Chapter 6: Chapter 6 – Languish

Grayson woke up to a loud clang and looked up blearily to see a couple of guards outside his cell, a cart with a wooden bowl sitting on it next to them.

“Well, that finally woke him up.” One said, a wide smile on his lips. The baton in his hand, an obvious clue as to what had made the clanging noise.

The other guard nodded in agreement. “We thought you might not wake up at all.” He said, “And that would have been a shame. Seems like everyone in the city is already talking about the fallen emissary of Velos. The rumors were even true when they said you look like an unmarked Valintian.”

The guard with the baton spoke up right afterward. “You’re the most interesting person to come through here in a long time. Do you know how much free ale we’re going to get for this scoop?”

The other guard gave him a sharp look, but the baton wielder just smiled.

“He’s headed to the proving grounds, he won’t be able to tell anyone, and no one will care down there anyway.”

All he got was a glare in response.

“Fine, fine, I’ll be more careful in the future.” He said in a placating voice before turning back to Grayson. “So, how about you tell us your story sometime, and we can make sure you get some extra food every day. What do you say to that.”

Grayson looked at the two guards, the man with the baton was obviously eager, and the other man looked interested as well, despite the look he had given to his fellow guard earlier.

“I’ll think about it.” Grayson said, still blinking the sleep away from his eyes. He wasn’t ready to explain what had happened to him quite yet.

The guards looked disappointed at the noncommittal reply, but the baton wielder brightened a moment later.

“Well, we’ll be passing by with your food every day,” the man said as his companion slipped the wooden bowl that had been sitting on the cart through a grate at the bottom of the cell. “Let us know if you change your mind.”

Grayson nodded at them, and they moved off with their cart, soon passing through the only door in the room.

Grayson examined the bowl he had been given to find something that looked like oatmeal sitting inside. It didn’t look appetizing at all, but he was ravenous. He hadn’t eaten anything the day before. The hope had been that the temple would be able to provide him with some food, but that hadn’t exactly turned out how Grayson expected.

The bowl hadn’t come with any kind of utensil, so Grayson was forced to tip the bowl back and slurp up the stuff as it oozed toward his mouth. It tasted about as good as it looked, and Grayson was still hungry by the time he finished.

I sure hope there is another meal later today, he thought.

Until then, Grayson decided to try and manifest the sigil again, just in case it was on some kind of cooldown where he could only use it so many times in one day.

He was unsurprised when once again, it failed to appear. At this point, he was fairly sure he would never be able to summon the thing again, and any more speculation as to why wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

Now he needed to focus on a way to get out of his situation without the aid of the sigil. The only problem was that he couldn’t think of anything.

He had no confidence in being able to break out of the prison, and he was sure that any attempt would only land him in more trouble in the future. It didn’t sound like Lady Altera, who had been mentioned a few times, would be a likely option, and Grayson was far too ignorant about the city to know about any other options he might have.

Grayson shook his head, deciding that he would just have to see how the situation developed and act accordingly.

He turned to examine the room he was in. It wasn’t easy as the only light in the place filtered in from tiny slits near the ceiling, leaving the large room dark and gloomy, but Grayson could still make out enough to get a picture of what he was dealing with.

He was surprised to find that across from him, there were far more prisoners, whereas from what he could see the cells near him were all empty. That must have had something to do with the red and green holding cells that had been mentioned. He certainly wasn’t going to complain about having a little more privacy. Especially since many of the other prisoners glared at him at almost every opportunity they got. He assumed this had something to do with him looking like a Valintian.

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Hours passed by, and with nothing better to do, Grayson examined his fellow prisoners, several of which seemed to be distraught. A couple of them had prostrated themselves like he had seen from the priests in the temple. He noticed a woman rocking back and forth in the fetal position in the corner of her cells, looking like she might be crying behind the arms shielding her face. In one particularly disturbing case, the guards brought in a new prisoner. The boy couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. He wailed, saying it was a mistake, and that they needed to forgive him. After a minute or so of hysterics, the guards had returned and loudly threatened to beat him if he continued. The boy had broken down into quiet sobs after that.

All of this together was deeply disturbing to Grayson. He doubted that the reactions to being sent to jail should be that strong, though he had to admit his own experience with prison was limited. Still, his sense of foreboding began to grow.

No more food came, and Grayson went to sleep hungry.

***

Nearly a week passed by in the same fashion. The cells slowly filled up with new prisoners, until they were nearly filled. They started putting prisoners in cells closer and closer to Grayson.

Every day he tried to manifest the sigil and every day he failed, which left him seething. Velos had seemingly betrayed him for no reason. The cryptic ‘I am sorry’ was certainly starting to make more sense. His anger was left at a constant simmer, not always at the front of his mind, but always bubbling beneath the surface.

Aside from that, Grayson had decided he was not cut out for prison life. He found that the greatest difficulty of living in his cell was the boredom. He found himself wishing he had a phone or some access to the internet, or even a knife and some wood to do some whittling. It was remarkable how much he took things for granted on Earth, and now that they were gone, he was beginning to miss them dearly, especially bathrooms. Grayson grimaced at the chamber pot sitting in one corner of his cell. There were some things that he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to.

Grayson was hoping to be able to ask one of his fellow prisoners some questions to pass the time, but his cell still stood a fair distance away from the next closest prisoner and the one time he had called out to try and ask questions, the only thing he got in response was a hateful look. On top of that, the guards had heard him and had told him to keep the noise down, or he wouldn’t like the consequences. After that, he had asked for some books, paper and writing implements, but the guards had simply laughed at the request before leaving. They had become much less friendly after he had refused to tell them his story.

Most of his time was spent staring at the ceiling, wondering how much longer he would be in here. It was supposed to be a holding cell, so he figured it wouldn’t be too long, but he had no idea, and the guards hadn’t told him when he had asked. Another reason the boredom was his greatest difficulty was because without anything else to occupy him, his hunger seemed magnified tenfold.

As he had feared might be the case, one meal a day was served, and it was always the same boring oatmeal stuff. Grayson was becoming accustomed to constant hunger from the meager amount of food he was given, even though it gnawed at him constantly. At meal time, he was required to turn in the bowl from the previous day’s food before he was given the new offering. The guards serving the meal had been the same every day, though they weren’t as talkative as they had been the first day.

The only time he had gotten them speaking was when he had noticed the other prisoners were given more food than he was. He had angrily accused them of withholding food to try and force him to tell them his story, but baton guard had simply explained that he was in the red holding cells and that was the reason he was given a smaller portion.

Grayson had told them his story the next day. He told the truth because it didn’t seem like it mattered what he told them. He didn’t know enough about this world to make a believable fake story, and the real story was ridiculous enough that it wouldn’t be believed either. He had gotten incredulous looks, and it was clear that the pair didn’t believe him, but he did start getting a little bit more of the oatmeal mush every day. It wasn’t much, but it did take a little of the edge off his hunger.

Grayson was gently and rhythmically bumping his head against the bricks at the back of his cell when a commotion came from outside the prison, which piqued his interest. Prisoners often struggled as they were brought into the cells, but this sounded different. The difference became apparent as a new prisoner was brought in, but instead of struggling, he came in with his head bowed and docile. The commotion came from what felt like an entire army of guards spilling into the room with the man. Not only that, but the guards wore thunderous expressions and shouts and jeers rang out from the crowd. The prisoner was treated roughly, by the guards holding him, and they didn’t protect him from the other guards who directed blows onto the poor man. Several of the guards spit on him as they made their way straight toward Grayson.

The abuse continued all the way until the prisoner was shoved into the cell adjacent to Grayson’s. It was obvious that whatever the prisoner had done, it was terrible. Until now, most of the guards had remained professional, even honoring their deal with Grayson to give him more food when they didn’t have to. But whatever this man did, had stirred them up like an angry hornets nest. Grayson’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw the warden himself was in the group that had brought the prisoner in.

The cell door slammed shut before the warden screamed at the prisoner.

“You were the pride of Silmia. Every child in the city knew about the great commoner General Trest holding the line. The entire league saw you as a hero. How could you do it?”

The prisoner stayed silent, head down, and the warden continued, the look on his face morphing from fury to sadness in seconds.

“You were our champion.” The warden spat on the prisoner before spinning away and walking out, the other guards following behind.

The silence that was left in the wake of the guards was deafening. A quick look at the other prisoners showed that they were all staring at this new prisoner with wide eyes. Apparently, the Warden's claim that every child in the city knew about the man was probably true, based on the shock displayed by Grayson’s fellow prisoners.

Another interesting point from the scene was that apparently that meant this city was at war. Grayson remembered that the warden had mentioned something about a war when he had first arrived at the holding cells, but his thoughts were so jumbled at the time that he had completely forgotten that part of what the warden had said. While he was thinking that over, Grayson had a sudden realization.

I wonder if that’s where the men are? He thought. That would certainly explain why there didn’t seem to be many in the city.

Mostly, Grayson was just happy that he finally had someone nearby that he could ask questions. Maybe he could finally start to get some answers.

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