Skim Survival
Written by the Stranger in the moonlight
Another day in hell was what Sirius Black awoke to. He scratched his flea-infested ear, as a shudder went through him involuntarily caused by the closeness of a dementor. He felt so inhuman, not because of his form as a dog, but because of having to encounter and even live under the power of these wretched beings that sent others in to their minds worst visions never allowing them to return to where light shown.
He stared at the mold-covered wall picking out a specific point where the same shadowed mark was all day every day, for the last twelve years. He had made a scratch in the wall himself for each month he had survived through in that horrible place. Sirius believed it to be the scratches of its previous prison, trying to escape. He heard these sounds all night of those sobbing in their sleep if they ever managed to get sleep at all.
The voices he heard always jeered at him, saying foully that he would never get out. The other prisoners were some of the only people who knew he was innocent. The Death Eaters who had worked for Voldemort knew all to well that he had never helped Voldemort. They would tell him soon their Lord would come back and the prisoners in these walls would be of the Ministry and Dumbledore's people.
As a dementor leaned closer to his cell, he was forced to recall the news that Regulus had joined the side of the Dark Lord. When he heard that Andromeda had died and how his family said 'the filthy blood traitor deserved it'. When he heard that the Potters had died. Being thrown in this place, the jeers telling him he would never get out, screaming and throbbing in his head.
It damaged his last remains of a sane mind and spirit to recall these things and so he forced himself to think of how he was going to get out. How he would get to see Harry again. How he had run away at the age of sixteen and finally rid his life of his family. He began to barely smile as he thought of how many times the infamous Marauders had bothered Snivellus. How Hagrid had gotten out and he too would join them one day.
All these thoughts drove the dementor away to the next cell where a weaker prisoner lay. This was a normal day in hell for Sirius Black. But it would change one day, just not today he told himself as he was shoved his measly food, which he quickly devoured. These simple beliefs and knowing he was innocent, that was what had kept him alive that long and that would have to work for another horrible day. An eternity to the prisoners,a day was forever and with all the days he had survived he was as good as immortal.