Sunday, December 25, 2011
Random Prompt - Alone
He sits slumped over, head between his knees, his hands lying atop them. He is a haggard creature, long unkempt hair on his head and face. The stone wall is warm, but he does not feel its heat. He stands and leaves the bare room that was once his cell. It's not like there is anyone to guard him or even to stand in his way. There is no one. He walks the stone corridor, head still hanging. It's been months since he's seen another living being. Plenty of food though, but that doesn't count for companionship. No, as long as he wills himself to eat the stale food, he will not starve. Today he passes the much cooler stone room containing his rations, heading for the entrance to the complex. Entrance would be a better word if there was a way to access it from the outside. The path leading to it was blown away, leaving the opening intact, but no way up, or down. He leans against the wall instead a proper door frame, crosses his arms and stares out. There's not much to see. The bombing has left the forest a dismal place. Any trees are gray and lifeless. The fire spread by the attacks consumed the whole area. The attacks were what left him alone. He was a prisoner transferred to this secluded location. Escorting guards and a dozen other high security convicts exploded off the side of the mountain along with the only path out. Rope was easy enough to wear away with time, leaving him without bindings. He learned the layout of the place he had visited only once before. Back before the war had officially started, if it had ever 'officially' started, he'd been brought here as a spy. "It was meant only as a layover, to hold me somewhere until they could move me somewhere else. Of course, once they realized my allies wanted me just as dead as they wanted their enemies, did they try to put me back in this hole. I'd be secure, and safe, and where they could take their time torturing the answers they wanted out of me. They didn't realize I didn't know any secrets of my side. I'm supposed to learn of my enemies' secrets, not my own. I guess -- Shit! I'm talking to open air again!" His mind was deteriorating. Not having contact, even if it would have been torture, was making it difficult for him to cope. He pushed off the wall and reentered the complex, aiming for nowhere in particular. There hadn't even been anything to read, not even boring reports from lower officers to their higher ups. They abandoned the place when the fighting began. They supplied rations for the prisoners, but there was little else to do or see. A niggle of weariness pulled his thoughts to the small armory below where he could end this slow crawl toward oblivion. No one was coming back, they thought the entrance destroyed. "Both the enemy and my allies. There is nothing here worth value in any case. They'd just been trying to rid the world of my existence...or maybe one of the others, since I don't know anything. Doesn't matter now, seeing as I'm fucking narrating again!" He slammed his fists and arms into the wall next to him and he could feel his bones ache from the blow. He rolled over so his back pressed against the wall and slid down to a seat. Without noticing he resumed the position he held before, head between his knees with his hands on top of them. His sobs echoed into his empty unconsciousness.
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