to the cold ground below. Acreus felt like he was drowning in emotions. Every time he tried to focus, the small wisp that was a thought would escape him, sinking deep into the chaotic ocean beneath.

Hours had turned to days. Or maybe it had only been hours. Acreus did not know. He was a battery in somebodies' scheme, having his magical energy torn from him and collected by whatever evil had put him there. Once pristine, his hair now stuck to him and dangled in wet clusters. His body was sweating, yet he was cold. Or was he. His body had long stopped responding to him as he helplessly dangled there, strung up like a puppet to the ceiling. All he knew was that he was in pain; It was almost like a constant ache in his body that he had pushed away into the back of his mind an eternity ago. Lead-like weight forced his eyelids shut. His teen body was a mess.

It was nothing compared to the horrors he had witnessed befall his home, however. That pain would consume him for the rest of his life, and an elves life was long. Very long.

Hopelessness had long since come and gone within his small, frail body. His ghostly skin was almost transparent, soaked in sweat and the occasional drip of green essence from the chains that strangled him in this shroud of darkness. The darkness was suffocating. He had been alone in it since he came here, wherever here was. Its firm grasp on him could not be broken or weakened. Of course, he had tried previously, yet even with his initial strength and will, its iron grip could not be released.

It was a pitiful site, but the captors did not care. To them it was profit. He was no more to them than any of the other subjects they had imprisoned. His companions were just as precious a resource as he was.