CHAPTER 3: ENTRAPMENT

UNKNOWN POV

How long has it been since I last saw the outside world? This prison of mine has become a very familiar acquaintance and no matter how much of it I try to map out, it only seems to stretch on endlessly. Every day here has become one in which I pray to a God, I am no longer sure exists or maybe, true to what the voices in my head have been saying, I’ve actually been abandoned and left to rot here for my sins.

My body seems so heavy and so for the fourth time today I pick myself up from the cobblestoned ground and trudge forward, feeling along the walls for anything I could have missed and knowing all the same that there isn’t any big mind blowing clue waiting for me in this dark hell hole. Suddenly a tremor racks through my whole body and that’s when reality hits me; ‘I’m going to die here’

My breathing has become labored, my anxiety resurfacing and clawing at my brain. I can’t die here. I refuse to die here! Gathering as much energy as I can, I start to scream for a life already lost.

“Help me please!” My screams seem to bounce off the walls and echo back to me.

“Somebody…. Anybody, please help me!”

The silence that follows is deafening.

I wait. I listen. Nothing.

My legs give out beneath me and I sink to my knees, bruising them in the process, the chill from the stone floors seeping into my bones. Somewhere above–or maybe below–a distant clanking sound breaks through the silence. Pipes? Chains? I can’t tell. The echo is distorted, too far to make sense of. I hold my breath, hoping for a voice, a footstep, anything I could cling onto at this point, but alas I’m left alone to the sounds of my imagination, desperate for anything but the sound of my own despair.

The air smells damp, moldy like the scent of forgotten places. I don’t remember how I got here. Every time I try to revisit the memory it feels like an invisible, impenetrable wall slams into my head. One minute I was…. Somewhere. Then this. This endless dark.

What did I do?

I press my palms into the ground until the rough stone bites into my skin, hoping the pain will ignite something in me. A name. A face. A reason.

A whisper passes across my ears, same as always. It’s the one I hear when the silence creeps in too close: “This is all your fault.”

Who said that? Was it me?

I drag myself forward again, crawling now, ignoring the sharp edges that dig into my knees. There has to be something–an opening, a door, a weakness in the walls. My hands trace over rough stone, slick with condensation. Then something else. Smooth. Cold. Metal.

A doorknob?

No. just a pipe, broken and useless. Just like me.

I scream again, raw and desperate. Much louder this time.

“HELP ME!”

Still nothing.

But then–a flicker. A sound that’s not an echo. A whisper that doesn’t come from inside my own mind.

Footsteps.

And they’re getting closer.

The soft clacks of footwear echo faintly, distant at first, like the lazy tapping of dripping water but they grow. Louder. Closer. Not rushed. Whoever–or whatever–it is, they’re not in a hurry.

Each step feels intentional, echoing against the stone with an eerie rhythm. My chest tightens. I shuffle back until my spine hits the damp wall behind me. My ears strain, desperate to place the sound, to understand what kind of shoes–boots? Sandals? Bare feet? –might be producing it, but the acoustics in this damned place distort everything.

Stillness again.

Then, a whisper of breath.

“You’ve been quiet……that is, until today.”

The voice slices through the dark like a blade, calm but unmistakably amused. Masculine, I think, but there’s something too smooth, too deliberate, like its being worn as a mask.

I blink, squinting into the blackness, but no form is visible, just the sense of presence–like eyes crawling all over my skin. I flip around a couple of times trying to determine if someone had actually spoken or my mind had decided to keep me company in this nothingness. Just as I start to grasp my insanity, the voice comes again.

“You screamed loud enough to wake the dead,” the voice continues stepping closer. “Do you know what that means?”

I try to speak, but nothing comes out. My throat is sandpaper, my lips cracked. My pulse thunders in my ears.

“They heard you,” the figure says, a hint of satisfaction in his tone. “All of them. Even the ones we didn’t want to know you were kept alive.”

“Who–who are you?” I rasp, swallowing the fear and panic that flowed through me in waves. “What do you want?”

The figure laughs softly, without humor. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know. This isn’t about me. This is about you. About what you know. About what you did.”

“I didn’t–” My voice falters. “I don’t even know what I’m accused of.”

The figure steps forward at last, and while the shadows still obscures his face, I feel the weight of his gaze bearing down on me like a storm.

“That’s a lie. You might have forgotten, but your soul remembers. Your screams tonight…… They were your truth trying to claw its way out.”

He crouches in front of me. I still can’t see his eyes, but I feel them–boring into me, as if he could peel back the layers of my skull and read my thoughts directly.

“You broke the law,” he says slowly. “The sacred law.”

The words land like thunder, even though I don’t know what they mean. My hands tremble. Somewhere deep inside, something shifts. A crack. A fracture.

“I…. What law? What sacred law?” I whisper.

He leans in. I can smell something on him now–ash, maybe. Earth. Something old. “The one spoken of only in whispers. The one no one, not even the elders dare to challenge. And yet…. You did.”

I shake my head, more in denial than defiance. “I don’t remember. I swear, I don’t remember.”

“But your body does. Your mind may be fractured, but your instincts aren’t. haven’t you wondered why we kept you alive all this while?”

“I have!” I gasp. “I wonder every day!”

“It’s because you remember something valuable,” he replies. “And we can’t have you running your mouth off to anyone else now can we?”

That stops me cold.

“We?”

He straightens, sighing as if I’ve disappointed him. “You’ve forgotten more than I feared, now that’s no fun.”

Suddenly, my memories begin to flicker–unbidden, broken flashes of images I can’t control: Stone altars…. voices chanting…something red–liquid? Fabric? Blood? –splattered across white tiles...and a voice, soft and urgent, whispering my name like a secret.

“I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t supposed to be there,” I mutter. “He said it was okay… just a look… for a moment. He said–he said it was the only way to see the truth.”

“The truth is dangerous you know,” the man says.

My fists clench. “But the lies are worse! They punished me for seeing. For knowing. For trying to stop it!”

“You tampered with a rite. You desecrated what was meant to be untouched.”

“I didn’t!” I scream, the fury spilling out like molten lava. “They used him! They killed him and called it sacred! I saw it–I saw–and they said I was the threat?!”

His silence is absolute.

The air thickens with unspoken tension, my chest heaving with the weight of injustice. Tears prick my eyes and I feel my body start to shake–not from fear, but from the force of my memory. It’s coming back in pieces, falling like jagged glass–too sharp to hold, too dangerous to ignore.

“There was a name,” I whisper. “His name was–”

A sharp crack rings through the air.

Pain. Sudden. Blinding.

Something collides with the back of my skull and my world tips. I collapse forward, hands scraping against the floor, vision flickering.

The voice changes. Now female. Cold. Detached. “He talks too much.”

My blood sings in my ear. My body is failing me, limbs heavy as lead. The man speaks again, voice lower. “He’s remembering, that’s the problem.”

I try to lift my head and everything spins. Then I feel it–something brushing my face. Fabric. Tight. Restricting.

A bag.

A bag.

There’s a bag over my head.

There’s always been a bag over my head.

And more than that–something else. Voices. Movements. Too man to count.

I’m not alone. I’ve never been alone

And then–

Darkness swallows everything.