It was cold as ice. I did not know why I was surprised or what I had expected but I did not expect the lowest point in a cave to be this cold. I thought they always had to be hot as hell because their depth did not accommodate fresh air. But it turned out that was only half true but completely false for this one. It was cold. Little wonder why guards down here wore coats when in human form or just stayed in wolf form, though that had its limit.
I sat on the floor to rest my tired legs but stood up immediately. The ground too was unwelcoming. There was no way I was not going to freeze my rump; not now, not today, not ever. I had earlier snuck into the donjon in pursuit of Jason after Dominic had dismissed us all. Safe to say I did not obey that order but he did not seem to notice. If anyone had noticed, they did not care much about it because no guard came running after me, nor did I hear anyone say anything concerning my whereabouts. I had come back safely to the Abode after the failed coup in one piece with the Alpha. That was reassuring enough to anyone who might have questioned my safety.
Speaking of the failed coup, I had never felt so broken in my life. It has been several hours since the coup was dealt with but I still felt the lingering feeling that the aftermath was going to be worse than the coup itself. I tried repeatedly to brush off that feeling but they stuck. What stuck even more was not the feeling, it was the memory and the sight. After Dominic had told Jason to leave and Jason had brought his army, I knew that Jason was not thinking straight anymore because he was ignoring too many variables that were typically involved in taking out an already established pack. Even I, who had never fought or been involved in a fight, could tell that Jason's plans had more loopholes than soldiers to carry out the plan. Still, what happened out there was nothing I was proud of. Not in the slightest. I had watched my pack fight Jason, the supposed Beta of the pack. When the fight began, I had hidden myself in the bushes behind a tree and had watched for a few minutes. As the fight unfolded in front of me, I could see just how bad Jason was going to lose and it was at that moment that I had decided to go for something daring. I ran back as fast as I could back to the Abode and got my bamboo bow and the arrows that Aariv had gifted me some weeks back. I had tried my best to transmute ever since I was young and as impossible as that was, I had eventually found pain and sorrow in the fact that I will never be one of those big and strong wolves that prowled the woods, howling, and growling menacingly. But Aariv said that there was always more than one part to a desired outcome, hence, my bow and arrow would serve me as that alternative to teeth and claws that I needed to hunt. The funny thing was that he had only given me the bow and quiver. As for the arrow, I had to craft that myself. Finally, armed with my weapon, I headed back towards the location of the fight. The Three White Wolves intercepted my movement but once I lied that it was Dominic who insisted that I come, they let me go but coming to think of it, I wondered why they allowed me through with such a sloppy lie.
On my way back to the place of the fight, I stumbled upon a wolf that was searching for something. It was one of Jason's new pack members. I was friends with Jason, but that gave me no assurance that I would equally be friends with this wolf. So for safety measures, I hid myself expertly among the outcropping. The wolf stopped dead in its tracks when it sensed something. I knew it had sensed me. I could bet that I had an odd scent of a female wolf who was not fully wolf. I knew it was intriguing enough for me to go check it out if I were a male wolf but the decision now lay in the hands of this wolf. Luckily, the wolf must have had his eye set on a different prize and he followed that price resiliently and ignored my scent. It was not until he was miles away I realized what other scent he must have been following – the pack at the Abode. I considered running after it. It was not running very quickly because it needed its concentration to track the Abode so I knew I could reach it but even if I did reach it, what was I going to do? Of course, I will fight it with my bow and arrow, right? But what if I missed my first shot? I would have to take another shot. I imagine the wolf would not be so patient. I was immediately rid of that thought when something zoomed past me like lightning. It was incredibly fast, like a black shadow sent with Godspeed. All the leaves, bushes, and even trees rustled and jostled at its very brief appearance. It was nothing more than a black blur. For what it was worth, I could have sworn I had imagined it; maybe its sight, but not its effect.
I focused on my original goal and headed towards the fight, avoiding any further distractions. I took the longer route, moving through thick thickets and uncut shrubs, avoiding the pathway that led to the Abode for fear of encountering the black shadow again. Before I could reach the area of the fight, I encountered the very thing I left the pathway to avoid. This time, it was running towards my way and it was not all that fast again. It was Dominic in wolf form. He had run back probably in chase of that wolf that tried to intrude. I had never known in my entire life that a wolf could run that fast, not even Dominic. I had never seen him train his speed though on countless occasions he and Jason left the pack for what some pack members called 'special intense training.' That was most likely when he trained his speed.
He went past me without spotting me and soon disappeared into the far night. On arriving at the fight, I noticed just how much time I had spent fetching my weapon and cursed myself seethingly for my inability to transmute. How in the world was I supposed to ever be useful if I could not fight; I could not turn into the big strong wolf everyone turned to at will, making me a weak link in an event of crisis, and I could not even fetch a simple crude weapon within ten minutes. I was not a minus one, I was a minus two because if a crisis were to strike, the pack would be two men short: me and whoever they were going to charge with guarding me.
I tried to make that not bother me. As it was, that should be the least of my worries. Right now I was lost in a cave that was supposed to be the Abode's donjon. It was more than that, it was a maze. The pack members who guarded the cave had to spend weeks and even months before they memorized the cave layout. In truth, they never fully memorized the cave's layout, instead, they used signs and symbols that were already engraved on the walls to navigate their ways. I tried to read the symbols but even I, who spent most of my time looking after pups and teaching them languages, doing little services, and reading, could not understand these strange languages. Defeated on that front, I tried to remember the pattern the two guards had followed just before I lost them which was odd because I had never seen those two guards before in the pack, and while it was true that it was impossible to know everyone individually in such a big pack, at least you could memorize body statue since I did not see their face. While I remember the patterns, I had a deep yearning for a coat to save me from the cold. At this point, the natural constraints of reality were the only thing stopping a coat from materializing around my body.
It took about two hours of cold, thirst, and hunger to finally find the row of cells that was deeply concealed in the cave. It was situated in another hollow point deep below where I stood. How could this cave go any deeper? I looked down carefully into the almost pitch-black abyss. How in the world could prisoners be locked here? They'll go blind before next week. This was coming as a shock. I was always told that there was a donjon here but it was nothing but a mere prison cell, yet, as I stood here, I beheld a hole that led into blackness with slight gleams of iron bars in a single file. I had read from one of Aariv's books that the donjon was used in times of old as part of an extended punishment where the condemned were sentenced to an incredibly long time in this dark donjon, and when their time was up, they were then set free into the wild were danger lurked unchecked. At first thought, I reasoned that it would have not been so bad to be set free, so what exactly was the punishment? When I learned that people could go blind after several months in utter darkness, the cruelty of the punishment hit me hard.
I stealthily lowered myself into the deeper hollow. This point was so deep, it was very close to the ocean. I heard waves crash against the walls of the cave and could hear the drip of water that plumped into tiny ponds or splattered onto rocked surfaces. I moved on, then I felt my feet touch shallow water. The noise was quiet, but it traveled the entire length of this hollow region and got lost in the gloom of massive emptiness far ahead. The silence down here was threatening, and in that period, I knew that I had to get out of here, this place was no safer for me than it was for any normal person. Nevertheless, I was determined to find Jason, I had already made up my mind. I walked down the row of cages I only knew were there because of the light gleams that were no more than two. My feet sloshed water as I walked. The echo of the donjon was so loud that I had to trod very slowly, occasionally halting to listen to what I might have heard or imagined. Sometimes it was footsteps, other times voices, I had barely been here a complete hour and I could feel a skeletal hand reach into my head and claw away at my sanity repeatedly until I was in danger of running mad.
In the midst of my inner turmoil, I heard something. A voice. I could swear this time that I had not imagined it. It had come so clear, and unlike an imagination, it came in unfiltered with the environment sound as opposed to straight into your head clear and concise. I turned my head to the source of the voice but it was hard to tell if I was facing the source of this voice. The voice traveled and bounced off all the many stones of the donjon before coming in scattered waves faintly in my ear. It was not until my thigh throbbed that I realized that I had been standing in one position for too long. I was beginning to think that it was a bad idea to come here. But I desperately needed to talk to Jason.
In a feat of maybe madness or courage, I decided to call out to the voice. "Hello," I called out as high as I could dare. The call did not even go above a whisper so the cave had an interesting effect to it where it produced the sound as if it were a hissing one.
Nevertheless, the voice replied. It sounded stressed and tired but all psycho. "I said, are you lost, dear?"
Then one of the bars, unknowingly, I was standing just beside, rattled so hard my heart jumped high against my chest. I flung my arm out in defense and fell on my rump. Shuffling to my feet, I strained my eyes to see who it was but this place was too dark to see anything.
"I fear for you!" the voice screamed. Then quiet followed, then a whisper. "It could have been me."
"Brenda?" another weary voice I knew too well called out and relief washed over me.
"Jason? Jason?" I followed his voice but stumbled on a rock and cut myself. I cursed and briefly whimpered in pain.
"Did you hurt your feet?" that same psycho voice came. "Let me kiss it better."
I truly felt scared but I continued to shuffle backward cautiously, my eyes not leaving the black direction of the voice.
A light then appeared in the very cage the psycho prisoner stayed in. It glowed orange. From where I sat, I could not make out what the source was that produced the light, but soon enough, I found out. The light grew brighter as it seemed to move towards the bar and sure enough, it slipped through the bars of his cell to reveal fire. That was it, fire. When the flames spread through the bars, they regrouped on the free side to make a ball. It illuminated the path it followed and slowly approached me. I swallowed hard, not wanting to run for the fear of a trap that lay hidden and I did not want to either stay still. However, the sight of the flame fixed me to one spot. I feared the worst but my thoughts were blank to any solution. I just sat there as this mysterious ball of flame floated towards me. On arriving, it stopped by my side, beaming into my eyes, illuminating the way. Was this another fragment of my imagination? I reached my hand out to the flame to confirm my doubts and I confirmed them alright. The burn was real. I had to retract my hand as quickly as possible. As confused as I was, I silently stood to my feet and began to walk towards the direction I had earlier heard Jason call me from. The light followed, keeping a safe distance and staying a few steps ahead. I decided, since the fireball was real, that I'd stay close to it to reduce my chances of freezing in this cave. Even with the blazing ball, most of the cave remained dark. No sign of life or anything beyond. With the light of the fireball, I could see a little, enough to look into the other cages that were around the place. Usually, a place either had signs of life or was empty, but for the cages down here, they were different: they did not have a single sign of life, but they did not feel empty either, they were filled with death.
Bones and leftovers from rotten bodies filled the cell. It was obvious that this place had never received a proper cleaning for a long time now. To be fair, I don't think it has ever been cleaned at all. It was always prisoners after prisoners who were thrown in but never thrown out. Most of the bones pilled themselves up in a corner. Others just lay dead. Those bones were bare. Most of them were washed white by the little wave that sneaked into the cave from the ocean, and others were turned to dust, but all were definite echoes and incomplete pieces to a puzzle that gave an enlightening insight into the brutal temperament of those who built this place, and the sadistic intentions they had had for whoever was to dwell here.
On reaching a certain cell in the almost endless aisle of cages, I was met with a sight that would have made me break down in tears on a normal day: Jason lay in the donjon cell, white as snow, suffering from what might be frostbite, or blood loss, or just a general effect of having stayed in a cursed place like this one. He was barely alive. It looked as if he had used his last energy to call my name. I feared greatly for him. I reached for him from outside the cell but as my hand stuck through the bars, a surge of pain shot up my arm and I recoiled it.