With the scraping sound of iron against stone, the door slammed shut behind me.

I looked around the small room that was now my home, and would probably be my tomb. The With the scraping sound of iron against stone, the door slammed shut behind me.

I looked around the small room that was now my home, and would probably be my tomb. The Cavidad Oscuro was only a few paces wide. It was a much smaller cell than my previous dwelling. The whole room smelt of seawater. I had been told that my new cell sometimes experienced light flooding due to being below sea level, but that it was nothing to worry about. Above me was a steel grate, and directly below it in the centre of the floor was another steel grate. A few more small grates were set into the walls. The room was only illuminated by the faintest sunlight beaming down from above, filtered through shadows and misery. After my eyes had adjusted, I could barely make out the whole tiny room.

I collapsed against the stone wall. This was it. For the next ten years of my life, I would never leave this room. Never see another face or hear another voice. I sat in silence. It could have been minutes or hours, it was impossible for me to tell. I was afraid that I was already starting to go mad.

Eventually, the sun dropped and was replaced with moonlight, the room growing dimmer still. I felt the strangest feeling, something swelling inside me. My heart raced, and I was filled with feeling. Emotion that I had not allowed myself ever since my fall from the railing. I was scared, and sad. I knew that to survive I needed to become hard like these walls. Strong like the man from my dream. But I was not hard or strong. I was a small, soft, scared boy who was locked in a tiny room. I knew that I would die here. I breathed deep, tried to control my emotions. But with nobody around to see, my weakness won out and I allowed myself the luxury of tears.

Slowly the tears welled in my eyes before streaming down my cheeks.

"Mother..." I whispered. "Mother, come back..."

There was no response. I stared at the wall in front of me and sobbed.

"Mother, I need you!" I cried out again. "Mother! Mother, I'm scared!"

The walls around me did not care that my mother was dead. They did not care that I was alone and terrified. They did not care that I was hungry.

The people who might have brought me comfort -Osioto, Zombie and the strong man from my dreams were nowhere to be seen. They could not save me.

I gasped as I heard a chirping noise from above. I stared up at the grate in the ceiling. I couldn't see it, but I recognised the noise of a bat. Was it the demon bat from my dreams? Had this creature somehow clawed its way into reality to kill me? I heard a splashing sound from the grate in the floor. It was the ocean below me. Of course.

The guards had warned me that the cell could flood with seawater. As the temperature of night dropped, the water rose. I heard a small ticking noise. Faint at first, but drawing closer. I held my breath, wondering if something was in the cell with me. The ticking grew closer, louder. I let out a sharp cry as I felt something sharp pierce my toe.

I looked down and saw the culprit. A crab had made its way up from the grate, the ticking sound was it's spider legs as they made their way across the stone floor and the pain was it's sharp pincers on my feet. I was an intruder, and it was testing me.

With agony, I pulled the crab away from my feet, and hurled it against wall. A small trickle of blood came from my toe where it pinched me. I clenched my hand into a fist as I heard the ticking footsteps draw toward me again. I was only a small boy, but I could certainly kill one crab. The ticking grew louder and I squinted my eyes in the dark, trying to make out the shape of the crab drawing closer.

The ticking grew louder and more frequent. I couldn't see the crab, but the sound was deafening. Had it somehow grown giant? Where was it?

When my eyes finally adjusted I let out a gasp. The crab wasn't alone. From the grate in the floor, there were now dozens of them, crawling out from between the bars making their way towards me. Their pincers snapped at the air and their legs scraped against the floor.

There was a small ledge running around the perimeter of the room. Carefully, I climbed onto it. The army of crabs marched around the room snapping futility at the air. I knew that if I stepped down from the ledge I might die a death of a thousand cuts. But the crabs could not climb. I was safe.

Eventually, the clicking of the crabs against the stone floor was drowned out the splashing sound of the seawater rising through the grate. On the safety of the small ledge, I let out a cry as something small scampered over my foot. I looked down and saw a rat. It looked up at me and hissed. I pressed my small body against the wall in terror. I thought of the irony of earlier, when I laughed at the guard for being startled by a rat. Now a rat -possibly even the same one, hand come to terrorise me.

There were bats in the grate above me. Crabs scampering about on the stone floor. And now a fat, ugly rat hissing at me, near my foot. It's eyes glimmered at me in the dark, no doubt infuriated that I had the gall the share this stone ledge with it.

The rat pulled back its lips, revealing tiny sharp teeth. Mother had told me that rats were dirty and diseased. I was confident that I could kill a single crab. They moved slowly and awkwardly. But rats were fast, agile and nasty. This rat had no fear. It's legs coiled as it prepared to jump at me. I clenched my fist again.

I could see my fate. The rat would lunge at me, biting me, infecting me with disease. I would then fall the the floor where I would be torn apart by the army of crabs.

Before the rat could leap at me, I heard the crash of water and felt salt spray against my face. The tide was rising. Cold water pooled around my feet. The rat knew that the water was rising. The tide was my salvation. The rat gave me one last nasty look, then made it's way towards the door of my cell. It flattened it's body against the floor, and impossibly squeezed its way under the door into freedom. I small, but not small enough to do the same.

I shivered as the salt water pooled around my feet. I shifted nervously as I felt it at my knees. I began to panic as I felt it at my waist. The guards had told me not to worry about the water. That the grate in the floor would drain it. As the water reached my armpits, then my neck, I realised that it was a sick joke. This entire cell would flood to the ceiling. They sent me here to die.

I'd never swam before. I didn't know how. My body bobbed as I felt the water continue to pour into my cell. I felt a fish brush past my legs. It became more difficult to stand. I struggled to keep my head above the water as it poured in. I tripped and felt my hair get wet. Desperately, I wedged my fingers into the mortar between the bricks in the wall. The water was now too deep to stand in, so I would try to rise with it.

Minute by minute, I worked my way up the wall as the water rose. Sometimes my head would fall beneath the surface and I'd breath in the salt water. When I could, I wedged my fingers between cracks in the wall. I worked my legs hard to stay above the waves. I'd never had to tread water before, but I was learning now. Either I would keep up or die.

After hours of this, my legs ached, my fingers were chapped. I dared not leave the safety of the wall. But it my head dropped below the surface more frequently now, my mouth burned with the taste of salt.

Once more my body dropped below the surface. I was learning to predict the waves. This time I held my breath. I kicked my feet hard to propel my body toward the surface once again. I saw a large crack in the brick wall, a crack that had been far to high to reach hours ago. Now it was within grabbing distance.

I wedged my bloody fingers into the crack and allowed my arm to take the weight of my body, finally giving my overworked legs the chance to relax. When the water rose further, I kicked my legs once more, and I cried out in pain and surprise as my head bounced against the stone ceiling of the room. My new home was now completely full with water.

The pain from bumping my head sent me below the waves. My body sunk downward. I saw the fish circling me and the army of crabs still circling the grate in the floor. The fish and crabs were taunting me.

I gave my legs another almighty kick, this time using my arms as well. I was no longer gripping the wall, so my arms could be used to send my body upward toward the surface -toward air.

Ignoring the searing pain, I forced my body upward. The bump and the fall had driven me toward the centre of the room. The wall was now too far away to reach. My legs were slowing down. I looked up, not wanting to bump my head against the stone ceiling again. I saw the steel grate in the roof. I reached up the grate. It was just out of my reach.

I knew that if I could reach the bars of the grate, I could dangle with both arms. The air in my chest would keep me afloat, the bars of the grate would keep me anchored, and I could give my burning legs some much needed rest. I only had to survive until the bars were within my reach.

I was tempted to give up. To just let myself fall beneath the water, to just embrace the release of death. To let the rats and crabs feast on my corpse. I thought back to my mother. She had given up. Sharks had devoured her corpse. Would that really be so bad.

Then I thought back to the large man from my dream, the man I was destined to become. Surely he didn't grow so large without being tested many times over. He had not grown so fierce by living an easy life. He'd grown into a physical and mental powerhouse by defeating one challenge after another. This night in the flooded cell was my first challenge. The warden had thrown me here to die. I would not give him that satisfaction. I would grow into the man from my vision.

Even if the door to this cell never opened, even if I never saw another face for the rest of my life, I was determined to humiliate the men who had thrown me here. I would humiliate them by surviving. By eating every meal they pushed through the slot in the door, until I eventually died as an old man. The first step was to reach those bars.

Inch by inch, the water rose and I kicked my way closer to the grate. Sometimes I would fall and be punished by a mouthful of sea water. Eventually I prevailed and my fingers wrapped around the cold bars. Salvation.

My small body went limp as the water gushed around me. My tiny muscles burned and I realised I'd forgotten how cold the water was. I dangled from the bars for hours, the pain in my fingers was nothing compared to my legs, which I could no longer move even if I'd wanted to.

I had swallowed too much seawater. As I hung from the grate, I vomited all over myself.

The water began to drop. Slowly, it dropped to my waist. Then my knees. Then below my feet. Now my arms were burning. I held onto the bars until I could no longer. I splashed back below the water as my arms gave out. I saw the chunks of my vomit floating around as I was submerged again, baptised by the salt water.

My arms hung by my side limply, but now my legs were rested. Again I kicked my way toward the surface, working up a rhythm.

I don't remember when the water disappeared back down the grate. I don't remember collapsing down onto the stone floor.

But I did not die that night. I should have, but somehow I prevailed. By the time the water was gone, I had collapsed into a small heap of exhaustion. Somehow, against the odds, I made it through the first night in the cavidad oscuro. Somehow, I had survived.