Each new day began with a boring, unsatisfying meal pushed into my cell. Each night consisted of me treading water as the ocean flooded my cell and I climbed toward the bars in the ceiling.

My greatest fear was falling asleep. If I fell asleep, the bat from my nightmares would be waiting for me. The bat would pursue me anywhere, there was no hiding from my tormentor. Sometimes the bat would tear me apart in an endless room of pitch black. Sometimes the bat would chase me around the island of Pena Dura until I tumbled down the cliff to the sharks below. Sometimes it would burst through the bars of the ceiling and drown me as the room flooded. Each night, the idea of falling asleep and facing the bat terrified me. The little sleep I did get left me feeling restless and unsatisfied.

In order to rest myself without the need for sleep, I continued to practice meditation. Sometimes I would imagine my mother sitting in the cell with me, singing or brushing my hair. After I lost track of the days, my hair started to grow long and I knew I had been inside the cell for quite a while.

I knew that my continued survival relied on me strengthening my body. I trained myself by doing push ups. At first, I could not do many at all. But each day I would try again, doing more and more. With weak arms, I pushed my small body up and down against the stone floor. Just as the tide would rise and fall as it flooded my cell, I'd push my body upward and downward, little by little growing stronger.

"We go up and down, mother." I said as I strained myself against the floor. "Up and down. Up and down."

Exercise and meditation were my only reprieve from the crushing boredom. My cell was small and there were limited ways to exercise. I got creative. After awkwardly splashing around and almost drowning a few times, I taught myself to swim.

"I can swim, mother." I whispered into the dark as I broke the surface of the water. "I'm a very good swimmer."

Sometimes, I would plant my hands against the floor, and walk my legs up the wall. I'd handstand until I grew dizzy or my arms could take the burden no longer. I would set goals and challenges for myself. Eventually, I'd handstand without using the wall for support. I would walk up the wall with my hands on the floor, then when I was upright, I would walk my hands forward, supported only by my own strength and sense of balance.

"Every day, mother. It gets so much easier. I just remember -I am not the food. I am the shark."

And I was the shark. Before long, I was no longer waiting for the fish to strand themselves when the tide went down. I was diving down into the dark water and snatching the fish up as they swam.

I studied every crack in every brick in the wall. As my grip strength grew stronger, I leaned how to grip any small imperfection in the bricks and hoist myself up and down the wall, scaling it like a spider. Soon, I could reach the ceiling grate even without the water.

The grate was useful for doing pull ups. I'd work my arms up and down, constantly growing stronger.

I learned which bricks were weak. I pushed against the wall with all my might, yearning for the outside world. The wall held strong. I wasn't ready to push it down. Not yet. More push-ups, more chin-ups and more swimming. I was growing stronger. The bricks were not. I could not kick them down today. I may not kick them down tomorrow, but I knew that some day I will know the world outside this cell.

Once more I planted my hands against the bricks and pushed. Nothing. "It will fall, mother. One day, we know it has to fall."

As I grew older, I thought about the men who put me here and how much I hated them. The fat warden. The stupid guards. The useless doctor. And Puerco -how glad I was that he was dead. How glad I was that I killed him.

I wondered about my father. Who was he? Was he still alive? Why didn't he save me? Surely he must be dead.

As I grew older, I stopped fearing the ocean flooding my cell. I welcomed it, and the food it would provide.

My meditation grew more advanced. I learned to slow my breathing and heartbeat. My body might be trapped in this cell -for now, but my imagination knew no limits. These walls could not cage my mind. As I meditated, my mind travelled elsewhere. Sometimes I would go back to Puerco's cell and relive the memory of killing him. Sometimes I'd go back to Dr. Ruger's office and steal the knife all over again.

Often, I'd like to play out scenarios differently in my mind. One day, I might wait in Dr. Ruger's office and murder him with the knife when he returned to check on my head. Another day, I'd be in the fat warden's office and my bear Osito would grow giant and stamp on him.

Soon I was imagining worlds of my own creation. Vast deserts, lush forests and deep valleys. Sometimes my mastery over meditation could cause me to forget that I was ever trapped in a prison cell.

It was in one of my meditations that I encountered the bat again. This time was different. This time, he would not haunt me. This time I was meeting him on my terms.

The world around us was a blood red pane. Sharp stalagmites reached up from the ground. A shallow river of blood flowed beneath my feet as the sun beamed down against the skin of my back. I marched through my imaginary red world, sword in hand as I knew the bat was nearby. I felt a slight pang of fear, but I pushed back against it. I needed to kill my fear.

I stalked my way around the corner of the cliff and I saw my enemy. The bat swooped, and I expertly weaved out of the way. I was older and stronger now. The bat begun to beat its leather wings, ready to strike at me again. I lunged forward and plunged my sword into it's chest up to the hilt. The bat screamed as it beat its wings, kicking up red sand all around us as I twisted the sword.

The bat fell against the ground as it died and I smiled. Finally. After all these years, after all these sleepless nights I had killed it.

A soft chirping interrupted my meditation and I opened my eyes.

I looked up at the bars in the grate above me and saw a yellow bird perched on the bars. I stared up at it in wonder. It had been so long, I had forgotten what a bird looked like. Forgotten what a bird sounded like. It was the first beautiful sound I had heard in years, so very different to the squeaking of rats or the foul fluttering of bats.

Amazingly, the bird fluttered down into my dark cell and hopped toward me.

My cheeks soon began to ache and I realised that for all my training and exercise, there were still muscles I had forgotten about. For the first time in years I was smiling. I had a visitor.

I gently reached my arm forward as the bird flapped into the air again, and rested itself on my hand.

I was fast and strong. I could kill this bird if I wanted. These past few years I'd eaten nothing but gruel, fish, crab and rat. I knew that the opportunity to taste bird might never come again, but I refused to hurt this beautiful creature. I decided that this bird was my guest -my first visitor in years. I noticed a small piece of paper tied to the bird's leg with a bit of string. I reached up with my other hand and untied the string, and unfolded the paper. On the paper was a crude sketch that I realised was a drawing of the bird. Beneath the sketch were four symbols. I could not yet read at this time, so I did not know the meaning of these four symbols.

I allowed the bird to rest on my hand, and I stared at my feathered visitor as I contemplated the meaning of the paper. For this bird to gift me with a drawing meant that there was another person outside my cell who was thinking about me and wanted to communicate. All these years and I was not forgotten. The bird stretched its wings out, preparing to take off and I raised my arm toward the ceiling grate and smiled as it took off into the sky above me. I promised myself that someday I would join the bird in the freedom of the outside world.

I continued to train as the days following grew into weeks, months and years. The visit from the bird was the only brief ray of hope that punctuated a ten year sentence of darkness and loneliness.

I knew every brick of this cell. I raised my now strong leg and slammed a vicious kicks against the wall. The wall shook and I was showered with dust.

"I swear, by the blood of my parents, -to avenge their deaths. By spending the rest of my life conquering all criminals." I promised myself as I landed one kick after another against the wall. I ignored the pain in my leg as I watched the brick grow weaker and eventually shatter. I yanked the pieces loose and a shaft of sunlight shone in from the outside world.

It had taken me all this time to destroy one brick. I might be an old man by the time I destroy the entire wall, but if that was the cost of my freedom, then so be it. I thought back on the oath I just swore. When I got out, I would conquer the criminals of this island. They taunted me when I was small, then threw me down this hole to die. I refused to die and now I was strong. When I got out, I would become king. I would become the strong man that appeared to me in my dream when I was a child. I had just destroyed one brick. There were hundreds more to go. If I had to, I would kick until my feet bled.

There was no need. With a deafening scrape the door swung open and for the first time in ten years, I saw men.

Five men marched into my cell -my home. I'd never felt so crowded.

"Well, look at the boy," one of the men sneered as he pointed at me. "He has grown." I recognised him immediately as the fat warden.

I said nothing in response, the light from outside burned my eyes.

"Look at him," another guard said, "all these years later, he's still an animal."

"Hands behind your back," a third guard snapped at me as he brandished a pair of cuffs.

I stepped forward. My ten year solitary confinement. Could it be over?

"I said, -you stupid fuck, put your hands behind your back!" the guard shoved me.

I did not appreciate being shoved, so I swung back at the guard with my fist. My fist connected with his jaw, and I saw blood spray from his mouth as a few teeth were knocked loose and rattled across the stone floor.

With that, the other guards were on me. It was four against one. Their fists rained down on my face and their truncheons beat at my body. Before long, my whole body was in agony and my hands were cuffed behind me. The warden stepped forward and gave me a sharp kick in the guts for good measure.

I was dragged out into the hallway outside the Cavidad Oscuro. After the beating I had just endured I could barely walk, but I was marched through the hall where I stood in front of an office.

The fat warden grabbed a fistful of my hair and turned me to face him. "I had hoped these past ten years in solitary confinement would cause you to reflect on your place here. But I see that you are still deranged. Still a bane to all good things."

I smiled as I heard that word again.

"Yes..." I spoke to the warden for the first time. "I am Bane."

The warden snorted. "Very well. 'Bane' shall be what we know you as from now on. What the world shall know you as. And the world will soon know you, boy."

I stared blankly at the warden. I wondered the meaning of his words. "The world will know me?" I repeated back at him.

"Yes." He responded. "Your ten year solitary confinement is up. I must say, I am very surprised you are still alive. Grown men have gone mad and died in that tiny room. I am a man of my word, so very soon you will be released into general population again." He stepped closer and sneered at me again behind his moustache. "Puerco had friends, you know. I'm sure they cannot wait to meet you."

I clenched my fist in anger. This coward threw me into the Cavidad Oscuro for ten years hoping I would die. Now he is hoping that Puerco's friends would finish me.

"But first," he continued. "I have allowed you to be interviewed by a journalist."

I said nothing in response.

"During your confinement," he continued "the nation of Santa Prisca has been through some... turbulent times. Rebellions are poking their heads out of the walls like rats. And the boy born and raised in this prison has become something of a curiosity to the people. I am willing to grant an interview with you to the newspaper to sate the people's curiosity."

Again I said nothing, but I suspected there was an ulterior motive for allowing me to speak with a journalist.

He raised a finger to the administration office. "So before your return to general population, before you are among Puerco's friends again, -you will go into that office and you will tell your story. Let the world know what happens to animals like you who break the rules of civilised society."