From Murder to Dust

13 - Captor

It had been two weeks since Christmas, and Killer and I had been thoroughly trained in 'How to Treat Your Prisoner 101.' We fed him regularly, took shifts watching him, and even talked with him a lot! When he wasn't being watched, he actually behaved rather well, and made no trouble; it was exciting. Our first prisoner in the dungeon was a success! He was also a great listener when you rambled utter insanity, which I happened to do rather often, apparently. His speech pattern was a bit like Killer's, but perhaps more refined; that is, he spoke in a more rustic way, but he was still mostly understandable. The only visible flaw was that he wanted desperately to go home, which I guess every prisoner wanted; the only thing was that we couldn't let him go. I was currently watching him, being careful not to show him my face, which was apparently bad, although I didn't see why; I didn't question it. Killer and I also had frequent conversations with our communicators while one of us was watching the prisoner, so we weren't very lonely.

"So the rabbit wasn't there at all?" Killer wondered. I ignored the screaming and yelling in the background.

"Nope, just an illusion. Magicians are like that." I answered.

"Wow, wish I could do that!"

"Maybe someday."

"Oh, gotta go, Ink's got a smirk on his face, size of a watermelon."

"Don't get hurt too bad. Talk later, bye."

"Bye."

I then lowered my arm and rested my skull against the stone wall I was leaning against. Watching a prisoner was boring sometimes, but most of the time, it was pretty fun; the prisoner talked a lot about stuff - Nightmare said it was better not to call a prisoner by their name unless it was direct conversation - and I liked to listen to all kinds of stories. Some of the stories made me feel bad for him; he seemed unloved and ignored from what I understood. He'd been asking Ink to help his universe for fifteen years and he still hadn't received help; what really affected me was the fact that his people were starving. The sheer fact that I knew what they're going through made me pity them. They didn't lose magic in the same way that I did, which was good, but they were still starving. Some of his stories were happy, though, but it was mostly just his childhood; having a prisoner was both exciting and interesting. I heard him approach the front of his cell.

"So, ya doin' anythin'?" The prisoner asked.

"Not at the moment." I responded.

"Kid, I been 'n a lotta cells in m' life, an' I gotta say, this's pro'lly the mos' laid back."

"We renovated it a little to make it more welcoming; of course, if you want, we could make it menacing."

"Er. Nah, 'm good."

"Okay."

"Do ya hide yer face 'cause yer shy, er 'ave ya got a reason?"

"The less people that know my identity, the easier it is to walk into the supermarket."

"I got the stranges' feelin' that's a joke."

"And you're right. I just hide it mainly because Nightmare told me to: can't exactly be stealthy if everybody knows what you look like."

"I can see yer point."

"You can't even see my face, how do you see my point?"

"Heh. That's funny."

"Eh, it's not really."

"So, what's the rest o' this place look like? Er's it all like this?"

"It's a house, just a big one."