When my eyes opened, I found myself in a dimly lit room. Everything- the floor, the ceiling, the walls- was made of stone, and there seemed to be nothing to provide insulation.
I seemed to be handcuffed by an archaic-looking metallic contraption that was chained to the ground. The light came from a small wooden torch outside the cold metallic bars that stood in front of me. Lying surrounded by the rods was a metallic door. The only hole in the door was a keyhole. The opaque door was almost in contrast with the gap-filled metallic rods surrounding it.
Still in a dazed condition, I could not conjure up any thought or properly recall what had happened. I felt a sharp throbbing pain in my head, as if knives were being inserted into my head and then rotated when inside. I could feel my nerves pulsing at my temples. I also felt disconcerting pain behind my head. It would feel like waves of pain were travelling across the back of my head. Every part of my head hurt. I shut my eyes and lay my head on the cold, hard stone floor, hoping it would numb the pain. It did not.
Over the hours, I spent my time suffering in pain and boredom. I had finally remembered what had happened. During the time I spent lying in the room, I also thought of ways to escape this room, and later part of my time, I invested it in thinking of things I could have done to avoid ending up with this fate.
I spent furthermore hours, remembering Earth, my mom and dad, friends, my sweet and stable life on Earth. I felt I would cry, but my eyes remained dry. In the end, my mind was tired of thinking. There was no change in scenery, and not a sound was produced. The air smelled stale. I thought my mind could endure for longer, but I was mistaken. It was gnawing my mind back to front.
Suddenly, I heard, 'Hey, you! foreigner'
I looked in front of me. I tilted my head up to see a man. He had a rough beard and wore a uniform different from the soldiers before.
'Who are you?' I asked
'It seems the rumors were true, you truly have no manners. Anyway, I am a member of the Praetorian Guard, here to escort you to the Emperor.'
'I'm sorry, but where am I?'
'You're in the central prison of The Great Kluxian Empire. Seriously? Punching a knight? And that too, one from a noble family? You'd be dead had Sir Claudius not given you his mercy'
'I see. I did not know he was a person of such high standing. Had I known, I'd still have punched him,' I said, looking directly into his eye
With a slight look of annoyance, he commented, 'You really are arrogant.'
'He killed my friend'
'Oh, your friend? That one-eyed vermin wasn't actually dead when you hit Sir Claudius. I don't know what Sir Claudius was doing, riling you up. '
He paused. then continued.
'But your companion is dead now, I just saw him die today to a Mantis monster today in the arena. He was all like "mister, this" and " mister that", showing off his sword, but died in like 3 attacks from the mantis. You lot sure are funny, wherever you came from.'
'You... you're lying,' I stammered
'I wish I were. Haha, you should see the look on your face right now.'
Indeed, knowing that Alto was just alive until recently, it added another weight to my already weakened mental state. Had I put more thought and effort into trying to escape from here, could I have saved him? Thoughts like this invaded my mind.
I couldn't handle it anymore
'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' I screamed. Whatever it takes, I was going to avenge Alto's death. I thought while tears rolled down my face.
'Hey now, don't break down already. I need to make you presentable to the Emperor. If you act like this, both of us will be dead. So stay put for the moment. Who knows? He might take mercy on you because you're human.'
'No, I'm going to take revenge someday. ALL OF YOU WILL PAY' I yelled.
'Haha, what are you? An idiot? Your dream is impossible, and if I were you, I would abandon any thought about something as silly as revenge. Remember you're in our mercy. Say what you just said to anyone else here, and your head will come flying off. I should teach you a lesson, just for spewing that nonsense, really.'
There was a jingling of keys, and suddenly
[Squeak]
The door to my cage opened.
As I stood, chained and helpless, he punched me in the face. The force was tremendous, the force of the punch coupled by the pain from before made me fall flat on the ground.
Then he started kicking me, ending his barrage of kicks with stomping his foot on my right temple. After some time, I started feeling numb and passed out from the pain.
When I woke up, my handcuffs were unchained from the ground, instead, they were in the hands of the guard.
'Oh, you're awake. It seems I overdid it a bit. Either way, we should get moving. The Emperor is expecting us.'
He blindfolded me. With my vision closed off, I had no choice but to follow the tug of the chain from the guard. Before moving, my ears were covered with a heavy cloth, making me unable to hear anything.
I was brought out of my room and made to walk across the prison hallways barefoot. The hallways smelled worse than the prisons, and the stone that made up the floor was wet and cold.
After some time of travelling around the hallways, I heard muffled sounds of the guard talking to some other people, whom I assumed to be guards too. I could not listen to their conversations properly as my ears had been blocked by the cloth. No cloth should be able to nullify sound,
'This cloth may be magic, ' I thought to myself.
After some pauses, turns, and muffled sounds, I was brought outside. I figured this out as my vision inside the blindfold went from dark to light. I was made to go down some stairs. My feet felt rough and warm, I smiled as this meant I was stepping on concrete, not stone. I had gotten sick of stepping barefoot on the cold, wet, and sometimes slimy stone in the prison hallways.
As I was dragged along further down the stairs, I was giggling like a child. Then, all of a sudden, I was punched in the gut. I heard the guard say something, but couldn't understand what he said. Maybe it was to stop me from giggling.
Right after I was pushed from the back, my knees hit something hard, and I fell onto an elevated surface. The texture was wooden. Then I heard something like a thud as the surroundings around me started to move. From this, I realized I was maybe in a vehicle of sorts, since it was wooden, maybe it was a carriage?