Alrighty. The next chapter. Just to get it going. Notes:
This chapter has the beginnings of very violent content. Do not read if squemish in any way.
WARNING: Self-mutilation, descriptive violence, and suicide is in this chapter and ones following. DO NOT READ IF OPPOSED TO/SICKENED BY ANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED
Sirius is not mine, Azkaban is not mine, Everyone else in this chapter is. Ex. Jyhe, Thomas, Draconus, and the other prisoners belong to me. And Sirius' head.
Enjoy )
I remember, in my early days here, before I could rightfully call myself a veteran-a true survivor-the nights I spent suffering from hunger. The smell, the rank, musty, suffocating air that swallowed one in its' mere presence. It was thick, nearly as thick as the silence that could only be pierced by the desperate pleas; so thick that breathing had become difficult. I'll admit I had little faith in the matter. Every night I found myself shaken from my restless sleep, on my hands and knees trying to exert any self-control I may have retained. I remember the pain of my throbbing head vividly, as though I had just arisen from one of my spells, panting and weakly wiping a pale hand across my mouth.
Oh, how I resented those days, how I hoped every night I would be able to stay in peace-the only peace I was able to find-my sleep. Only through sleep could I forget the misery of life-that is, when my dreams weren't plagued with ghastly pale shadows that whispered and jeered so similarly to those of my fellow inmates. Inmates that I did not have-for I had been alone for such a long time. Oh, how I had been desperate for any shard of company, and I often took to scouring the walls for messages left by previous inhabitants. Sometimes reading their miseries made me feel empowered-often it only made me sick.
Sickness. Azkaban is rank with sickness and disease-nasty things that every child was taught to stay away from. Corners in which heaps of some unknown liquid had long dried and become nothing more than an addition to the stony wall. Corners in which dying wishes had been hastily carved into the stone; oftentimes with a prisoner's own fingers. I would sit before a message, making up my own scenarios and recreating such a prisoner's life. Before long my loneliness had ebbed away, for my imagination and these uninformative pleas had allowed me to create my own little world-a small prison with several lively characters with distinct personalities and troubles of their own. Just from the one or two sentence messages scrawled on the walls, we had created our own little world.
It consisted of myself; a weasel-faced man named Draconus; a man with eyes that darted around the room so fast he looked even crazier than he was; a young man who sat sullenly in the corner, occasionally yelling curses to the world; a petite, sneaky man that often tried to con the others out of his food; a wizard wizened with many years, most spent in various prisons; and a young woman with piercing black eyes. These people became my company, and often I could sit for hours, simply gazing up into the rat-infested rafters and playing it out. There were endless possibilities…
And sometimes I simply stared at the writing, wondering how it truly was. This, however, always sent me into one of my 'trances', if you will, of exploring the others' true personalities to pass the time. I wondered what Jhye, the young woman with those black eyes, had meant when she scrawled cryptic messages into the walls. She, unlike the others, was undoubtedly female, yet I knew little else of her actual personality. The wall told me more about her than any other prisoner I had met-I simply knew their names. Jhye had been faithful to the wall-leaving her cryptic message-ones that I one day vowed to solve-set in stone with either a sharp little rock or her own fingernails. Her nails had been scratched off into the wall; blood red staining the long, gnarled chips.
These prisoners did bring me a small amount of comfort however, for I felt for once I was not alone. Out of them all, only the sullen young man and I could be considered innocent. Soon after the crowning of my own little Prison Utopia-such an oxymoron if you consider-I began to notice a change in their behavior. I began by living scenes filled with hope, the people creating what could assimilate into friendships. This bright light only shone for maybe a week. Soon they changed, my life growing as twisted and gnarled as Jhye's fingernails. Within two weeks, the company had whittled down to none other than Jhye, Draconus, and myself.
The others had suffered painful deaths-either self-induced or simply the result of insanity. The man with darting eyes had long ago stopped eating, instead opting to pass his food along to the con artist, obviously listening to his promises and vivid views of freedom. He soon whittled away to nothing more than a weak whisper of the night, and shortly that whisper, too, was lost. The wizened wizard cried for his time to go-he knew he would not make it past this imprisonment. He was gone quickly, his final words cursing the world and damning Fudge to hell, as well as several sultry comments toward 'The Serpent.' The con artist himself, who should have been the healthiest of us all-for he ate twice to three times (when Jhye was not hungry she as well passed her helping along) of what we all had-yet he had gone crazy. He screamed of freedom at all hours-often the only noise that could be heard throughout the prison. We still believe that it must have been one of the rats-one infected by some perilous disease that haunted the corridors and occasionally befell an inmate.
Finally, the sullen young man who had gone by the name Thomas. His death may have been the hardest to cope with-he sat in the cell next to mine and we often held conversations of our capture. Both were equally intriguing, both with a dark twist that undoubtedly landed us in our predicament. Thomas's, however, was a twisted love story that caused a web of lies and deceit. That's how both landed themselves in Azkaban-both Thomas and Jhye. Thomas had no idea of the tangled web being woven around him-the secrecy into which Jhye fell. She had been the only reason that Thomas had even known of Voldemort. Jhye was a spy-a spy for an American defense league. Yet she had been sucked into Voldemort's inner web without a problem-her ability to seem faithful must have been extraordinary. Jhye and Thomas-star-crossed lovers-at least, that's how the guards referred to them. They did, however, have enough sympathy-which is surprising considering the nature of Azkaban-to allow the two innocent lovers to remain together. Cruelty could have landed them on other ends of Azkaban, never to see each other again-yet I suppose the guards were human too…
He, unlike the others, did not fall to insanity, or simply die because of starvation or illness. I remember waking to his soft voice-a voice of a young professor. That's what he had been-a budding teacher with gentle eyes. His sea green eyes had hardened over here, for he acted as though he cared little.
"Sirius," he had whispered, "Sirius, goodnight. I just wanted to let you know-you've been a light in this hellhole. Thank-you," he had whispered as I sleepily opened one eye to look at him. "I didn't mean to wake you, I just had to say…good-bye…"
I gave him a small smile, one that I didn't realize I even had in me. "Thomas," I answered, still mostly asleep, "You've made this almost bearable…I should be thanking you," I admitted softly. At this he did not answer, yet his whispered 'goodbye' still floated through my ears. He shuffled away, and my consciousness lingered only a moment, only long enough for him to cross the room and begin with a soft "Jhye…"
I awoke the next morning to the sound of furious sobbing. Looking up, I quickly jumped to my feet and saw Jhye, hunched in a corner, knees drawn to her chest and face buried in her hands. Sure enough, it was she that had been wailing. I wondered for a moment why Thomas had not been instantly at her side, murmuring sweet comforts in her ear as he had during her last minor breakdown. My heart swelled; I immediately imagined the worst. Had Thomas been taken during the night? My guess, although wrong, was not far off and certainly equally macabre. Jhye looked up slowly at the sound of my voice, only to bury her head once again in her hands and resume her silent weeping. I quickly scanned the cell, seeing nothing at first. It only took me a moment before my eyes came to rest on the set of bunk beds on the opposite wall.
"No….." I trailed off as I saw what Jhye must have been so upset about. Daring not to investigate further, I know I will never forget the sight of Thomas's pale hand lying limply over the top bed, his arm sticking down at a strange angle, dried veins running down the sides and disappearing into his clenched fist. I swept the ground and quickly spotted Jhye's sharpened rock-sharp enough to cut stone, sharp enough to…to… Even my thoughts failed at this point. I went brain dead for a moment. I did the only thing I could think of. I thought.
A little suspenseful, eh? Well, review away and I'll post the next part.
Hope you enjoyed. Comments/Crit welcome. Flames are used to toast marshmallows.