My Story

i wrote this a couple years ago actually.. i wrote it for an english paper in highschool. just wanted to see what other people thought of it. it relies heavily on themes and imagery from my favorite book and was pretty much inspired from it. also, funny story about it, i turned it in one year and got a 98, the highest grade in the class, then turned it in to a different teacher in my senior year and got a 100. i lol'd. two grades for the work of one. ... story time now.



Escape From the Matachin Tower

Dear Thecla,

It was dark, and I, not having a window had no way of knowing if it were night or day, but as I sat in my dungeon cell my mind began to wander aimlessly, meandering down the corridors of my thoughts. I noticed the film of what could only be mildew on the walls, which apparently, hadn’t been cleaned in eons. Their dark metal formed three walls, the ceiling and the bars of my cell. The floor was made of stones; loose blocks held together by grooves and interlocking rivulets carved into each block.
Accompanied by this dismal spectacle of this gray cell was the smell. Festering flesh and blood that had soaked its way in between the cracks of the stones long ago was saturated in the air. The foul stench was nauseating and the spew of other inmates was just on more thing that was added to the acrid and pungent atmosphere.
The thing that I believe disturbed me the most was the sounds. Blood curdling screams; screams that signified the final moments of some poor wretch’s life, and screams that described an agony so horrendous that merely to listen to it was to slip slowly into insanity. The worst of all the sounds however was the silence. The terrible absence of any sound whatsoever that filled the night; not the faintest of whispers was murmured in the corridors; not even the slightest scuffle could be heard to let me no that I was not all that existed to let me know that I wasn’t alone. But I was alone.
I was left alone with only my thoughts and myself in the deep dark silence. Thought, it would seem, came and went as the tide. But when it did come it only brought with it thoughts of pain, thoughts of pain soon to come, and thoughts of pain long since departed.
I wondered what methods the tortures might employ. Excruciations, as they called them, had nearly an unlimited range of variations. I wondered if simply letting me sit in my cell and think of these things was not a torture in itself. A psychological torture-perhaps to drive someone-me–insane. It had certainly proven itself worthy of being a torture, but I had no way of knowing, just as I had no way of knowing if it were night or day.
Suddenly, from a great distance away I heard the faint moan of door opening. It was the torturers cloaked in fuligin, a shade of black that is so dark that you cannot even see the folds of their clothes. They appeared as quickly and as stealthily as shadows before me on the other side of the bars of my cell. That was when they spoke to me for the first time since I had arrived at this miserable place.
“You, Allowin, are hereby sentenced to three weeks of the Humbaba Stick. You need not know more than its name for after the three-week sentence you will be returned to your cell to wait out the remainder of your days crippled and broken,” there was a certain quality to his voice, something that told me that he thoroughly loved his occupation. Misery was his drug and pain was his high…yes that is what it said to me.
As it was, all I could do was nod. They escorted me down what seemed a flight of stairs that descended into the very pit of hell itself. Torches provided the only light. Disease ridden filth permeated the miasma that no more passed for air than smoke and sulfur would. Again there were no sounds.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs the air was so thick that just to breath it was pain in itself – like breathing fire and blood. They walked me over to a colossal wooden X with leather straps and chains and, after removing my shirt and trousers, laid me upon it, binding my arms and legs.
Then almost jokingly he said, “Any last requests?”
To which I replied, “Only one. I would like paper and a pen waiting in my room for me for when I am returned to it.”
With a grim smile he said, “Done,” leaning in closely he whispered into my ear, “It will be a long while before you’ll be able to use them though.”
Silence – utter silence that seemed to last an eternity, and then a dreadful crank. I felt my body lurch as the X was hoisted upward and then flipped in midair so that I now faced the ground. To my undisputed surprise under the X on which I had been laid was a cracked mirror; a large square mirror in which I saw myself. The pitiful wretch I had become stared back at me through the cracked mirror with unwavering eyes of icy blue. Those eyes were the only comfort I could offer myself. Still there was only silence
It was at this point that I cracked. I let loose the most terrifying scream that may have given the other inmates nightmares if they hadn’t been living one themselves. The carnifex approached, though I paid him little mind in my manic state, said something I couldn’t make out, and slid about my middle fingers length of metal into my inner thigh. Dark warm blood dripped from it and onto the mirror below before he tore it out and jabbed it into my other thigh, my calves, my arms, and through both my hands. The piece of metal itself was about as thick as my middle finger as well and pierced like a needle, but the barb on the end prevented it from being removed like one. He sealed my wounds with some sort of paste that both increased the pain and prevented me from going into shock. I screamed and screamed but each time I did all it did was make him laugh even more. I could see the look of pleasure the torturer was getting out of this from the flashes of light that could be seen coming off his eyes. Unlike the rest of his face they were not concealed.
And so for three weeks this was the routine I endured for three hours every day. However on the final day of the third week, as I still hung from the X, they took two chains and linked them to my punctured thigh, pulling them until they heard the bone crack, doing the same for both legs. I felt dizzy and I welcomed the death that was so near me but they saw it in my eyes and just applied more of the paste. They lowered me with a crash, dressed me and my wounds, and drug me back to my cell, in more pain than I can describe, both mental and physical, I curled up and cried. Tears of pain, sorrow, and of joy that the pain was almost over all flowed forth from my eyes. My hands recovered quickly enough though my wrists took longer. I had to wait, though I don’t know why, but I had to wait just long enough to write this account of my time here before I leave.
I have waited and am again trapped in this gut-wrenching silence. My hands are healed. My wrists are semi-flexible. I have left you an account of my horrible time here. In a few moments I will take the piece of glass I stole from the mirror and slit my throat. And so to you I say goodbye and that I hope wherever you are there is sound.

Sincerely,
Allowin

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