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the beginning of my second novel, I got bored so I started typing.

A shaft of moonlight streamed through the bars on the window of the cell, illuminating the battered and beaten face of a boy who could be no more than seventeen. His bright blond hair, gleaming silver in the light, was matted with dried blood. A few drops fell from the strands of hair, falling to the floor and spreading in small pools of crimson. His hands were held together by a pair of iron manacles, as were his feet. His clothes were torn and tattered, barely scraps hanging from his body. He had dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep.

A thin rasping sound came from the boy leaning against the wall, his breathing through a raw throat. “Breathe, Ryuusen.” He croaked. There was nothing. Not a swirl of wind, not even a gust in this barren cell. That didn’t surprise him; he hadn’t been able to call Ryuusen for a long time. Under the hair that hung over his eyes, a set of cerulean eyes opened. The once bright blue shine had been dulled by sorrow and pain.

The links of his manacles clanked together slightly as he struggled to his feet. He growled in pain as the scorch mark on his arm and the lashes on his back throbbed but refused to give his captors anymore satisfaction than that. He glanced out through the bars on the window, seeing the same view that had always been there. The sea crashed upon the cliff that the prison was situated on and a crescent moon hung in the dark sky. He sighed. It was the same as always.

He groaned and slid down the wall, coming to rest on the floor once more. It had been like this for a long time. 463 days since he’d come here, if the white lines drawn on the walls were any indication. He glanced around him, instantly knowing how many blocks were all around him, he’d counted them several times.

The slot at the bottom of the door slid open with a rasp of steel on steel and a wooden bowl filled with some unidentifiable substance slid across the floor. The slot snapped closed just as quickly as it had opened. Vann crawled forward, grabbing the bowl with hands and shoveling handful after handful of the food into his mouth. He’d long since given up trying to figure out what it actually was that they were feeding him, but food was food and so he ate it day after day.

As he ate his captor’s words pounded in his skull like a drum, refusing to allow him to focus on anything but what Naraza had said. He could still see it perfectly, even though it had happened over a year ago, could still see man’s cold sneer as his hellish yellow eyes seemingly staring into Vann’s soul. He had grabbed the boy by the throat, hoisting him up to look him in the eye. Vann’s body screamed in protest but Naraza would not be stopped.

“I could kill you right here,” he had said. “But I think I’ll make you suffer first.”

The wooden bowl clattered to the floor and Vann once more leaned against the wall, removing every morsel of the food from his fingers as he closed his eyes and surrendered himself to his thoughts. He wondered what they had done with Amana, if they had left her there or if someone had come along and had the decency to bury her. He still felt guilt from her death. If only he had been faster, if only he had been stronger, if only, if only…

He sighed, his fingers clenching as more thoughts raged through his skull. Rhea had trusted him with Amana’s safety and he had, he had let her die. In the months following his admittance to Death Rock, Vann had developed insomnia. He was unable to sleep at all most nights, and was afraid to when he did. He had few dreams even when he slept, but those that he did have were always the same. He dreamed about how they tortured him while he was here, and how he hadn’t been able to save Amana.

The only sleep he had gotten these past few weeks had been when he had fallen unconscious from the pain they had inflicted upon him. His thoughts were often muddled or unfocused and it soon became entirely impossible for him to summon Ryuusen. He had tried on the first day he had imprisoned but Naraza had appeared before him and knocked him unconscious with a single strike.

It had been far more difficult to summon Ryuusen in the days following that and he began to suspect it had something to do with the food he was eating. He began to stop eating the food they had sent him and with each passing day his connection to Ryuusen began to return. He had been close, he was sure of it now, but there had been a problem.

He had been scraping the food from his bowl out the window of the cell, but he hadn’t known about the schedule of the guards. Once a week the guards would grab a prisoner from their cell and drag them to the torture chamber where the Torturemaster would whip and brand them for his own personal amusement.

Vann chuckled mirthlessly, his voice dry and harsh from his own screams of pain the day before and the lack of water. “He certainly is a sadistic little b*****d isn’t he?” Vann muttered to himself. It had become his practice to say a few words out loud every day so he didn’t get out of the habit of speaking. Whether they were the lessons he had learned seemingly a lifetime ago or simply the various thought running through his head, he made an effort to say a few words every day.

The guards had caught him throwing the food from the window and had dragged him to the torture chamber where the man had whipped and burned him as he hung from the ceiling by the chains on his wrists, grinning with happiness as he did so. Instead of making him eat the food they forced him to drink the drug as he hung there, blood dripping from the wounds on his back and arms.