When I woke up, it was to the error message, 'Too many characters. Please try again.' I closed the error message and looked at the long string of characters in the field. Though it took me quite some time, I deleted them all.
Now, I just needed to think up a name to put in.
Pac-Man? Mario? Link? Snake? Sonic? Ryu? Blanka? Kirby? Sonic? Kratos? Names of heroes from hundreds of games came to mind. None of them seemed like they had once been my name or fit my circumstances.
What's the name of a Troll-cursed human supposed to be? Was there a single troll that was the heroic main character in any game? I couldn't think of one. They were the enormous, all-consuming monsters that hunted the main characters. They were the big, dumb, hard-to-kill monsters players usually ran from. It wasn't who I wanted to be.
What did trolls do? They roam around and eat people. Sometimes, they were under bridges and charged for the privilege of crossing their bridge—a troll toll. Bells toll. Bell? No, that was a princess's name. Toll?
Toll? Was I seriously considering it? Yes, mainly because it sort of fit. I couldn't think of anything else and was ready to move on from this screen. I put it in quickly and pressed the 'OK' button, submitting it.
I could finally close my status screen and did.
An enormous hunger slammed into me, and I smelled something edible… my old, dried-up vomit. I was disgusted.
I refused to be that hungry. I had to find food—any other food.
To do that, I had to get out of this cage.
I looked through the small hole in the floor. I could only see the hungry darkness below. Was that ten feet or ten thousand feet? I had no way of knowing.
Or maybe I did? I wasn't entirely sure. If I dropped something and listened for it hitting, I could calculate the distance. I broke a fist-sized piece of wood free from the hole and dropped it. Counting my thousands, I held my head, ear down, over the hole. I lost track somewhere around 180, having still not heard a sound. Down was not an option.
Going up required either making the hole big enough for me to crawl through it and then climb along the bottom and the bars to the top or making a new hole in the roof of my prison. Not wanting to risk falling into the bottomless pit, I chose the latter item.
I pounded my first along the top, looking for loose boards. There were none, but when I struck them, some of the boards smelled of mildew and mold. My fingernails dug through them like hot knives through butter. It was the work of minutes to escape my cage.
The cage was hanging from four chains with links as wide as my wrists extending to an enormous chain with links almost as wide as my waist. I climbed. The inside of each link was wide enough for my foot to step inside. It still wasn't easy. The chain was smooth and made slick from moisture.
As I moved up, I approached another cage. There was a sucking sound coming from it. Then, the sound of teeth gnawing bone. My hunger raged, and anger welled up from me. I could see no way to get over to the cage, though.
I climbed until I could see into the cage. A larger naked male humanoid was crouched down and gnawing on something, though I couldn't see what. I needed some of it. Maybe he could throw some to me? I didn't think I could catch it, but I was so hungry that I had to try. I called out, "Food!"
The creature turned, his dull black eyes staring at me with his handless wrist in his mouth. He held out his wrist as if offering it to me, and I could somehow make out the blood and teeth marks. I shuddered. "No! Not food!"
He whispered, "Food," then turned his back to me and resumed his meal.
I continued my climb, refusing to look again, all the while hearing the disgusting sounds of him eating.
Another cage came into view. I was scared to look. No sounds were coming from it.
As I passed it, I looked. There was another corpse inside with her right side closest to me, but its head looking away. After several more links, I could see her chest splayed open and her organs scattered around it. Her hand was inside her own chest cavity, holding something. Before I lost sight of it, I looked into her purple eyes, and I would swear she nodded at me. She couldn't have, though. It had to have been a trick of the light. Nothing could survive that.
My hunger made me consider finding a way over so I could eat.
What would the organs and meat taste like?
How could I think that! I didn't want to know.
That alone wasn't enough reason to try.
It's too far to jump! I'd fall to my death!
That stopped me, pushing back my hunger.
What was this terrible place? Who would do these horrible things? Why was I here?
I didn't have answers to any of it.
I concentrated on carefully climbing upward. That was my only goal.
Fatigue was my companion.
More cages hung close enough to see. I kept my back to them, not wanting to see the horrors they held.
A gasping voice managed, "Help… me… kill… me." The words sent shivers down my spine, making the silence afterward so much worse.
After climbing to a spot where I could see no cages, I stopped for a while. I had to hug the chain with my feet wedged into a single link to hold all my weight. It felt awkward and tenuous. My fear of falling kept me awake. Visions of big juicy steaks taunted me. My mouth watered. Despite my discomfort, after a time, the fatigue left, and I resumed my climb.
Half a stone bridge appeared. It was only ten feet away, closer than any cage had been. It went somewhere. I could jump over to it.
I climbed higher than it to make the jump easier. As I looked down at it, the hungry darkness filled my vision. If I missed, I'd fall to my death. I stared at that bridge for several long minutes, letting the fact set in my heart before continuing my climb. There were tears in my eyes. I was so hungry and tired and close to just wanting an end.
There was another end to this chain, and I was going to find it.