A Short Story - The Escape
Pain...fear....death. These were his only possessions, his only friends now. He wrapped himself in their warm embrace. In this place there could be no other safety. In this dark pit of despair hope was a knife that twisted slowly, more painful than the red hot pokers or cutting knives of his prison's most skilled torturers. He felt as though this place had been his whole life. He had been born here, forged here, made into something hard and sharp from the soft base metal that had come before. He had vague memories of a different life, of sunlight and laughter and joy, but these were not his memories. These were the memories of someone weak, someone who knew nothing of the simple truth of the world: life was pain.
He looked up as he heard the door to his cage open, the shrieking sound of rusted hinges sounded like one more scream of pain. The light from his jailer's torch stabbed like splinters into his eyes, he was a creature of darkness now.
"Get up rat" the bald and scarred gaoler growled, broken yellow teeth flashing in a soot streaked face. When he didn't move quickly enough the man planted a sharp kick in his ribs, another meaningless bruise on top of a lifetime of pain. He smiled behind his stringy hair as he rose to his feet. They thought the abuse made him weaker, but they were fools. Every insult, every injury he survived was one more thing that could never hurt him again. Every bit of torture made him stronger. He shuffled from the cell, the chains binding his feet together clinking like bells. The gaoler pushed him roughly forward; he stumbled but would not fall, he would never fall again.
As they walked down the passageway he could hear the wails and groans from the prisoners in their cages. They were still weak, they had not learned. One of them crawled to the edge of his cage and reached an imploring hand out towards him.
"Railyn, it's me, Wern" the pathetic specimen croaked. Slowly he turned his head to look over at the broken yordle who has spoken to him. Vaguely he remembered him, but it was one of those memories that belonged to someone else. People were not friends...people were tools or enemies.
"I didn't realize any the others were still alive" the caged yordle wheezed. "We'll get out of here one day..don't lose hope...don't lose hope!." His screams echoed down the hallways as the gaoler herded Railyn on. He was a fool of course, there had never been any hope to lose. If anything was to change in his situation, it would be done using the tools he had learned were the only ones that mattered: pain, fear, and death.
Eventually they reached their destination, a wooden door bound in iron. Railyn had been here many times before, he knew what lay beyond. Beyond was the forge in which he was shaped. The gaoler gave him a wicked smile and turned his key in the door, pushing the door open and leading him in. Inside the room waited a man he had spent countless hours with during his imprisonment. The man stood next to a stark metal table covered in straps and dark brown stains upon which lay a large leather case. Railyn did not turn around, but he knew the inside of the door bore similar stains, along with long furrows from the nails of those who futilely attempted to claw their way out.
"Ah" the man said "my favorite subject returns. You may leave, I think we both know this one will give me no trouble." The scarred gaoler bowed hastily and left the room, locking the door behind him. The thin man smiled down at Railyn, so sure of his power, so sure that the little yordle was completely and utterly broken. This was exactly what Railyn wanted, what he had been cultivating for as long as he could remember. They thought his lack of overt struggle meant he was weak, but it simply meant he had learned to be patient, and now finally his moment had come.
The man opened the leather case to reveal a set of tools from the darkest of nightmares. Knives and scalpels, some frightfully sharp and some even more frightfully dull, spikes, pliers, and other things for which no words existed. They were the tools with which Railyn had been forged.
"What shall we begin with today" the man asked, lovingly caressing the implements as though they were his children. "I feel like there's almost nothing new to try, it's been so long."
"I know something new we can try" Railyn croaked, the words barely intelligible. It had been years since he had spoken aloud, and the torturer whirled around in shock. In that moment, Railyn struck.
Leaping forward with a strength and speed none could have believed his twisted legs would allow, he scurried up the this mans body to his face and began clawing and biting. Shrieking in shock and pain, the torturer stumbled backwards and fell. His head hit the stone floor with a dull thud, and blackness took him.
Railyn watched as the torturer slowly came to, struggling weakly against the bonds of the table Railyn himself had been bound to so many times. His eyes fluttered open and he fixed Railyn with a stare of pure hatred.
"You'll never get away with this, and when I get my hands on you again I'll-"
"You'll what?" Railyn laughed, and frightening, broken sound coming from a being who had though never again to make that noise. "There is nothing you can threaten me with that you have not already done. I, however, have much I can do to you, and you know well the quality of the instruction I have received with these instruments." Railyn smiled, holding up one of the many blades to the light so his tormentor could see it clearly. He saw fear blossom in the man's eyes but it was quickly fought down. He was glad...he did not want this to be too easy.
"You little rat! I'll gut you like a fish when thi-AAAAHHHHHHHHH" he screamed as Railyn sliced into the skin on his leg, slowly flaying a small square from his thigh.
"Scream all you'd like, we both know a few scream won't be noticed in this place." Railyn smiled and threw the flap of skin into the small brazier in the corner, smiling at the smell of sizzling flesh that filled the room. "Now, you're going to tell me the layout of this prison, and how I can escape, and each time I think you are lying, I am going to hurt you." He lay one of the pokers in the brazier and hopped up on the table next to his prisoner, smiling as he waited for the metal to heat up.
"Now wait a second here" the man stammered, "there's no way you can get out of this prison-" his words were again cut off with a scream as Railyn pressed the red hot poker against his chest, the skin beneath it bubbling and crackling from the heat.
"I warned you about lying...do you want to try again?" Railyn smiled as the words began to tumble from the man's mouth, and this time he knew there would be no more lies.
Eventually, when he had the information he needed, he placed his hand over the man's mouth to quiet him and looked into his eyes.
"I want you to know I feel no animosity towards you, far from it. I want to thank you. You have shown me how the world really is and made me who I am. You are my teacher, my maker....my father. And so there is only one last question I want to ask you. What is your name, father?"
The man looked back and croaked through a throat raw from screaming. "My name is Veigar."
"Thank you" Railyn said, and gently slid the knife into his father's heart.
Wen the gaoler opened the door he saw the head torturer laid out upon his own table, bled dry from a hundred cuts. He rushed forward to the table to untie him, and as he did Railyn dropped on him from above, stabbing his knife into his neck over and over again. The man shrieked once, then gurgled and slowly toppled over. Quickly removing taking his keys, Railyn undid the manacles around his ankles and slipped back out the door, closing it behind him. Making his way back down the shadowy hallway, he headed towards the passage to the edge of the city the old man had told him of. As we walked, he heard an almost familiar voice.
"Railyn, Railyn is that you? You got out, I told you not to lose hope! Help me please!" He looked over and saw the Yordle who had spoken to him just a couple hours before, reaching implroingly from behind the bars. He stopped for a second, examining him quizzically, and then shrugged and opened his cage.
"Oh gods, thnk you, thank you so much" the yordle sobbed, pulling his arms around him. Railyn put his hand over his mouth and shook his head, then motioned for him to follow. Understanding, Wern followed quietly and they quickly moved towards to passageway.
They traveled quietly through the darkened tunnels of the prison. Luckily, few guards came down to these forgotten depths where people were left to die. Eventually they found the passageway to the outskirts of the city. As they entered, a booming bell began to ring, and they could hear commotion behind them.
"It's the alarm" Wern screamed, "run for it!" As quickly as they could they loped down the passageway, knowing pursuit could not be far behind.
The tunnel was long and winding, but eventually they reached the end and burst out into the night. They stood in the middle of a large clearing surrounded by forest and took in the night air. For a moment they both stood there, paralyzed by their first breaths of clean, free air in years. Railyn looked to the sky filled with bright, dazzling stars. There was a time when he would have felt awed by its beauty, but now he felt....nothing.
Suddenly they heard the baying of a hound coming from the tunnel behind them, and the stumbled again into a run, heading for the woods at the edge of the clearing the passage had let out in. Looking back they saw a dark shape burst from the passage. It was one of the guard dogs, huge black beasts trained to show no mercy. They ran, but the monster was closing fast.
"We'll never outrun it" Wren yelled looking back over his shoulder.
"You're right, but we don't have to" Railyn replied.
"What do you mea- urk" he grunted as Railyn calmly slid his knife into his old friend's guts. As he fell to the ground, he looked up with tear filled eyes.
"Railyn...how...how could you?"
He looked down and the pathetic creature before him and laughed, a hallow sound empty of all joy.
"Railyn is dead. My name....is Veigar."
He turned and walked into the woods. The last thing he heard of Wren was his scream and the brutal crunch as the dog's jaws closed around him. He did not bother to look back.