Something behind the mask

The dungeon,as expected, was dark and foreboding. It had stone walls and stone floors, which had cracks and specks of green moss on them. There are chains, torches and skulls hanging from the walls, creating a sinister atmosphere. The dungeon is dimly lit by wooden torches which cast shadows and glows on the surfaces.

The dungeon looked old and the breeze that oozed out of the grey walls was so cold that I wrapped my arms around my shoulders for warmth.

"There" Galen grunted as he opened one a small cage and shoved me inside. I fell on the dirty floor with a loud thud but. I ignored the pain in my back and scurried to my feet and ran towards the door but he slammed the iron door shut before I could get to him.

"Why are you doing?" I screamed in frustration, I grabbed the railings and started shaking it vigorously "you can't keep me here,I haven't done anything wrong"

"Oh really" Galen asked, twisting his lips into mocking smirk "you think you don't deserve to be in here?"

"I have spent my whole life in captivity" I answered leaning toward the cage as fresh tears gathered in my eyes " That event you kidnapped me at was my trial, Orion already divorced me. I was accused of trying to poison him and he's been hospitalised for a while now" I paused and lowered my voice "if you kill me it'll only be a waste. The royal family will just dispose my corpse since they've been meaning to kill me and Orion will never come looking for me. Please, please let me go"

The stoic man stood there with an expressionless face and I was beginning to think he'd taken pity on me when he suddenly contorted his face into a scowl and leaned towards me

"The Alpha King is a tyrant and he is the reason many of us are rouges today" he paused and lifted a sleeve to show a wide red scar on his arm,"he stabbed me" he said slowly,"the Alpha King himself all because I spilled his expensive wine!"

I gasped as his loud scream caused my heart to jerk "the arm was paralyzed for months and he still had the head of servants punish me for not doing my duties effectively. I wasn't taken care of and my wound continued to rot and decay", he took another deep breath and stared into space "the state of my arm deteriorated so much that the pain spread to my back and my waistline. I lodged a complaint to the head of servants, asking for proper treatment but I was only ignored. The first princess had a thing for me then and she would visit the servants quarters in the night, bearing food and drinks and sometimes money" he paused and smiled affectionately, "the princess wanted us to be married and she would do anything for her wish to come true even eloping with me!"

The dreamy look on his red face vanished as pain and anger slowly and dramatically crawled into it,"the princess usually brought me medicines for my wound but on one fateful night, the princess and I were caught together. It was an abomination for someone who was of lowly birth to have affairs with a royal but I was rest assured that no harm would befall me because the little romance between us was instigated by the Lunar Princess. I surrendered easily to the soldiers because I thought the princess would save me but that was when my worse nightmare came true." He paused again but this time I saw glitters of tears in his green eyes, "the Lunar Princess accused me of seducing and attempting to rape her. No one believed me and with a painful, decaying wound on my shoulder, I was sentenced to death by hanging"

He shifted his gaze from the window and turned to me,"The Alpha King did terrible things to all of us. We are all victims of assault and oppression. We did not become rouges because we wanted to and we are not all here wasting away. You see this place" he gestured with his arms,"you see this part of the forest. This is our kingdom, the kingdom of the rouges and that man you saw out there is our King, he is the king of rouges. He is going to lead us to victory and under him we rouges will build our own dynasty. A country recognized for its equality and fairness. A country where there are no slaves and masters, where every man is a freeborn"

The next thing I heard after those words were the faint receding of the stoic man's footsteps. I couldn't believe my ears or any of the things I heard about the royal family. No wonder it was easy for Orion to force me to marry him, his father was a tyrant!

Turns out the hoodie man was also a victim or assault,he covered his face because his face had been destroyed and he had sustained many scars. I couldn't describe how I felt on the inside but I found the strength to sit on the floor and lean my back on the wall. I couldn't remain in this sordid place, these among vicious and blood thirty vengeance seekers! I had to find my way in this world and my subconscious felt that all I had to do to be of the werewolf rouges free was to tell them the things I'd been through_ how I was also a victim of oppression.

Just then, my tummy grumbled in hunger and I scanned the small cage frantically for anything I could eat but there was none. I was caught up,as if that wasn't enough, the chill in the cold floor also seeped into my buttocks. After minutes and minutes of brooding and lamenting, I eventually closed my eyes and fell into a long, dreamless, slumber.

I don't know how long I was gone for but when I finally woke up, the hoodie man was standing in front of my cage. His two hands were behind his back as he observed me carefully, my heart in my mouth as I trembled at the scary aura he that surrounded me. I closed my eyes immediately and pretended to still be asleep but I couldn't keep still. My head pictured the rouge king with a knife, prepared to stab me to death or with a gun or anything dangerous. Judging by the way the King stood, one could easily conclude that he'd been standing in front of my cage for a long time. He'd probably been watching me since I fell asleep. Soon, my ears became filled with the loud beating of my heart and my mind could only envision the beginning of my dreadful end

"Who are you?"

At first, I thought the baritone voice was one of those voices you hear in your lucid illusions but then it came again "I know you can hear me,I know you are awake"

I applied motion into my stiff neck and raised my head slowly off the ground. I could see him clearly now, dressed in all black,giant and ferocious. He took a few steps closer to me and I saw something I didn't see before; I saw his eyes, how incandescently their brown shade sparkled. The instant his eyes bore into mine, something moved inside me, something that could as well be considered long dead, something that changed into a warm and soothing feeling. This warm feeling spread throughout my numb body and penetrated my gelid veins making my heart palpitate intensively. Something in the hoodie man's eyes went out to me, my heart suddenly developed listening skills and as it did: it heard the masked man's soul yearning for relief, begging to be free.