Part 3 is coming up next! Enjoy.

I own nothing.

Chapter 45: Imprisonment

Everything was pitch black except for the small rays of light that found their way underneath the door. The dirt floor was frozen and what little hay there was was covered in frost. There was no heating in this small shed. The only barrier between me and the frozen elements was a thin brick wall. I could feel the blood on my face freeze to ice within a few minutes.

After hours of bitter cold, the sun fell behind the mountain and I felt frostbite creeping into my fingers and toes. The bandages were frozen to my face. Ice closed the wounds on my face stopping the bleed, but also freezing the blood in my veins. I feel the cold creep into my heart. I had not been brought a scrap of food or drop of water. My lip had spilt in several places within the first few hours of my confinement. The sun fell behind the mountains, and the temperature dropped far below zero.

I will not describe the hell I went through. I will not describe what frostbite looks like after twelve hours in sub-zero. I will not describe what happened when I attempted to warm my fingers and toes. I will not try to describe the torture of not being able to move, to feel your breath freeze while it is still inside your lungs, to know that you will be as cold as the ice on your face before dawn even has a chance to break. All I will say is that I know what is in Dante's ninth circle of hell.

I could feel my heart slowing, beating slower, and slower. I could feel myself slipping away, ever so slowly. My eye lids grew heavier, and heavier with each passing moment. Each blink lasted longer and longer until they froze shut. I took one last breath, and everything was still. For one precious moment, the pain stopped. For one moment, I had peace. Then dawn rose, and so did I. The bandages were gone and the wounds were healed, but scars remained.

I had hoped that Basta's decorations would vanish with the cold, but, like the cold, it would never disappear. Once I was back, so was the cold. I was locked in that shed for two weeks without a drop of water or crust of bread. I felt starvation for the first time in my life, but that was never my killer. It was always the cold. I lost count of how many times I died. I saw my future in that shed, I saw the truth. No one is free.

We all have chains that bind us, hold us back. I was chained to that shed, to that village, to life itself. You can always break your chain and be free for one blissful moment, and then life throws on another pair of shackles. The only way to free yourself from the shackles of life is to die, but then death becomes your warden, and those shackles are unbreakable. I am one of the few people that death cannot lay a hand on, instead life makes the shackles as fast as they are broken. I would never be free. I would always be trapped.

I would break the shackles that tied me to that shed after two weeks of captivity. I would go on with the humdrum of the little village life and try to keep my head down until the warmer months. I would die every day and day by day I would adjust to the pain. Eventually, I won't feel the pain anymore, and it will simply be another chore. But the bonds that tied my to that village were too strong; those I could not break. Only Dane could break those bonds.

After I left that shed, everything I came to realize came true. At first it was all like before, but things eventually returned to normal. I died every day, and every day it hurt less and less until it simply felt like a pin prick. Months pass and seasons changed. Dustfinger would come and go looking for his ticket home.

He told me stories of the world of Inkheart. He told me of the sights and sounds of the market places and the tranquilly of the forests. I heard stories of fire elves, water nymphs, fairies, goblins, and little glass men. He told me of his two daughters that he had left behind, Briana and Rosana. I loved to hear his stories, yet I hated them at the same time. I knew that it pained him to remember those times and had shut them out.

He was chained here to. He wasn't chained specifically to this village like me. He was chained to this world. The world that was too fast, too noisy, and completely void of everyone that he had loved. He hated this world, but he couldn't break his chains so he toughed it out, put on a brave face, and blocked out the memories. We are all in a prison; some are just nicer than others.

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