5 Hope and Despair

The next few days Alex mostly spent in his cell alone. Although there were other slaves in the cells besides him, it still felt like he was by himself as they were almost always unresponsive. He was getting antsy and afraid during these days. Now he knew he had no chance of escape during the noble's excursions in Shabody islands. The noble was talking about a trip outside the islands with his father but he didn't know when that would actually happen. Currently, he had no immediate chance for escape.

He tried to occupy his time to doing body exercises every now and then. He would try to think of a story from his memories and tried to daydream his way out of boredom and loneliness.

He was called back again to the chamber two more times in the next week. There was no change in routine this time as he sang praises to the noble occasionally on signals and cues he picked up. He only saw two slaves this time around and one of them looked the same as the last time. The other one seemed to be injured and his eyes seemed a little more lifeless. 'Did the slave annoy the noble and got beaten up? What happened to the female slave?' Alex did not have answers to the questions and no reason to ask them out loud.

After that week, he was no longer called again. The noble visited once more to the dungeon but seemed to be less interested in him when he sang praises. He left after stopping for a short moment in front of his cell. This kind of scared him a lot as he felt the noble seemed to be losing interest in him.

The visits themselves stopped after some time. He hadn't seen any other nobles visiting the dungeon so he guessed that this part of the dungeon must be specially for the Noble Nicholas. He was worried about the lack of visits as he felt something had changed.

After another week of constant exercises, he felt his body strengthen a little. He continued his body exercises in his spare time and tried not stay depressed. On that specific day, there were two guards coming toward his part of the dungeon.

"Look who this is. The slave with a slippery tongue. Must be missing your master, huh?"

"What are you looking at slave? Let's beat him up Ned. I don't like how he carries himself with the Noble Nicholas all this time."

"Sure, fine by me."

The guards got in the cell, started kicking and punching him. He attempted to defend but this only made the beatings worse. Even with all his exercises, he was still pathetically weak.

"Great Noble Nicholas had left with his father on a trip. You are all alone now. Know your place slave."

The beatings that followed were the most violent of any he had experienced. It might have been too much for his older weak body but he was still able to bear it now. Again, there were no fatal wounds but the bruises and scars may not go away for a long time.

After they left him alone in the cell, Alex felt totally defeated. The physical pain from the beatings was even a relief to the massive disappointment he felt at being not able to secure a trip with the noble outside Shabody island. For the first time, he felt truly hopeless and could not stop himself from the despair that has overwhelmed him.

'Why did I not get to go with him? This seemed like the only reliable chance for escape.' He felt that he was too unlucky or that he had been too optimistic. The plans he made never turned out as he expected.

He had to stop his daily body training to recover his injuries the next few days. When he had more or less recovered his health, he was still not continuing his exercise. His whole days were filled with eating, sleeping and spacing out by daydreaming in his own world. Any thought that can occupy his mind other than those of despair and hopelessness were welcome to him.

He didn't know how much time had passed. The noble never came back to visit the dungeon. The guards however came back again to beat him irregularly.

One day, he heard someone calling out to him. It was the old man he had conversed with on the first few days of his imprisonment.

"Young man, are you there? Hey, young man!"

After a few more calls, Alex answered.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, you don't seem to be too far gone. You still have your wits about you. Why aren't you eating well? You should know nutrition is important if you want to stay alive in this place."

"Why do you care? Didn't you not want to talk to me?"

"Oh, that's just because you seemed like trouble. You have proven my point. The guards seemed to like picking on you. Anyway, you should endure because they will just lose interest after a while."

The old man was right. They stopped coming to beat him after another month. He still felt hopeless about his chances of escape. He also felt his mind becoming broken and twisted. However, he refused to be a lifeless doll like the other slaves.