Author's Note: So this is another spaghetti story. (It's a story started with no plans of any kind, born solely of inspiration, with no set course for the future.) So my only plan is that piece will explore society within Barad-dûr from a slave's perspective, as a counter to Featho's lordly perspective in TYW. And that's it. That's all I know.
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Prologue
I go by many names, some uncouth, some downright vulgar, and some I dare not stop to contemplate for the horror of them…it doesn't matter! It doesn't matter! It shouldn't matter! Yet it might-oh Valar it might!
I can't do this….
I can't take it any longer….
It wasn't my fault! I swear it wasn't my fault! I'm blameless! I'm innocent!
It wasn't my fault! I don't know what I've done! I don't know what they want! I don't-I don't-I don't-I'm innocent! I think. I must be! The questions make no sense, but I don't-I don't know…!
….I just don't know anymore….
They come and they go. They come and they go, and they leave me alone to suffer in the dark- in the cold, and it hurts. It hurts, but I don't know.
I didn't do anything…did I?
What if? What if is my fault? I don't remember-
I freeze at the clang of metal-an ominous crash of thunder in the darkness, and scraps of stolen paper flutter to the floor from stricken fingers, and all I can do is stare in muted panic, until the murmur of voices jolts me into a frenzy.
Hap hazardously I scrabble precious little scraps together, my fragments that mean everything, and I stuff them in my clothes, spreading them out in the hopes that if one is found the others won't be. I put them places I won't give mention to, and in mute panic I wait for Them.
It hadn't always been like this. I'd been one of Them… though even that was not always true. I'd been other things before, but I think I shall soon be a corpse.
They think I'm guilty. They know I'm guilty, and I'm beginning to believe they might be right… but I still don't remember what I did.
Light burns my eyes when it appears angry and orange in the pitch black. Through stinging tears I try to make out faces, but all I see are blurred silhouettes and the malicious light of an evil torch. In the horrible silence, there is no noise save the disembodied whimper of a terrified man, and my heart aches for him wherever he is, that solitary soul like me, so near and yet so out of reach. I bite my lip wishing to speak to him, though I know not what I could possibly say…especially when I'm the one blinded by cruel light, and being stared down at by hateful faces, but he fell silent, that poor helpless man, as soon as I bit my lip, and so the point is rendered moot.
In resigned terrified silence, I breathe too rapidly to hide my fear from their mocking red eyes, and await the inevitable pain that always accompanies their arrival.