As the days and nights blurred into each other, the cycle of stale food and water repeated endlessly. She was given the same dried bread, moldy and hard as stone, and filthy water that tasted of rust. During the day, they tossed these meager rations into her cage, watching her as she ate, their eyes cold and indifferent. At night, the song was forced out of her a cruel and twisted routine where she was made to sing raunchy, degrading tunes. The scavengers forced her to learn these songs under threat, their pretense of pain enough to ensure her compliance. If she hesitated or faltered, they would find ways to make her suffer, the whip they used to enforce their commands sharp and unforgiving.
No one was allowed in her cage. That was what she'd learned the hard way, from the second-in-command himself. One evening, as she sat huddled in the far corner, a scavenger had attempted to break the lock on her cage, desperate to get inside. But before the man could even lay a hand on it, the second-in-command the one with the sickly green cybernetic eyes had acted. With a smooth, terrifying precision, he drove a long, jagged piece of metal into the man's side, stabbing him so hard that the force of it sent her cage crashing violently against the edge of a pit. She screamed in terror as the man's blood sprayed across her face, hot and thick, the metallic scent flooding her nostrils. She recoiled, shaking violently, her eyes wide with horror.
The second-in-command didn't hesitate. His mechanical arms clamped around the dead man's neck, lifting the lifeless body with unnatural ease, his eyes glowing menacingly in the dim light. He dragged the corpse to the edge of the deep pit and threw it down, the body disappearing into the blackness below. The scavengers scattered, too afraid to speak, as the second-in-command shouted across the camp, his voice low and dangerous. "Only the Captain is allowed in the cage with the Bird. If any of you get an idea, you will be squired and dropped down the hole!"
She stood frozen, her hands trembling at her sides, unable to stop the hot tears that spilled down her face. They mingled with the blood on her skin, a grim reminder of the cruelty that surrounded her. She bit her lip, fighting to keep the sobs at bay, but the pain was overwhelming. The sound of the man's body hitting the bottom of the pit echoed in her ears, a reminder of what happened to those who defied the scavengers. Her heart felt heavy, and her chest tightened with the weight of it all.
The day turned to night, and she continued to sing. Her voice echoed loudly in the silence, bouncing off the cold, metallic walls of her cage. It spiraled down into the pit, a hollow, beautiful sound that seemed to fade into the darkness. Her voice warped as it descended, and for a moment, she thought she could hear something something large, metallic, and scraping deep below. The sound sent a chill through her bones, but she couldn't help but keep singing. The music was the only thing that calmed her, the only way she could hold onto something that felt like freedom.
When the Captain had finally told her to stop, she quieted obediently, her throat raw from the constant singing. Exhaustion washed over her like a wave, and she lay down on her stomach, face resting against the cold edge of the cage. Her arm dangled loosely outside the bars, fingers brushing the darkness of the pit below. She stared into the blackness, too tired to feel fear. If she fell down into it, the cage might break, and maybe just maybe she'd be free. Even if she didn't survive the fall, at least she wouldn't have to face another day of this hell.
With a sigh, she began to hum softly to herself, the tune barely audible in the air. It was the first song she had sung after discovering the strange power inside herself the one she still didn't understand. It calmed her, soothed her frayed nerves, even if it drove the scavengers mad. She let the familiar melody fill her, humming louder now, letting her exhaustion take her into a half-daze. Her eyes fluttered shut, the rhythm of her song a lullaby for her weary soul.
But then, from far below her, a sound reached her ears. At first, it was so faint, so distant that she thought it might have been the wind. She opened her eyes and looked down into the pit again, her heart beginning to race. She couldn't see anything, only the endless darkness. Tentatively, she called out, her voice small, barely a whisper. "Hello?"
The sound of her own voice bounced off the pit's walls and echoed back at her, distorting and warping as it traveled deeper. She waited, breath held, her pulse quickening. It must be rats, she reasoned. Maybe even the sound of the wind moving through the depths. She had seen scavengers toss their traps down there, baiting whatever lived in the darkness.
But then, something happened that made her blood run cold.
A voice, low and rumbling, answered her call from deep within the chasm. It wasn't the voice of a man, nor anything she had heard before. The words twisted, dark and warped, and sent a sharp tremor of fear down her spine.
"Far above, far above, what once was great is rendered small…"
Her breath caught in her throat as the words echoed in the pit, their meaning unclear, but their tone unmistakable. The voice was ancient, and it filled her with dread. Her heart raced, and she stumbled backward, her back hitting the far side of the cage as panic surged through her. She pressed herself against the cold bars, eyes wide with terror, heart pounding in her chest.
What was that? What was down there?
Her thoughts spiraled, and she could feel her breath coming faster, heavier, as the darkness below seemed to close in around her. The air felt thick, suffocating. Her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out everything else. She wanted to scream, to escape, but she was frozen, trapped in her own fear. What had spoken to her from the depths? And why?
Her whole body trembled as she waited, trapped between the terror of the unknown and the silent dread of the scavengers above.
What felt like hours passed in tense silence, the pounding of her heart slowly easing, no longer thundering in her chest like a wild animal trying to escape its cage. The frantic rhythm that had once pounded through her veins began to slow, each beat returning to something more familiar, something that felt almost normal. Her breath steadied, the shallow gasps becoming deeper, more controlled. She shifted her gaze across the camp, her eyes scanning the shadows of the tents, looking for any sign that the men had heard the voice too. The fire in the center of the camp smoldered weakly, its once-bright flames reduced to orange embers flickering in the cold air. No one moved. No one reacted. They had not heard the voice, the voice that had come from the very pit of hell.
Swallowing the knot of fear lodged in her throat, she forced herself to move. Every inch of her felt heavy, her limbs weak and stiff, but she crawled toward the edge of her cage, closer to the hole. The metal bars scraped against her skin, but she ignored the discomfort, focused instead on the dark abyss below. Slowly, she poked just the top of her head out from the cage, her pale blue eyes scanning the pit, straining to catch any glimpse of movement or shadow.
Nothing.
The darkness seemed infinite, consuming everything in its path. She waited, tense, as the silence pressed in around her like a suffocating weight. Her breath caught in her chest as the minutes stretched on, and with a small, almost imperceptible shudder, she cleared her throat. It felt as if her voice had been lost in the air, but she forced the words out, despite the dry, rasping sound. "Who are you?"
It was reckless, she knew. A foolish question to ask. But curiosity, insistent and gnawing, had overtaken her. Maybe it was the last shred of hope within her an illogical, almost naive desire to understand, to make sense of the voice that had haunted the depths of the pit. She held her breath, waiting for a response, and when none came, she started to wonder if it had all been a trick of her mind. Maybe it had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, her desperation and loneliness playing cruel tricks on her.
Then, just as she was about to turn away, the voice came again, quieter this time like a sigh drifting on the air. "What once was great is rendered small…"
The words hung in the air like a shroud, wrapped in sorrow and a deep, aching sadness that made her heart clench. She felt it then—a pang of understanding, a connection to the voice, as if it too knew what it was like to be diminished, to be brought low. It was a feeling she had known all too well. Caged, used, and reduced to something less than what she had been, forced into a life of submission, a prisoner to the whims of others. She swallowed, the lump in her throat heavy, and spoke softly, as though the words were as fragile as glass.
"I understand," she said, her voice thick with the weight of her own suffering. "I am also rendered small. I am sorry."
For a long moment, there was only the distant sound of the fire crackling weakly, the night air still and cold. Then, from the dark depths of the pit, the voice came again, this time with an odd, almost yearning quality to it. "Will you sing again? That haunting tune."
She froze at the request, her stomach turning as the words sank in. The voice, whatever it was, wanted her songs. Just like the scavengers. It wanted what they had stolen from her—the last remaining part of her freedom. The part that allowed her to hold onto something beyond the bars of her cage. She was about to refuse, to tell the voice that it had no right to ask for that, no right to take what little power she had left.
But then the voice spoke again, and this time it stopped her dead in her tracks. "It soothes me."
Her blue eyes softened, staring into the blackness of the pit, feeling the weight of those words. There was something raw in that voice, something so vulnerable that it made her heart ache. She could almost feel the pain and confusion radiating from the darkness, the voice pleading with her, not just for the song, but for something more. Something deeper.
Sighing, she leaned closer to the edge of the cage, her body aching with the effort. She had no reason to give in to this voice, no reason to sing for it, but something within her softened. She understood that loneliness, that desperation for something to ease the pain. Slowly, carefully, she allowed herself to hum, the notes drifting softly into the pit below. It was the first song she had sung in the captivity of the scavengers, the song that had once made her feel powerful, the song that had stirred something deep inside her. The melody was haunting, melancholic, the notes slipping through the cracks in her spirit as if to release some of the burden she carried.
Her voice floated down into the darkness, the sound echoing off the cold walls of the pit. The sound seemed to reach the bottom of the chasm, and she felt a strange warmth in the air, as though the very walls of the pit were listening. She closed her eyes as she sang, allowing the music to carry her, to soften the jagged edges of her soul. It wasn't much, but for a moment, it was enough.
She sang to the shadows in the pit, her voice soft and melodic, the haunting tune swirling in the heavy air. Each note seemed to dissolve into the darkness, wrapping around her like a fragile cloak. The sound of her song echoed off the cold, metallic walls of the camp, reverberating through the hollow spaces of the pit below. As her voice wavered and began to trail off, a deep weariness settled in her bones, the exhaustion of endless days spent in captivity finally taking its toll.
Her body was stiff, aching from the unnatural positions she had been forced to adopt, but she couldn't stop. She couldn't stop singing, not yet. With each note, a small part of her felt free, if only for a fleeting moment. Her blue eyes fluttered closed, the exhaustion creeping over her like a dark tide. Her breath slowed, the softness of the air surrounding her blending with the remnants of her song. Slowly, the weight of sleep pulled her under, her head sinking into the cold, hard bars of the cage. Her arm hung limply over the edge, her fingers brushing against the metal, as if she were reaching for the abyss below. Her cheek pressed against the rough surface of the cage, the coolness of the metal grounding her to the moment as the last of her song faded away.
The world around her blurred, her body slumping into a restless sleep, her form almost cradling the edge of the cage as if it were the last thing tethering her to reality. The pit yawned beneath her, dark and unfathomable, a chasm of sorrow and shadow. The cold, oppressive silence enveloped the camp, broken only by the soft, uneven breaths of the other scavengers.
But below her, in the dark chasm, the silence was far from peaceful. There was a tearing sound, faint at first, like something scraping against stone. Then, a more distinct, guttural noise a ripping, slashing sound, as if something powerful was feasting in the depths of the pit. The sound grew louder, a hideous growl reverberating through the walls, the creature's hunger palpable in the stillness of the night.
But she slept through it all. The chaos below, the noise of the thing feasting in the dark, didn't reach her in her exhausted slumber. Her arm hung limply, her body limp in the cage, as though she had become one with the metal and the shadows themselves.