We flew through the air above the city, what a sight. I see people and houses and strange contraptions. I see so many things. Huge beasts lumber in the streets. Yet, so much poverty, so much poverty.
We land on a tall metal shamble. The building looks like it should've fallen over, it juts out at weird angles, and I swear physics doesn't work like that. I see the rest of the insects fly off into the distance presumably to land somewhere else. My captor hops off his insect and gestures for me.
"You won't give me a choice, so don't pretend" I say and jump off. The ground beneath my feet gives in as I land, like stepping in flesh. He, my captor, is fiddling with something in his hands. His hands move in such peculiar ways, up and around, and faster and faster. Beneath the flurry of hands lies a ball of bright blue luminescence.
I stand there waiting, I know not to run, meaningless resistance only weakens the actual resistance that you can give. It's a minute before he's done with his act, he takes the ball, holds it in his hands, admires it like a man admiring his wife, and throws it into me.
As it touches my skin, the luminescence fades from it. Instead within my mind's eye I sense the energy traveling through my body. It touches my legs first and leaves a tiny bit of itself to watch, it travels to the eyes next and there it sits. My vision lights up with energy.
A path appears. I try to walk away but I cannot. My legs freeze as my body tries to go any other direction. I am stuck. The man gestures towards a long dark corridor jutting out of the building.
There I see a light blue path illuminated by the energy. I follow it. My captor doesn't. I turn around as I walk towards the empty corridor. Hoping to see some glimpse of emotion something to tell me that this man isn't simply an automaton. He's gone when I look.
I walk through the darkness guided by only the faint blue light from the energy. The corridor is not a square hallway, it's short and stout and curved upwards. I need to stoop to get through some parts of it. About half an hour of walking later I spot a grey light at the end of the tunnel.
Deceiving things lie under grey lights. I walk to it and emerge into a small room. No longer do I smell the stink of the city, only a neutral 'clean' smell lingers in the air. A buzzing sound fills the room. It's an office. In front of me, a large burly man sits at a desk writing on a piece of paper.
He looks up at me. Pauses, his eyes look at my waist, at my legs, at my arms.
"You can never be to careful with the asses that the Sarge gets these days you know." The man says. I don't respond to him.
"Individual 4430 spotted at the sight of a, now dead, rest his merry ass, Imperial Resource, low energy responses from all parts, and absolutely no [Eldritch]." I assume he's talking about me. Interesting for what seems to be a rather medieval organization to have such a large bureaucracy. Though of course the Romans were known for their bureaucrats.
"What do you want me to say." Best not to respond, I'm already probably guilty.
"Nothing at all hopefully. Ever been to prison."
"Yes. Many times, all unjustly." He smiles at that but says nothing. He writes something down in his scroll.
"You are accused by a lawful Sergeant of Her Majesty's empire. Honestly, there's no way weaseling out of this." At that he chuckles. A kingdom? I say nothing.
He looks at me. Am I supposed to do something? Cheer maybe? Give him a clap on the back for a good arrest? From his head I see a line of energy connect to something below me. I look below me.
"I'm a talker, mister if you haven't noticed, and I would like just to have a slight pretense with you. You must be some desert nomad, never seeing the world, never knowing the true greatness of anything." He sure was a talker. His mouth blabbers like a very experienced blabberer could only.
For three minutes he blabbers. His muscles weigh in on the tables as he pontificates in the highest order. A truly trained idiot.
"I hope you don't die. Every death in here pleases someone or another and I just can't have that. Please try not to die, it would very much be appreciated. Do you know that every death that happens here, I have to write a report on your life. Do you know how many asshole ghosts I've talked to? Of course you don't. Get out of here." At that I feel my body fall.
And down, down, down I go. For minutes it seems that I will never hit the floor. Never taste that delicious Earth.
It's over as that thought crosses my mind. I land on something that can only be described as slime. It's disgusting but I'm not dead. Such is life I think. It's pitch black, I can't see a thing, I don't even smell anything.
Not a sound crosses my ears, except a scratching. I sit on the slime and listen to it go. Every second or so it will scratch, stop, and scratch again soon after. Scratch, scratch, stop, scratch, scratch, stop.
"You gonna join in?" I hear a voice call from the darkness. It's coming from the same direction as the scratching. It grates on my ears as it goes by. It hasn't been used probably for years.
"Where am I?" I say to the darkness. Always know your surroundings.
"The Darkness, the Pit, some people call it. Just call it Prison, it's the only one here." At that the scratching begins again. I pause. Scratch, scratch, stop, scratch, scratch, stop.
"Why are you scratching?" I say. The scratching stops. Maybe his finger got tired.
"Keep myself sane. You should try it." The scratching begins again. I lie down on the slime, I'm gonna be here for a while.
"What's your name?" The voice comes out from the darkness. To give a name, is an interesting act. Honesty is only good for prisoners, but I am a prisoner.
"Che, Che Guevara. What's yours?" As I say it, the scratching stops. No words come from the other end of the room, time passes. Two minutes morph into three, and finally four. At four, I hear a sound like nails against a chalkboard. And the lights turn on.
I blink, my eyes take a second to get used to it. I blink again, finally I can see. The room I'm in looks nothing like the one I just came from. The room is covered in white cloth and bathed in white light. Yet not a single bed or bathroom.
A boy sits on the wall next to me. He looks maybe thirteen or fourteen. Unshaven upper lip, his hair is curly and blonde and curves upward like he's just slept on it, for fourteen thousand years.
"Oh finally Guevara, they turned the lights on. Honestly, I was getting sick of all this 'interpreted night-time simulations' . I know it's light up there. Oh god what if it isn't, what if I just stayed up all night. What will sister think." His voice trails off as he taps on his leg. He breathes in and out.
"It's day outside, you're correct." He exhales out, his shoulders loosen up.
"Good, it would suck to stay up two nights in a row. Sooooooooooooooo, why you in here. Wait, don't say, I can usually guess from the way you look." He turns toward me. His eyes meet mine. He looks back.
"Hmm. I've never seen this before. Very odd, very odd… You don't look the murdering type, nor do you look at the stealing type. You're definitely not a [Geno], you'd have killed me already. Definitely not some witch either. Oh this one is so easy, you're a bread thief." His eyes go wide as he says it. Well technically not wrong. I've probably stolen bread once before.
"None of those. Honestly these guys just threw me in here." He frowns.
"Ugh, they always do this. You guys are no challenge. Well I can't deal with competition this early man, I'm sorry you gotta go. These cells really aren't made for two people." He says and gets up, and there I notice what he was using to scratch. A long serrated knife.