If being locked up gives a man a lot of time to think, life sentences give him more. Or, rather, it gives him time to think while simultaneously making him forget how long he has already been thinking. Killian had long lost track of time, unsure even of how many years it had been since he was first locked up. He'd tried, at the beginning, hoping to keep track of the days, but given up when he could no longer remember how many digits he had, much less the exact number. With his only marks of time being the rise and fall of the sun - easily missed given the lack of any kind of schedule - and Pan's annual visits for taunting and torture, even the idea of time had long since faded.
Instead, he was left with little to do, his main concern being the question of whether to pace around his cell or stay collapsed on the ground in some mockery of sleeping. Usually, he defaulted for the latter, eyes slipping closed as he lay there - not quite asleep, but not quite awake, either - flush against the harsh stone. Sometimes he contemplated not eating, skipping the regular bowls of broth - disgusting, but it was something - that were dropped off at his door as if by magic, but his survival instinct won out and he never had. Instead, he was left by himself, slowly going insane within the little room.
Loneliness had never been an issue for Killian. He'd been an only child growing up, and the death of his mother combined with the abandonment of his father left him used to surviving on his own. Sure, he'd sailed on ships, developing near-fraternal relationships with the crew members, but they ended whenever the ship reached shore, leaving him once more on his own. That had changed, somewhat, when he got his own crew, when he met Milah, but, as much as he loved her and enjoyed the company, he never needed social interaction.
Nor was claustrophobia an issue; after countless hours onboard ship after ship, countless voyages in cramped berths - or, if he had been stowing away, cargo holds - with few windows and even less fresh air, he didn't have the luxury of hating confined space. As an extension, he was also unafraid of the dark, and, indeed, had come to be able to pick things out in great detail, even without a source of light.
His prison cell combined the worst qualities of all the ships Killian had ever sailed. It was dark: only a single window set high in the wall provided any light whatsoever. It was small: only about ten feet square. It was lonely: he was kept in isolation save for the semi-regular visits of prison personnel, who made it a point to never speak, and Pan's yearly visits. From an objective standpoint, Killian should have been fine; he had spent time in worse places than this willingly, so what made this any different?
A number of things, he came to realize, not least of which was the loss of his hand. Unlike in the real world, where he would have tasks to relearn until instinct taught him not to rely on his missing left arm, his days trapped in the monotony of prison meant that he consistently forgot about his loss, reaching mindlessly for something before realizing that he literally couldn't grasp it. Then, of course, there were the random pains that shot from his wrist up into his shoulder, stopping his breath in his chest as he tried to ride through it, gritting his teeth as he tried not to make a sound.
It wasn't his hand, however, that was slowly driving him insane; no, that was the noise. He'd asked, from time to time, calling out at the guards that checked on him, that handed out the food, hoping for an explanation of the cries at some time or another, but no one ever answered. Instead, he was left to listen as, each night, ghostly cries filtered through the prison, cutting clean through the still air and crescendoing ever louder. Killian wondered if the others - especially the guards - could even hear them, but no one ever gave any indication that he could. The loss of his hand was horrible, sure, but it was the cries that kept him hovering just on this side of sanity, one foot hanging over the edge, steeling himself to take the fall.
There was a carving on one wall, the only decoration - such as it could be called a decoration - to the room. It wasn't much - just the words "God will grant me justice" etched into stone - but Killian spent most of his time in that cell staring at them, longing to run over and scratch them out until they no longer faced him in silent mockery.
Killian had prayed to the gods, of course, countless times. In the early days, back when he had some semblance of hope, he'd fallen to his knees on the stone floor, head bent as he let out prayer after prayer, repentance and misery and hope all in one. He'd stayed there until he literally couldn't any longer, dragging himself on bruised, stiff knees to the door to drink some of the broth left there before going back and beginning anew. No answer came.
He'd kept trying for years, shivering through the unearthly chill of the prison as he spoke benediction after benediction, request after request through chattering teeth. He prayed even when he finally fell sick, coughing through each line before passing out on the floor of his cell, his hand still wrapped around his wrist in a twisted replica of clasped hands. No answer came.
Slowly, he had begun to lose confidence - not faith, yet, no, but confidence - even as he kept trying. The words still fell from his lips, even as his hair and beard grew longer, physical manifestations of his time in jail, even as he stuttered over a few of the words. No answer came.
It wasn't until years had gone by - years of monotony and prayer, years of Pan taunting KIllian for entreating the gods for help that never came - that he began to lose his faith. The words on his wall, those that once gave him hope, became naught but reminders of his plight, burning themselves into his mind as indelibly as they were marked on the wall. It was then that he finally stopped praying, who knows how many years after he'd first been thrown into the cell, giving up his religious vigils in favor of lying near-comatose on the ground.
He stopped speaking at all, silent even when Pan visited, glaring at the man even as he refused to let out a single sound. After so long in silence, he'd even forgotten what his own voice sounded like, but he never worked up the will to find out. If he were honest with himself, he'd given up on more than just faith, more than just speaking. He'd given up on life. He was already a corpse, still and unmoving on a concrete slab in a silent tomb. His body just hadn't quite caught up yet.
And then the floor started to move.