dungeon’s call

Amara Eldwood

The mouth of the stone cave looked eerily like engorged vagina lips when we paused before it.

It almost felt ironic. The beginning of life to symbolize the end of it.

My desperate screams and cries had long since faded to diminuitive sobs that left me with aches all over my body.

I didn't dare to breathe or glance back when the soldiers at the gate shuffled their papers and stamps, adding me to their list of prisoners.

Their list of dead men.

‘Level one,’ was etched in red block letters above the entryway, and I got the feeling that there were many more of them, all arranged according to the severity of the crime.

“Inside…Walk, now,” The stone-faced guard muttered behind me, his voice increasing in pitch and ice when I hesitated, right before I felt the press of his iron spear digging painfully into my back.

Neon red lights flickered as I blinked around the narrow hallway, already feeling claustrophobic.

The temperature difference was almost instantaneous in the way the icy chill stabbed into my sides like pitch forks, as if determined to leave their own mark on my body.

“Wh-what is this place?” My stutter echoed back mockingly to me as I turned my head this way and that, afraid to stare too deeply into the shadowed cells on either side of the corridor.

“A passage to Hades if you're lucky, Shadow,” The armored guard rapped, but his dark red armor gave his voice a metallic hum.

Each of the cells had a reflective square tag above it and a small red siren that bounced off the neon light.

The hallway seemed to go in forever, with tiny white lights screwed into the high ceilings that flickered ominously.

Wind filled my ears even when I couldn't see a single window save for the ones in the cells.

“A-And if I'm not?” 

“A room in hell it’ll be then. Inside. Dinner’s at eight, try not to miss it, you only get one tray a day, if the kitchens are free,” He growled grouchily, shoving me hard into one of the only empty cells before banging the gate shut behind me.

The room was small at best and impersonal. With the same metal bunk bed i’d seen in the other cells and a porcelain sink and toilet where I could wash my face and do my business.

The mirror had been screwed into the wall with a drill, reflecting back my mascara-streaked cheeks and big hair.

“L-Look, this has all been some misunderstanding, if I could just explain this to the Alpha—” I tried, sucking in a breath when one of the men slammed his head between the grates, his helmet almost sparking fire when it clanged against the bars.

I could see his twin light blue orbs glaring at me, “ I don’t think you know just how much trouble you’re in lady. All you’ve done the entire night is bitch when the torturing’s haven't even started.” 

I sqwaked, “T-Torturings?” 

“Pray the four finish you off with mercy before the princess’ father can get his hands on you. I bet you a liver and a kidney he would have far worse things in store for you than death,” He snarled, giving me a meaningful look when he dragged his eyes over my body.

“No…no please, you don't understand—-”I tried to explain, but my words only came through as a desperate blubber with the guards disappearing out of sight.

I sank into the bed and it creaked loudly, before the animalistic skittles of something moving under the bed reached my ears.

What the hell?

My eyes took some time to adjust when I leaned over the bed carefully, freezing when two tiny eyes stared back at me before the mammoth-sized rat leaped.

“Oh my goodness!” I shrieked, scrambling back and up the bed in time to watch its hairy body rush across the room and squeeze into a fist-sized hole that connected to the other cell.

I was locked in here with a rat. Bigger than the ones even in my old attic room in shadow pack.

My hands brushed against the cold wall as I hoped for some sort of escape, but a dejected voice rumbled through it, making me flinch back.

“Don’t even bother lass. There’s no exit. Been there done that, you might as well feast with old larry,” The disembodied voice hummed, and a horror so deep that it was crippling welled inside me.

Old larry was the freak child-sized rat?

“Oh No, oh god no…” I cried, burying my head in my hands and ignoring the buzz of cell doors clanging and wolves screaming until it faded to silence.

“Miss? Psst! You awake pretty?” 

My ears perked up and I snapped up my head to see a hunched-looking figure paused outside my cell.

A ghost?

I shook my head, blinking back the drowsiness as I slowly rose to my feet.

It…He was tall, taller even than the elder, with a long hooded green robe that hung off his bony limbs.

“I believe you, yer know? I believe yer didn't kill the princess,” He chuckled, and relief made my shoulders sag so low that I forgot myself, smiling gratefully at him.

“Really?” 

“Y-You believe me? P-Please, you need to get me out of here…th-there’s a rat—” I wheezed, glancing furtively around the dark cell before limping toward the stooped man.

Alarm bells went off in the back of my mind but my desperation won over and I stopped only feet away from him, cringing at the mild smell of candle wax and rusted iron that clung to his form.

“Yes, course I do…pretty little thing like you couldn't hurt a fly,” He cackled, the ugly sound making my nose scrunch up and my shoulders stiffen.

Did I imagine his eyes flickering down to my legs?

Heat crawled up my neck and cheeks when I shook my head, aware of my disheveled state.

My red hair had curled and tangled around my shoulders and back, and my sheer green dress was smudged with dirt, torn in places where the soldiers gripped me.

I looked like Tinkerbell would if she had red hair and had been run over by carriages the entire freaking night.

The harsh flickering light of the corridor emphasized the wolf’s elongated face and I curved my hands around my chest instinctively when his gaze locked on my breasts.

“Will you help me get out of here then? I promise I’ll be quiet,” I stammered, and the wolf’s freakishly gold teeth glinted when he flashed them at me.

“I’ll do you one even better, sweet lady. I’ve got a carriage parked right out back the fortress gates. If you help me out with my needs, I can take you all the way back to your shadow wasteland or anywhere you want,” he leered, reaching through the grated iron bars to squeeze at my breasts before I barked out a scream, punching his hand away.

Realization dawned on me when he groped at the tent between his legs, smacking his lips like some deranged orangutan and grinning deviously.

Surely he didn't mean he wanted me to lay with him? 

Shame whipped through my body at the desperate mess that I had been reduced to, and I resisted the urge to chop off the flesh he had touched.

“How dare you! You fucking monster, get the fuck away from me!” I shrieked, glaring at him with as much venom as I could muster and watching as the smirk on his face fell away to an enraged mask.

The switch of his transitioning made the my stomach drop, and I backed up a step despite the solid iron gate between us.

I didn't like how nimble he looked despite the deceiving hump on his back. The way he had moved like lightning when he reached through for me…a shudder rippled through my back as disgust welled deep inside me.

A mere guard like him wouldn't have dared to touch me so offensively if any of the four Alphas were around.

“Ye’r not the first one to be hard-headed, miss lady. I’d throw out that attitude and fake innocence if I was you. With an ass that wide and chests that size, i’m sure you’ve been welcoming of many men,” He sneered, crooking one claw through the grates before I ground my teeth, refusing to dignify his insult with a response.

“Leave my cell, old fool.” I barked, and it was as though I had shot him in the face with my words because he threw his body against the gate, long yellowed fangs extending from the cracked lips.

His long green hood fell back to reveal a very balding head, with only wisps of gray and black attached to the sides of his abnormally large ears.

Even a shit-covered pig was blessed with more good looks than he was.

“How dare you? Do you have any idea the number of whores I’ve spared? What? You think because you're the Alpha’s new toy that you’re somehow above me? You think your cunt’s too good for this cock?” He snapped, pitch-black eyes twisted in fury as he shook the gates, making the wolves in the other cells shout and rage.

I stumbled back until my thighs hit the metal bed frame, clamping a hand to my mouth to keep the screams trapped.

“Please…please just leave me alone,” I sobbed, sagging into the bed and curling my body into a ball until he finally stopped the banging, his ragged breaths harsh and uneven.

The whites of his eyes had turned an odd yellowish red, the kind that i’d seen many wolves possessed by the Darkness suffering.

Had The Darkness driven him mad? How could he have retained his sanity then? 

There was still so much the wolf council didn't know about The Darkness and its abilities, but this didn't make any sense!

“I’ll be back to pick your brains off the sheets by the time those rats and this fortress is done with you, wench. You have my word on it.” He heaved with an air of finality that made my blood run cold and I gasped hn he zoomed past, the whoosh of the wind blowing into the room before the iron doors up ahead creaked shit dramatically.

“Thank Goddess…saints, I have to get out of here…please. I can't do this anymore,” I sobbed, whimpering into the limp pillow until the slick stone walls faded to oblivion.

#

I startled awake with a gasp hooked in my throat.

The soft light bleeding through the grated windows high up in the slick stone walls told me it was almost morning.

How long had I been asleep? 

If the jarring nightmare I’d had was anything to go by, then I must have drifted off in between tears.

My head was pounding and my mouth felt as dry as sandpaper.

A clanging noise had woken me…like the sound of my cell gates opening. 

I was almost sure of it, and yet, the air around the door remained still.

Was someone there?

I opened my eyes an inch wider, squinting hard into the shadows as the buzzing in the back of my neck grew more fervent.

“Think, Mara, think!” I chided inwardly,  as I strained my ears to listen past the rhythmic buzzing noise of the overhead corridor lights.

Not even the noise of the other wolves breathing in their cells reached my ears.

The silence was absolute nothingness.

And yet, goosebumps rushed over my arms and back and the rush of blood in my ears grew until it was deafening.

I was not alone in the cell…not anymore. 

The shadows looked too thick along the walls, and the pale morning light barely threw a halo in the dim cell.

That damned guard, had he somehow found a way into my cell when I was asleep?

Fear rattled through my body until I felt paralyzed with it, trying desperately to keep my breathing level even when it sounded loud in my own ears.

I leaped up from the bed with an energy I didn't know I possessed, scrambling to sit and almost screaming my lungs hoarse when I saw the tall dark figure towering above me.

How long had he been standing there? Watching me sleep?

Bright hazel eyes met mine before the metallic glint of his sword flashed in my eyes and I felt its razor-sharp weight against my neck.

Ronan Ironside was here…in my room.

“Move, and I will end your life, very painfully.” He growled, and my eyes widened until I was certain they would pop out of my head.