In Darkness

The door began rattling violently. Whoever was on the other side of that door was aware that something happened.

Out of desperation, Ryuma began to shake and pull against the chains that bind him to no avail. The door swung wide open. In came the guard that had just left his shift, followed by a frail old lady who rushed on over to the man on the floor.

The old lady checked his neck for a pulse. After a moment of silence, she removed her hands, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

The man was dead.

An unlucky accident that Ryuma did not mean to cause. By no means did he care for the man or felt any sort of remorse given what he was about to do. He still would rather keep his powers under control if he could help it. What was that anyways?

"What the hell did you do?" The previous guard asked.

"I'm as dumbfounded as you are. It's not like I tried to do this," Ryuma said. It earned him another smack across the face.

"Don't act like you can play it off as innocence. You devils won't be satisfied until we're all dead," The guard said.

"Personally, just the ones it takes to get me the fuck outta here,"

He was knocked across the face again. Though he could take a punch, it didn't mean that he should keep doing so. He could feel his face starting to bruise up.

"You keep hitting me like that and soon I won't be able to talk at all," Ryuma said.

"Why you…" The man pulled his fist back once more.

"Enough Genfrey! The boys right. We finally caught one of them with no witnesses around. The last thing we need is for you to accidently kill the lad," The old lady said.

Breathing hard, Ryuma lifted his head some to look at her. "At least somebody is on my side down here for once,"

She gave him a stern look. "I'd hardly classify myself as being on your side. A dead man has no tales to tell. Unfortunately for us, we still need to hear your story,"

"And then I die," Ryuma finished.

"And then you die," She confirmed.

"I don't suppose banking my life on the mercy of a sweet old lady would bear fruit," Ryuma asked.

"You're welcome to try your luck. Are you going to share your story?" She asked.

"I think I'll pass,"

The way she said it gave Ryuma the answer he needed. Neither her gender nor her elderly status was going to be cushion blows to help him out of this situation.

"This may all seem unfair to you…" as she got up, her foot bumped into the corpse of the man that just died. "Genfrey, please see that this body is taken care of. Tell his family what happened here,"

He nodded his head and hoisted it upon his shoulders. Once they were gone, the old lady decided to continue.

"This may all seem unfair to you, but please do understand that all our lives are on the line. We already created a transgression by kidnapping you. To have you go back and say anything will cause us all to be wiped out," She said.

"If you knew that, then why take such a risk?" Ryuma asked.

"Because those who live down here must always risk it all for a plate of food for the day. It is not surprising that we must risk it all for information as well," She said.

"And you're not worried that given enough time, my comrades won't notice me missing?" Ryuma asked.

From the sound of things. It didn't seem as if they were aware of his falling out with the people of the Skylands and that he was Ryuma Irgo with the hundred-thousand gold teals on his head. He may as well use that lack of knowledge to his advantage.

"Not really. Nobody knows you're here. Not officially anyway," She said. Ryuma shifted his eyes towards her. How did she come to that conclusion? "You took the mine into getting here, correct? If that's the case, you came here in secret, and it isn't official that you're here. Even if the Skylands sent you on a secret mission, then we can just claim ignorance and have plausible deniability. Really, you'd think that of all the priests that have come through our lands, there'd be a reason you're the one we decided to snatch,"

Damn… As much as he'd hate to admit it, this old bat thought of everything. They must have been planning this kidnapping on more priest than just him. He just provided them with the perfect opportunity to do so.

Should he spill his hostility with the Skylanders?

No… out of the question. It wasn't like Hestia where they have a hope riding on his success. A place like this does things on their own terms as far as he just seen. They'd sell him to topside just to increase their resources regardless of whether the priest despise him or not.

This place was too independent to bank on that.

"Still mulling it over? That's fine. You can take as long as you want. In dead darkness where the light of the sun will never reach," She got up and walked towards the door.

"No guard to make sure I don't escape?" Ryuma asked.

"No need. I have a feeling you don't have the power to escape this level of contraption. Sometimes, there are worst psychological tortures other than pain," It was the last thing she said before blowing all lights and shutting the door.

Hours at a time would pass. If his sense of time wasn't skewed before. It certainly was so the case now. It was the pitch of darkness. Whether he closed his eyes or opened them made no difference. It was all the same level of darkness. It was getting to a point where he wasn't aware if whether he was sleep or not.

The only semblance of change that he got is when a guard came to feed him whatever slop it was, they were feeding him. He doubted that it wasn't for human consumption. After all, they couldn't risk poisoning him to death. As far as it's taste, it was barely edible, and the texture was too squishy. He imagined this was emergency food.

As much as he hated the food, it was the only time some semblance of light showed up when they had to illuminate the room to feed him.

Hours turned to days, and he began getting sick. How was he going to escape this? Think Ryuma. What's available to me?

There was no point in closing his eyes to think. He couldn't see anything anyway. All his focus was already on his mind.

He didn't have the mobility to use his katanas whether he summoned them or not. He thought back to that guy he killed not too long ago. The only thing available to him was his wind abilities. What good would that do in this situation?

He thought and thought as much as he could. Nothing in his wind repertoire aloud for him to solve this. The image of Aeragis and the wind pressure he shot out, rendering buildings and tearing through stone like butter flowed through his mind.

That was it. His wind, if powerful enough, could cut steel.

The question was whether his wind could do it. Maybe not. If he couldn't cut the steel, then he could just keep chipping away at it until he weakened it enough to snap.

He let the wind flow around him. Him getting sick made him more sensitive to the wind. Maybe it was this darkness and his eyesight being gone. Maybe it was him being in an enclosed room. He could feel everything his wind was touching. Especially the chain that enclosed his wrist.

He tried to use the wind current to make small cuts on the chain. Over and over again. One small groove after the next. After a while, he realized exactly how long that would take if he kept going at this pace and gave up.

He sighed with impatience. If he stayed here any longer, he was soon to be standing in his own puddle of piss.

Not to mention he felt himself getting weaker and him running a fever up. What was going on? Ryuma needed to find a way out of here. It was only a matter of time before this place investigated and found out his origin. If so, it was fifty-fifty they'd sell him out.

He'd rather not take those chances if he could.

He passed out again. His sickness took the better of him. During his sleep, he had a fever dream. The worst it's ever been. It felt like his heart was burning and he was having a panic attack.

Ryuma woke up breathing heavy. His face was flushed, and he just slumped forward. Unable to even fall because of the chains. Nobody could live like this. It was beginning to damage his psyche.

{There might only be one way out of here. I might have to tell them.}

Though it was a risk, he saw no other option. He was losing this game of psychological warfare.

{"Really. You're just going to give up like that? A shame I didn't pick a more worthy vessel,"}

His eyes vaguely opened. Before he knew it, he was splashed with a bucket of water.