It's been a few hours since the door locked behind me. I wouldn't go so far as to call my new prison "homely", but it could be worse. There's a bonfire right here, so I won't get cold, and the very sight of the flames will be enough to tempt most fools into unlocking the door for me, sooner rather than later. I'm not keen on patience, but since I can't force my way out I don't see I have much choice. Although the idea of letting that snake of a man who did this to me get away sickens me to my core… it'll feel all the sweeter when I plunge my axe into his head and watch it burst like an overripe melon. Oh, the very image of his stupid face, split in half, blood pooling under his chin, his brain leaking between the bones and lubricating my fingers… maybe I should be thankful for my privacy.

The idea of stomping his head unto a bloody gruel will sustain me while I wait for some hero to come to my rescue. In the meantime, I'll have myself a quick sit by the fire. Contemplate the many ways I can turn his body into mulch for the worms. Maybe reminisce on some past kills… some of the finer specimens of my work through the years. That should be enough to keep me going…

The sky never changes here. The sun never rises or sets… trapped in some limbo of deep twilight. The bonfire outside, where the corpses of fallen rogues perpetually burn, never even flickers. It's impossible to know exactly how long I've been here. But it feels like a few days now. I've fallen asleep four times since the door locked behind me, and I don't get tired when I'm bored. My memory is brimming with happy memories of satisfying slaughters—many of which I've drawn inspirations for with my ongoing fantasy of killing Pate—but I may have dipped into the well a few too many times. They grow stale and boring, much like this damniable cage, and worse, they've grown a little fuzzy. It gets harder to focus on them the longer I linger, like grabbing at a bar of soap…. the harder I squeeze the more slippery it becomes.

I'm surprised at how long it's taking for a charitable undead to come by here. The rogues, undead themselves, are unresponsive—blasted hollows. I've tried calling to them a few times, taunting them, perhaps offering them a bargain of souls or a share of a cache I have hidden away, but they don't even turn their hooded faces. I've been tempted to beg, or to try to rattle the bars loose, but I'm not some caged animal—I'm a man, and I'll behave with the dignity of one.

I've started counting the bricks on the floor to help pass the time. I leave a little notch on each one with the tip of my axe blade to make sure I don't count doubles. It's a soothing exercise, something to help me keep from tearing my hair out of my head. The count is sitting at fourty. A good solid feeling number, but I'm not done yet. I haven't done the west side yet, I'm saving that for another day.

Boredom seems to be my main foe in this wrenched cave. My anger is a friend-in-waiting: right now, I feel it tearing up my stomach like the heated blades of serrated knives, but when I finally get to use it to kill something, it's going to feel so good… heh… I'll stick it out. I'm strong, a few days more in confinement isn't going to be the end of Creighton. All it's put in me is a greater thirst to drink the blood our of Pate's skull like a cup of wine.

One-hundred and three. There were one-hundred and three bloody bricks that make up this damn floor. Each one marked with my axe, so there was no chance of counting them twice. One-hundred and three… such a pleasantly concise number. When I'm rescued from this place, I wouldn't go so far as to confess to having known the number, but I'll remember it. Etch the number in my muscles, so I can chop Pate into one-hundred and three pieces when I finally get out of here. I think it's been a week now, a good week of having nothing but this little cell to keep me busy. I've remembered all I have to remember, and every time I dip my toes back into that pool it feels shallower than the last. I've started running in circles, doing push-ups—it's unpleasant, working out so close to a fire, but the tenseness in my muscles need relief somehow. On my bad days I punch the wall—it's so unsatisfying putting my first into unbending stone, but it's better than sitting on my behind all the bloody time.

Same goes for the metal door. It doesn't move, no matter how often I rattle it. It's locked tight. I can't take my axe to it, it would dull the blade, but I've been tempted to try. I need it to be as sharp as possible so it can cut through Pate's armor. I remind myself of that every time I grab for the axe.

These days the handle and weight of my weapon is my only comfort. It anchors me in ways my mind cannot. I look at the notches and the stains on the handle, and it's the only thing that can make me smile. I sleep with it close to my chest, the blade dangerously close to my face… I know it'll never betray me. Unlike people and undead, who'll stab you in the back the moment you show it to them. Wrenched bastards, I'd kill them all! As soon as someone lets me out!

The rogues are gone, now.

I don't know where they ran off too. They were there earlier, but when I woke up from a quick nap, they vanished. Maybe they pillaged this place dry. Maybe they just wandered off. Maybe they killed themselves, how was I supposed to know? But they were gone. And when I looked through the bars on the door, I saw nothing but the dead trees, the crackling fire of corpses, and the occasional insect. It was a pity. They were the only company I had, besides my brain and my axe. I used to yell at them—after I learned they didn't care about me I passed my time threatening them, explaining in vivid detail how I'd split their bones and slid their throats when I got out. Seems I missed my chance. But they were hollow, anyway, killing them would have been tedious at best. They didn't even cry when you raised your weapon for the final blow.

I've had nothing to do but to stare at the floor. At my marks. All one-hundred and three. The walls were just a clumpy mess of rocks, covered in foul-smelling moss and chains… I was undead, I never hungered, but I took a bite of some of the moss once. Peeled it off the walls and tossed it in my mouth. It didn't taste like anything. I guess that's the curse for you—stripping your senses until you can only see a world full of sensations you once enjoyed. The moss was probably bitter and disgusting, yet… I found myself wishing I could taste it anyway.

No undead was coming, were they?

I swung at the air with my axe, trying to imagine how it would feel cleaving through someone, but nothing came of it. It was frustrating, holding my axe, feeling it cut through the air, without feeling it stop when the head of the blade wedged itself into the bones of some mewling weakling. Each time I swung, my muscles anticipated that resistance, tensed up in preparation for contact, cried and longed for it—but it never came. It never came and I hated it. No matter what I do it only gets worse, I can't sit here and rot, I refuse to let it happen!

…my first kill… I think… I think my first kill was a baker.

I had just gotten my armor. He was on the road, traveling—he was worried about bandits and he saw me and thought I was a knight. Trusted me. I put my axe to his knees, sampled some of his goods as he tried to crawl away, and finished him off when he collapsed from pain and blood loss. I think that's how it went… n-no, I'm sure that's how it went, so why couldn't I remember anything before that? How did I get my armor, how did I get my axe—was that really my first kill? Why did I kill him, just because it felt good? Was I the bandit he was worried about? I can't remember. I've been wracking my brain, slamming my head into the stone walls trying to jar the memories loose but they just won't come! Nothing is coming to me!

I slouched against the wall all the other day. There's a hole in the ceiling, too small for me to fit through, too far for me to reach, and I watched a line of ants crawling in and out through that hole. There was a dead bird on the other side of the cage, and they were slowly aiding it's decomposing. I watched them with envy and hate. They could so easily leave this damn hut, yet here I was. Trapped. Left to watch them parade back and forth, slowly digesting some dead bird. I don't know what killed the bird, it wasn't me… I just dropped in. From above. It looked as if it were just old.

I thought maybe if I stood still enough, the Ants would do the same for me. Crawl all over me, stick their mandibles in my flesh, and carry me out of this place, piece by piece, until only my bones were left behind. I watched and I waited. Patiently. I had been in this prison for this long I could wait my turn. The bird was smaller, an easier load… good practice for when they turned their attention to me.

I got excited as I watched the bird get smaller and smaller… watched as the last few shreds of flesh were torn off the bloody skeleton and carried out the window. One step closer to freedom, I thought, just a few more feathers and bites of flesh and it would be my turn. And I could put myself back together outside and I could murder Pate, punch his throat out and tear him apart with my bare fists, naked as the day I was born.

The last ant left with the last scrap of the bird, and I watched that window for a long time waiting for them to come back for me.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. How many tiles were there on the floor? What did I say before? One-hundred and three? Yes, that was the number, that was it—but I was counting them again and it was wrong. One-hundred and thirteen. I couldn't believe it, I counted them again just to be sure, making a second mark each time, and there it was. One-hundred and thirteen tiles. I must have miscounted the first time. I'm not sure how, but I got the number wrong. Well, it was no issue. It just meant I got to cut Pate into ten extra pieces by the time I was done with him. By the time I was out of this damn cell.

I attacked the door today. Slammed my axe into the metal door trying to loosen it from the frame. It didn't work. I slashed at it until my axe head cracked and my muscles were sore—there wasn't' even a knick on the steel. I only then realized what I had done—I had hurt my only company, damaged the one thing rooting me to the earth—my poor axe. Her face was deformed now. Hideous. And her blades were flattened by the door…

I spent the next few hours cuddling and apologizing. Poor thing. I had let my rage get the better of me, and I had to carefully sharpen the corners again with the walls and a careful eye. Gods… it didn't do me any good hitting that metal, there wasn't any give—it wasn't like armor or flesh, where you could feel their pain radiate from the blade into the handle, it was cold and lifeless and devoid of any joy. I hated it, I hated that door more than anything, even more than I hated Pate. It did nothing to relieve my itch, my throb, the aches in my arms and legs to KILL something! To feel flesh torn with metal blades! That was my whole life before this miserable prison! One kill after another, an endless rampage, a murder spree that this door put an end too!

I closed my eyes. It was all so fuzzy. I just remember warm blood. Screams and whimpers. Howls of victory and pain. A few faces, here and there. Pate's bald stupid head. My first kill, an Abbot, my second kill, a soldier, my third kill, a vagabond… orgies of death and destruction but I swear by the gods there was more than just that, wasn't there?! Something… family, maybe?! A home? A job? Friends? I don't remember, I couldn't remember, it was all slipping away escaping in the hole in the ceiling!

…I was going hollow. I was going to go hollow in this cage!

No, I needed purpose. I need purpose and I have purpose, KILL PATE. Maybe one of these days he'd come for me. Come to gloat. I could grab him through the bars and pull him in here, stick his face in the bonfire, murder him over and over and over until the bricks on the ground were wet with blood…!

…what about the bricks on the ground…? Maybe there were more now. I had to re-count them to be sure.

"Well, look at what we have here. You cool your head yet, partner?"

There he was. Pate. Outside the cell, looking in through the door. He had his big goofy leather armor on, that obnoxious cowardly shield, his spear—he had this shit-eating grin on his stupid hairless face, so proud and smug with himself. How dare he leave me in here for so long just to come back as if to piss on my grave?! I threw myself into the door, pushing my arms through the holes in the wall to grab at him—but he was just out of reach.

"Whoa! I can see you're still as psychopathic as ever, mate. Just how long you been in there?"

"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL TEAR OUT YOUR SPINE AND FLOSS WITH IT YOU QIUVERING SCUMBAG! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUTTT!"

"You want me to let you out so you can kill me? Not even, mate. I'm just going to wait until you've gone good and hollow and strip the valuables off your corpse, how's that sound?" He leaned forward, inches away from my grasping fingers. I pushed hard against the door. I felt the rusted metal dig into my flesh. Even through my armor. I didn't care.

"NO! NO LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT NOW, YOU SHIT! FIGHT ME! FIGHT ME!"

"Keep screaming, buddy. Ain't a soul coming to save you—you're stuck in that cage till the day you die!" He cackled as he vanished, dissipating into a fine mist as I strained to reach him.

He was gone. He was never here. I roared, screaming into the air as I sobbed, pulling my arms back into my cage and wrapping up into a ball.

That was the third time his ghost had visited me. Soon I'd have the real man's throat between my fingers, getting crushed into a bloody dust!

…my first kill…

…I don't think I've ever killed. I know I must have, but... I can't remember...

I want to kill Pate. My body ached for it, longed for it. Every muscle in me, every nerve, every fiber—it all wanted to kill Pate. Instinctual, I suppose. Every moment I wasn't tearing through his flesh I felt an anxious pain shoot through me. It hurt me now. It hurt me so badly. I couldn't concentrate on anything, I just wanted, I NEEDED, to tear him into ribbons. It wasn't something I could just get over or forget. It was my purpose, my design, and being deprived of that purpose I felt as if the whole damn cell was a furnace and I was acting as its fuel.

I tried everything to distract me from the pain. I got naked, ran my body against the bare walls. I wrapped around the bonfire and let myself bake in the flames, I slammed my head so hard into the wall I would fall unconscious… but it didn't work. Even when I was unconscious time moved at a crawl, I could feel the need to kill that man bubbling in my blood.

I would punch the air, praying he would materialize before me. He never did.

Sometimes I heard his voice in the stone. Or what I remember of his voice. Fragments, breaths. It kept me awake. I couldn't listen to the breeze outside without hearing his laugh. Faint. But present. I screamed at it, screamed at him to stop, to go away, to die, but… he never listened. He never even answered me. He tormented me without even acknowledging I was there.

It was so hard to quantify just how badly I wanted… I NEEDED… to slice him up.

My axe sat in a corner. Dusted. Unused. It was covered with stains and cracks but I don't know how they got there. There's so much I don't remember anymore, I… sometimes get glimpses. A thirst that has followed me through all my life, to slice and cut and pummel and destroy. Something I can't just surrender. Something that has built up inside me, something that makes me crave killing something, anything, more than anything in the world, something that tells me only the blood can quench the burning, intense need within my stomach. Pate needed to die, SOMEONE needed to die, but… this door… it's locked.

I wonder if someone will ever come to open it.

I had a revelation.

This bonfire kept me alive. That's how bonfires work. You light one as an undead. You return after you die. As long as I'm cursed I'll never leave this cage. I'll never die. I'll just return by the flames, still in this prison, still isolated in a land that knows no sunlight.

The need to cut something, to hurt something, has grown too extreme. I couldn't handle it anymore. I couldn't handle sharing a room with this axe and not feeling it dive into meat. Not feeling blood flow between my fingers, washing away the itch, the sores, the throbbing, the burning.

How could I have been so blind?

There was something for me to cut this whole time. Something I could kill over and over again and would always come back for me to chop up some more.

Finally.

Relief.