Chapter 6

I woke to the sound of water dripping. It was steady, relentless, a maddening rhythm that I had learned to tune out in the days I had been here. Every drop echoed in the cell, a cruel reminder that time hadn’t stopped, even though it felt like it had. Each splash was another second of my life slipping away, another moment lost to the darkness that surrounded me.

My body ached from the inside out, every muscle sore from the strain of healing. The magic had drained me, left me hollow. I was a husk, brittle and fragile, barely held together by the fragile thread of my existence. My mind drifted in the darkness, floating in that space between waking and oblivion, where thoughts came and went like whispers.

The cold stone pressed against my skin, and I curled tighter into myself. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The weight of it all – the loss, the pain, the hopelessness – pressed down on me, threatening to crush what little remained of my spirit.

I closed my eyes, trying to find solace in the darkness behind my eyelids, but even there, I couldn’t escape. Images of Nate’s lifeless body, of the witch’s cruel spell, of the general’s menacing grin – they all haunted me, playing on an endless loop. I wanted to scream, to cry out, to release the agony that built up inside me, but I couldn’t. My voice was gone, locked away by a command I couldn’t break.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, soft and uneven, and I forced myself to stay still. I didn’t want to be noticed. I didn’t want to be dragged back to the torture chamber, to be made to heal again, especially so soon after the last session. My body couldn’t take it. My mind couldn’t take it. The mere thought of being forced to use my healing abilities again sent a wave of nausea through me.

The steps grew louder, closer, and then stopped just outside my cell. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. I could feel their presence, the weight of their gaze pressing down on me. In that moment, I wished I could disappear, to fade away into nothingness and escape this hell I was trapped in.

“Vila,” a voice murmured, low and unfamiliar. There was no cruelty in it, no mockery like the guards or soldiers. It was almost… gentle. The softness of it was jarring, so at odds with the harshness I had come to expect. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to remember kinder times, of gentle words spoken in love, but I quickly pushed those thoughts away. Hope was a luxury I could no longer afford.

I opened my eyes, but I didn’t lift my head. I couldn’t. The effort seemed monumental, beyond my capabilities. My body felt like lead, weighed down by grief and despair.

“Get up,” the voice said again, firmer this time, but still lacking the venom I had come to expect from my captors. “You need to eat.”

Eat. The word felt foreign, strange. Food had been the furthest thing from my mind since I’d been here. My stomach twisted in response, but it was more from memory than hunger. The thought of sustaining myself, of continuing this miserable existence, seemed pointless. What was the use of living when everything I loved had been torn away?

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The energy required to lift my head, to acknowledge the presence at my cell door, was more than I could muster. I remained curled on the cold stone floor, a broken doll discarded and forgotten.

The door creaked open, the sound grating against the silence. Soft footsteps crossed the cell, and I felt something cool pressed into my hand. Bread. Stale, hard bread. The smell of it, once comforting, now turned my stomach. It was a reminder of a life I no longer had, of simple pleasures that were now beyond my reach.

“You won’t survive without it.”

I didn’t care if I survived. The thought of death, of release from this torment, was almost welcome. What did I have left to live for? Nate was gone, my freedom was gone, my very essence as a Vila was being slowly stripped away. The bread in my hand felt like a mockery, a cruel joke in the face of my suffering.

The figure stayed there, waiting, but I couldn’t respond. The bread remained in my hand, untouched. Eating wouldn’t change anything. Nothing would.

“Ali.”

My name cut through the silence like a blade, sharp and jarring. I hadn’t heard it since I’d been brought here. The guards called me “Vila,” stripping away any sense of identity. But this voice—it spoke my name like it mattered. Like I mattered. For a brief moment, I felt a flicker of something – not hope, not quite, but a reminder that I was still Ali, still myself, despite everything.

My throat tightened, but no sound escaped. The general’s command still held me, forcing me into silence. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even whisper. The inability to respond, to acknowledge my own name, was another wound to my already battered spirit.

The man knelt beside me, his presence oddly calming, though I didn’t know why. He was just another prisoner, dressed in the same ragged clothes, but his eyes held something different. They weren’t dead, not like the others I’d seen. There was a spark of life in them, a flicker of something I hadn’t seen since a lifetime ago.

I stared at him, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar feeling stirring inside me. He wasn’t here to hurt me. I could sense that much. But why was he here? In this place of cruelty and darkness, kindness seemed out of place, dangerous even. I didn’t know if I could trust it, if I could allow myself to feel anything other than the numbing despair that had become my constant companion.

He watched me for a moment, then sighed, sitting down on the cold stone beside me. The bread was still in my hand, but I hadn’t moved. I didn’t know if I could. My body felt disconnected, as if it belonged to someone else. The thought of eating, of nourishing this broken shell, seemed an impossible task.

“You don’t have to do it for yourself,” the man said quietly, his voice barely more than a murmur. “But there are others who need you. There will be a time when you’ll have to make a choice—live or die. Don’t let them make it for you.”

His words lingered in the air long after he stood up and left me there, alone in the silence. They echoed in my mind, a counterpoint to the steady drip of water that marked the passage of time. Others who need you. The concept seemed foreign, impossible. How could I help anyone when I couldn’t even help myself?

I didn’t eat the bread. It lay in my hand, a reminder of a choice I wasn’t ready to make. Living meant more pain, more suffering. But dying… dying meant giving up, letting them win. It meant never seeing justice for Nate, never reclaiming my voice, my freedom.

For the first time since I had been brought here, I wondered if there was something left inside me worth saving. It wasn’t hope – hope was too bright, too painful a concept for the darkness that surrounded me. But it was something. A tiny spark in the vast emptiness that my life had become.

I closed my eyes again, feeling the weight of the bread in my hand. Tomorrow, I thought. Maybe tomorrow I would find the strength to eat, to take that first small step towards living rather than just existing. For now, I let myself drift back into the comforting numbness of sleep, where, at least in my dreams, I could sometimes hear Nate’s voice and remember what it was like to be whole.

The dripping continued, a steady rhythm in the darkness. Another day in this hell had passed. Another day of being broken, of being less than I was. But maybe, just maybe, not all was lost. Not yet.