by Jayden Woods
*
Hours, days, weeks passed and merged into one. They all seemed the same to Picard. They were filled with darkness, putrescence, and pain—neverending pain.
Sometimes, he discovered, his mood changed. This provided a slight variation from one hour, or day, or week to the next. Every once in awhile, he would awake from a nap and feel certain that a guard would soon waltz through the door and announce to him that Richard had made a mistake. Richard wanted him back. Richard needed his help. Richard missed him.
On such days—or mornings, or nights … he could no longer tell the difference—he sat by his door and waited for his morning meal with a smile on his face. Yes, his arm throbbed. Yes, his head ached because he had clenched his teeth while he slept, in an effort to deal with the pain. But he felt hope, because he knew that eventually, Richard would realize his mistake and release him. When the guard came, the guard would swing open the door and pronounce, “You’re free, Picard!”
Instead, no such thing happened. The guard threw in a slopping bowl of sour pottage. Then he walked away, without even saying, “Hello, Archon Picard, the man who used to be the khan’s son.”
After this, a fit of rage sometimes seized Picard. He would fling himself against the door and bang it with his aching fist. “Hey!” he would scream through a sore throat. “Show some respect, filth! When I’m out of here I’ll see you punished for your impudence! I’ll tie you down and whip you myself! Hey!”
As a response, he sometimes received hoots and yells from neighboring prisoners. Others told him to shut up. Yet more sometimes remarked, “That arrogant archon can go fuck himself.”
In his state of anger, Picard would yell back at them. What he said was of no consequence, of course. No one listened to him. He was just another shrill voice ringing within the stinking depths of the volcano. But Picard valued the feeling of anger. It was a feeling to which he was unaccustomed, but while in its clasp, Picard felt powerful and confident. He knew without a doubt that the world was against him, and that one day—someday—he would obtain his revenge. He enjoyed imagining his revenge sometimes, as bloody or horrifying as it might turn out to be.
Eventually, however, the anger faded away. A new mood arose to replace it. The next time a guard brought him food, Picard would beg the guard for help. He would offer a great reward for the guard’s compliance. And when the guard turned a deaf ear, Picard would collapse against the dank walls of his prison and mutter a prayer to the gods.
“Friva, Belazar, Lokke, Earth Mechanic, Thorin, Delix … whoever is up there, whoever is listening, please help me out of here. I don’t care who you are: if you have power, I will worship you. If you release me, I will fall to your will. I will do anything you wish. And I can do a great deal, truly. I may still have some influence over my people, if you give me a chance to use it. I may still have a chance to influence my brother, even. I know how he is. He has a hot temper. Then he tends to forget whatever he did while in one of his fits. By now he probably misses me, he just hasn’t gone around to setting me free, or else he’s too proud to. Anyway, if he saw me again, he would probably have mercy. Please help me, all you gods—any of you! Or, if you don’t wish to free me, send me safra. At least do that, please. Send me something to make this place bearable. Something to take away the pain … the terrible, neverending pain. Please, gods. Anything. Anything!”
And so he prayed, listening to his own voice bounce back against the sharp stones, sounding strident and altogether irritating. When he tired of the sound of his own voice, he would try to sleep, for sleep offered the only relief from his constant pain. If that didn’t work, he would keep muttering prayers, or else fall into a deep depression.
The depression was the worst mood of all. He would weep, yell, and moan. His mental anguish matched the throbbing of his arm. He could not escape it; all he could do was cry, and cry, and cry. The other prisoners would mock him for it. This only made him cry harder.
Next he would fall into a state of denial, certain that this was all a mistake, and it would be corrected any moment. Thus the cycle started anew.
He sobbed, he groaned, he bashed his head against the stone wall. He would rather die than experience this pain any longer. He had done many terrible things in his life. Perhaps he deserved this. Or at least he deserved to die. But he could not bear to live like this for much longer. If he did not have safra to snuff out his pain, perhaps he would snuff out his own life. Perhaps it was the only obtainable escape.
In his darkest moments, when the pain reached its peak, Picard sometimes would burst out with laughter. A state of euphoria would strike him unlike any he’d known before.
“This is what it feels like, fools!” he would screech amidst cackles. “This is what it means to feel it all! I feel it all. MAGGOTS! You will never understand what it means to feel as I do. You will die a meaningless existence! You will never understand as I do!”
Eventually he stopped coming to the door to accept his meals. He left them on the floor to rot. When he had the energy, he would return to bashing his head against the wall, hoping to knock himself into oblivion, or else kill himself.
He must have come close to success, for one day he fell into a deep dark sleep, free of nightmares and sensation; free, even of pain.
Perhaps he had escaped at last.
