The sky was grey and the clouds were crying, the citizens of the empire crowded on the main avenue, as if it were a hero.
But the atmosphere was different; it was tense and full of murmurs between citizens:
"They have captured a nightmare in human form"
"They say he has killed knights of the empire"
"Nonsense, surely it is to stop thinking about the crisis that will come soon..."
As the raindrops hit the ground, the smell of dust began to be noticed, and stopping the constant and varied murmurs, the sound of metal dragging began to be heard.
A dozen knights were walking down the center of the avenue, covering the sides with serious faces, and in the center of them was the prisoner.
He was tall and wore a worn uniform that came with a hood that covered his face. The pale skin could be seen thanks to the uniform that seemed to be too small for his limbs.
The prisoner dragged the chains on the ground, making a squeaky noise. The skin was worn and the raindrops made the blood slide down the chains.
On the other hand, the citizens did not hold back, after being silent for a few seconds, they began to throw everything they found: stones, tomatoes and even spit.
As they continued walking, the constant insults towards the prisoner were the only thing that could be heard in the city.
Until finally they reached a large esplanade. A huge marble platform rose a few meters from the ground and on it there were five people sitting imposingly.
They seemed to have a great status, their clothing was luxurious and the accessories filled their bodies.
Upon reaching this place, the citizens stopped the insults and together with the knights, they knelt, leaving only the prisoner standing.
At last the raindrops were the only thing that could be heard.
"Get up, citizens of the empire..." said a middle-aged man loudly while adjusting his mustache.
The citizens began to stand up and focused all their attention on the man's next words.
"Today we will carry out the trial of this... dirty nightmare" said the man grabbing a scroll while looking at the prisoner with disgust.
"The reasons for your trial are: murder of imperial knights and the murder of the blessed village." he added reading the contents of the scroll.
The people began to boo and insult the prisoner.
The "blessed" village was a place deep in the mountains, where strangely the nightmares never arrived, that was also the prisoner's village.
"Because nightmares cannot speak we will not ask them questions, do you think it is wrong our dear citizens?" asked the man while letting out a cold and twisted smile.
The citizens clearly agreed, for them it was disgusting that a nightmare took human form and much less if it killed other humans; the thing was that the prisoner was also human.
The man turned to those who were sitting and lowered his head:
"Please give your judgment."
The prisoner smiled dully.
Among the five who were going to give the judgment, the parents who abandoned him at the time of his birth were there. They looked with hatred in his direction.
Between his two parents, there were other more important figures, there were the prince, the emperor and his wife. The prisoner did not even want to see their faces.
"So, please raise your hands if you are in favor of his execution." said the man without raising his head.
They began to raise their arms, as expected, but something made both the citizens and the prisoner himself surprised.
The prisoner did not want to raise his head so as not to see the faces of the five who were sitting, but he could slightly observe them from the torso to the ground.
The prince had not voted in favor, even though that would not influence anything since there was a majority, this left a doubt in the air, why had he not voted? It was so clear that he was going to be executed that it did not matter if he voted?
Everyone seemed to have the same doubt, even those who had voted.
"Well... The execution of the nightmare has been decided, tomorrow at noon it will begin." announced the man slightly confused.
The prisoner sighed and raised his head to the sky, the hood covering his face slipping back, revealing a young man who had dead-looking red eyes and dark, wavy hair.
The rain stopped falling.
The prisoner watched the clouds, even something so irrelevant was valuable to him at this moment.
'How beautiful life is...' he thought as his face showed sadness.
Amidst the prisoner's inner thoughts, a young knight grabbed him by the head and pushed it down.
"Don't show your face, you dirty nightmare," the young man said arrogantly as he placed the hood harshly.
The prisoner, without showing any reaction, began to walk behind the knights.
The young prisoner tried to keep his internal thoughts again, but the knight seemed not to want to leave him alone.
"You know, today I have asked permission to be the one to torture you, you are going to suffer a lot." said the young knight.
The prisoner did not show any reaction and continued walking, that seemed to bother the young knight who followed him with his gaze.
"...You are lucky that I was not among the knights you killed," said the knight again without receiving any response.
"It is true... according to the enlightened one who caught you, you had taken revenge for your dirty grandmother, right?" the words of the young knight seemed to affect the prisoner this time.
"What, don't tell me I am right?" he added with a twisted smile.
"You better keep your mouth shut, you're annoying," the prisoner replied with a cold look.
The young knight stopped and gulped:
'Is it really a nightmare?'
The reason he was being framed was not only for the reasons mentioned before, but there was an even more important one, the imminent threat of a rift. To keep the citizens calm, they used a "high-ranking nightmare" which they were going to execute, all to show that they had the power to stop the threat.
The prisoner was not bothered again, by the young knight of course, because the citizens insulted him and tried to hit him as much as possible. As if they received an achievement for hitting the supposed nightmare, they felt proud of themselves.
Even so, the journey to the dungeon did not have much more, the prisoner even felt calm upon entering.
The prison was divided into three sectors: the cells where the normal prisoners were, the cells where those prisoners were tortured, and the cell of the supposed nightmare.
His cell was far from the others, it was a dark and filthy room where he was constantly tortured.
To get to his cell he had to go through the other two sectors, the first sector was silent, the prisoners trained, read or murmured to themselves. To get to the second sector you had to go through a door that connected them, which was guarded by some knights.
The second sector was harder, as soon as you entered the screams of the prisoners echoed, the smell of metal and rope filled the place making it difficult to maintain proper breathing.
Finally, after passing through the last door that connects to the third sector, you could see a single cell at the end of the hallway, this one was filthy and dark, unlike the second sector, the prisoner was constantly tortured.
After arriving at the cell, the two guards who were guarding him threw him to the ground and without looking back they left the place.
Right now the only thing the prisoner wanted to do was enjoy this little moment of tranquility, but as if there was no truce, the door opened again.
The smell of fire filled the room, the young knight was going to use a burning metal as a method of torture.
'Again?' the prisoner thought ironically.
The young prisoner had gone through months of constant torture, so much so that one could even ask for permission to torture him.
The young knight approached the prisoner and without wasting time he pushed the metal with the prisoner's chest.
The young man clenched his teeth in pain, the hot metal made him start to sweat and the knight moved the bar all over the prisoner's body.
"How do you feel now? Don't worry, if you miss your grandmother I'll send you to her today." said the knight excitedly as he tightened the bar more.
The prisoner had already given up hope of staying alive, but his grandmother had already been insulted twice.
"For someone so talkative, you only know how to take advantage of someone who can't fight." said the prisoner while enduring the pain.
The young man's shirt had been incinerated by the burning metal, his body showed dozens of scars which showed all his previous tortures.
Those words seemed to bother the young knight, but he remained silent and tightened the bar.
"What would you have killed me? You're not even enlightened to do that, you're just a spoiled child who hasn't been through anything difficult in his life" said the young man again.
"Get up" said the knight while gritting his teeth in anger.
The prisoner smiled.
After standing up, the knight cut the young man's chains with his sword.
"I challenge you to a duel right now" said the knight again with eyes that seemed about to explode.
After those words, he launched a vertical cut at the prisoner, who grabbed it without apparent effort.
The knight gulped, unable to believe what he was seeing, sweat began to run down his forehead as he looked into the prisoner's cold eyes.
"I really find people like you funny, people who live in their fantasies of being a noble knight protecting their city..." said the young man as he watched him with a smile.
The young prisoner gripped the sword hard, breaking it.
"A duel? Do you think they would have locked me up in this place if I were weak?" asked the young man with no intention of receiving an answer.
The prisoner grabbed the piece of the sword that had fallen and in a quick movement tried to attack the knight's side. The knight tried to defend himself by blocking the attack, but the young man had used that as a distraction.
With his other hand he grabbed the knight's head and slammed it against the ground.
"Is that what you've done to me before?"
The knight's face was covered in blood, he began to breathe rapidly and in an attempt to save himself he tried to scream to get attention.
But no matter how hard he tried, his voice would not come out, little by little he began to lose consciousness... he had died.
The young prisoner crouched and watched the knight while the smell of blood mixed with the steel of his armor, he thought that he would never kill anyone again, while he was lost in his thoughts he decided that since he was going to die, why not try to escape from this place?
The young man sighed as he stood up.
'And now how do I get out?'