Time passed.
Or more specifically, one thousand, three hundred and seventy rotations had passed, a time during which Mr. Edward's body had deteriorated into a near-skeletal state.
"About three years and nine months," he thought, smacking his lips to kindle some semblance of feeling in his jowl.
If, indeed, each guard stayed for about twenty-four hours for a total of one thousand three hundred and seventy rotations, Mr. Edward's deduction was not wrong.
Such time was enough to break a man not just physically but mentally, even if said man was as inured with isolation as Mr. Edward.
His face was gauntly hollow, his cheeks sunken. Additionally, he possessed dull eyes sitting in deep sockets that made him seem more corpse than human.
He had long since made his peace with death, chief among his regrets being his inability to explore this place and, in turn, his failure to save his mother.
Yet he could hardly save himself; his muscles had wasted away, leaving his arms and legs weak, trembling, and barely capable of supporting his enfeebled body.
As always, the prison was dark and cold, the rocky walls around him coated with grime and dripping moisture whilst a constant stench of putrid rot and human waste filled the air, making breathing a slow torment.
He was barely clothed as his garments were long since tattered not only by the elements but by Angry's cruelty, reduced to scraps barely hanging from his malnourished frame.
Two of his fellow inmates had died, and Mr. Edward personally witnessed their bodies being dragged away and quickly replaced by another duo of offenders.
Furthermore, his mental state had waned, evident from the faint voices he sometimes heard in the distance, the red hue from the fungi sickening him.
"Come!"
"Go!"
"Just die!"
"Weakling!"
They sang, some sounding like whispers to his soul.
He knew not if these voices were real or a product of his schizophrenia as they were sometimes familiar or chillingly alien in general outline teasing his tenuous sanity, constantly mocking him, yet it was thanks to them that his hate had not deteriorated.
He could hardly even form a coherent thought, but even in his state, he was sure that all that remained was death.
"Ϟ⍥ T⍥ņ𐑮 Ϟ⩃T/ռᏵ T⍥ņ įņጰ&ԐD ⩃ռ ԐᒻDԐ𐑮'Ϟ ⩤/įԐ!"
The sound of unintelligible chatter rang out, highlighting the fact that Jumpy was in charge of today's shift.
It would appear that his timid temperament was not just because he was new but was a part of him allowing the prisoners to discourse freely.
During their many discussions, Mr. Edward had come to be aware of four men and two women who shared his fate.
In all, he could not help but think of his mother, the woman who had birthed this body, and how she was doing. He tried not to, but with the absence of a diversion to distract himself, his mind would ultimately wander back to the thought, imagining unspeakable methods of inhuman punishment that she might have been forced to endure.
Unknowingly, the chatter had died down, and Mr. Edward, despite being weakened greatly, sensed the arrival of another entity, not Jumpy but someone whose movements were a tad bit forceful.
And sure enough, a man had appeared before Mr. Edward's cell, glowing red eyes staring down at him emotionlessly.
Mr. Edward had developed the ability to sense the presence of these mystical men even in a dazed state; this was not some kind of special ability but was common among prisoners who never fell victim to the fading presence of the guards.
Gone were the days when it seemed as though the guards possessed some mystical faculty to fade in and out of existence.
But the keenness of his senses was the least of his worries, and rightfully so, as it was Angry who had shown himself before him, a baleful look in his eyes as he stared down at Mr. Edward.
A look that in his irk was mirrored perfectly by Mr. Edward.
"What could this animal possibly want," Mr. Edward thought, stifling the feeling of hate welling up inside him.
Ever since that day, his mother had stopped visiting, and it was all because of this man before him.
Angry spoke a few words, phrases—that even in his clueless state in regards to the alien language of this world could only be perceived as petty jests and insults.
But it appeared that his goal today was not just to spew insolence but was to be followed by action.
Opening the squealing, rusted gate with the key from his belt, Angry grabbed onto Mr. Edward's frail arm and pulled him up, raising him with no effort.
Mr. Edward, feeling pained from the sudden movements, uttered a piteous groan, one that belied the growing look of hatred in his eyes, evidenced by his furrowed brows and gritted teeth.
"Why can't I calm down," Mr. Edward thought to himself, wondering if this lack of self-control was spurred by his transmigration.
He knew himself and was proud to be a man with nigh absolute control of his emotions.
His friends and even his loved ones often chided him for such a stoic trait, saying it was unhealthy to suppress one's self, and yet Mr. Edward saw it as a sign of strength no matter how emotionally immature it may have seemed.
But it was different here. He was overly sensitive, especially to things pertaining to his mother; as peculiar as it may seem to any unbiased observer, Mr. Edward found this situation extremely upsetting.
There was just too little contact to form even the faintest of fondness, or so he thought it a rational sense knowing fully well that human emotion could not be confined by thing like common sense.
The cave was dark, long, and winding, illuminated by the occasional red, green, or purple mushroom.
Though these patches of light were small, Mr. Edward's eyes and the eyes of the red-eyed man who accompanied him saw just fine.
It appeared as though countless years of grim adaptation had gifted the denizens of this shadowed realm a disquieting mastery of the dark.
Their eyes, eerily luminous, seemed larger and more alien than those of men who bask in the sun.
These features amplified the unholy glint in Angry's eyes his gaze hinting at a primal mechanism, perhaps akin to the tapetum lucidum of felines.
"But it's different, the glow is more permanent, produced internally," Mr. Edward pondered for a moment as he suppressed his surprise.
By now, they had passed by many turns, and sure enough, they seemed to be ascending.
It appeared that the dungeons were even deeper underground, a cave within a cave and one not lacking security.
Oftentimes, they had passed by groups of patrolling soldiers, vigilantly looking for the slightest change.
Judging from what he'd seen so far, this serpentine route seemed to be connected to other cell rooms, creating an intricate network.
"Are these people ants?" Mr. Edward thought, feeling his eyes twitch, but then he remembered the behemothic beasts that had arisen from the surface world and shuddered at their bloodlust.
Their desire to burrow now became more understandable.
Unfortunately, that was but of the matter at hand, as to his surprise, they had arrived at a dark room after taking a stairway.
The room was bland, dark, and bereft of adornment, with only minimal specs of fungi illuminating a path to the exit, like a wretched trap meant for unwitting fools.
As they opened the door, Mr. Edward was met with yet another winding hall or passageway bearing architectural similarities with the large building he had been led into before his imprisonment.
The air was damp; such a smell was ever present, and as they moved, Mr. Edward took note of many wooden doors, all of which were guarded by armed guards with glowing red eyes.
Another disquieting aspect of these halls was the cryptic hieroglyphs carved on their shadowed surfaces.
These hieroglyphs portrayed monstrous beings of—might one say, eldritch proportions, with the only semblance of humanity about them being the unsettling human grin on their faces.
"How lifelike," Mr. Edward shivered slightly, the grotesqueness of these depictions adding to the overall dread of the situation.
It would appear that the unsettling feeling that gnawed at him could only grow.
Soon, Mr. Edward and his captor emerged from the darkness of the suffocating subterranean halls, the oppressive stench of mildew and rot giving way to something equally strange yet eerily more vibrant.
The air was still damp, heavy with a metallic tang that he could taste on his parched lips.
He squinted against the sudden influx of light, one which was not the natural glow of the sun, which he could scarcely remember, but the orchestrated illumination of colossal fungi, cultivated into thick stalks that lined the blackened streets.
Their caps exuded a pulsating red hue, bathing the expanse of the city in a crimson haze that shimmered like blood over polished obsidian.
The streets paved with what seemed to be a fusion of stone and some unearthly black resin, gleamed dully under the fungal light.
The crowd bustled like a writhing mass of insects, their voices a cacophony of sharp consonants and unnameable sounds that rang discordantly in Mr. Edward's ears.
Most of the denizens bore the telltale glow of crimson eyes, their gazes sharp and unyielding as though perpetually searching for threats.
Yet, among them were anomalies, or other types of people, slightly different in the way they dressed and looked.
These people, only making up a fraction of the populace, had eyes of piercing green or spectral blue, while another portion, the smallest by far, retained eyes of mundane black or brown, their glances furtive and subservient.
Merchants hawked goods from grotesquely ornamented stalls carved from the same black resin-like substance that made up the streets.
Their wares ranged from peculiar trinkets, stones that shimmered unnaturally, vials of thick black ichor to hunks of charred meat that emanated a nauseatingly sweet aroma.
Customers, porters, and soldiers haggled or barked orders, their voices low and guttural, speaking in the same language that had long eluded Mr. Edward's understanding.
The soldiers, clad in armor that seemed to ripple like living shadows, moved with rigid discipline, their glowing eyes surveying the throng with a predatory vigilance.
Above the tumult, the city's architecture loomed grand and alien. Towering structures, carved directly into cavernous walls or constructed with a precision that defied comprehension, rose into the shadowed heights above.
Spires twisted like gnarled fingers, their tips adorned with faintly glowing runes that pulsated in rhythm with the fungal light.
Massive arches framed entryways into buildings whose facades were adorned with carvings depicting monstrous beings, their features disturbingly lifelike and grinning with grotesque, human-like mouths, once again reminding Mr. Edward of the carving he had seen in the hall before.
"These beasts," Mr. Edward thought to himself, wondering what relationship these otherworldly beings had with the people of this world. Were they gods, enemies, or just a phantasmagoric part of arcane folklore?
The sheer scale of the city reminded him of Earth's grandest monuments, yet here, the atmosphere carried an oppressive magnificence, a sense of beauty warped into something dreadful and unholy.
He stumbled forward, his frail body jostled by the moving throng, until the grip of Angry's hand yanked him in a direction contrary to his own weakened gait.
The man's eyes, glowing like a demonic flame, cut through the chaos with unwavering purpose, his expression obscured by his armor.
Mr. Edward noticed that they were moving toward something, a commotion in the distance, where the cacophony of voices coalesced into a raucous, near-deafening cheer.
As they approached, Mr. Edward noticed the women of the crowd retreating to the edges, their faces twisted in expressions of disgust or quiet resignation.
The men, however, surged forward with primal excitement, their cheers rising in crescendos of guttural approval. The crimson light of the fungi reflected off their eager faces, casting shadows that made their features appear more feral, more bestial.
Mr. Edward once again had a very bad feeling, and after putting the pieces together immediately came to a horrible conclusion, and yet he dared not think it, his heart beating rapidly.
"Ohh god no," he thought to himself.