I lie helplessly in my own crusting excrement on the coarse gravelled stone, closely surrounded by a circle of withered grey brickwork stained with smeared crimson, and dressed in decaying hooks and rusted chains. I utilise the smallest amount of hope and strength that remains to glimpse upwards at the minimal amount of light illuminating this pit, the shaft stretching beyond what I can fathom. I try to deny the reality that this isolated chamber of cruelty and sadistic pleasure will inevitably be my tomb.
A harsh bitter breeze forces itself downwards through this abyss, each small gust coating my unsheathed complexion in scorching agony, coursing through my hollow cheeks and searing my exposed enamel. With the only moisture being the blood filling my naked sockets, I slowly roll my rubbery eyeballs downwards, the grating twinge of such a manoeuvre emanating through my skull as I feel my optic nerves smoulder in a sharp stretching spike like pulled taffy in a sweet shop. I observe my scabbed-over fingertips, my nails torn out by clawing at the brickwork that surrounds me from so many futile attempts of freedom.
Its is now that I am reminded of this one harrowing fact...
Before me, lying in a blanket of hot, fresh, wet red, with hollow slits-for-eyes, filled with the grit and concrete that I remain slumped upon now, glaring back with a petrified expression into the very pupils that once filled them...
…Is my own face...
