𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

46 | ﴾ Azkaban ﴿

Deep within the North Sea and carefully camouflaged from muggles, the island that housed Azkaban prison lingered by a fraction above the ocean. The superstructure from the fifteenth century perched precariously on a natural rock outcropping, surrounded by an atrocious infestation of hungry Dementors that roamed freely throughout the hallways and hung in the sky just shy of the exterior like floating grim reapers.

It stood as an unforgivable and horrendous edifice in the shape of a pyramid on it's side over a rigid podium, stretching several hundred stories into the sky with a throbbing ambiance of calamity and hatred. The precision-cut facade just barely avoided the incessant spray of the ocean that rode the hoove's of the terrorizing fortress over and over, bashing violent sprays of salty water through the lower apertures of the monolith. 

The stench of decaying aquatic organisms and rotting flesh permeated the air, as those who perished within were often left to decompose for months or even years within their frozen cells. The incessant crashing of surging swells was enough to make one mad without even taking into consideration the dreadful, soul sucking, depressing atmosphere provided by the hundreds of Dementors floating about, magnetized to the feast that was Britain's worst criminals.

On one flank of the obelisk a gaping hole crumbled away into the sea where several Death Eaters had escaped years prior during the war, exposing dozens of long dismissed cells to the brutality of the elements. 

Before I could see, I could feel the hair on my skin standing on end. 

I was slumped over in an icy environment. Deconstructively, I determined that I was stunned in place, and there was nothing to be done about it save for wait out the jinx. My head rested on my shoulder, my hands bound in front of me by freezing steel chains. My eyelids shook microscopically with the yearning to open them and take in the gruesome place that I was in. 

I considered all notions of what had happened; perhaps I was still back in the persecution room at the Ministry, or in a dungeon cell there. But the undeniable and regrettable verity that I had been moved to Azkaban stung the air like a bee. My heart was filled with a hollow melancholy that beat rhythmically and sickeningly, broiling my body of any joy from the inside out in response to the nearby Dementors.

Finally when I could open my eyes it was quite a lackadaisical process, and my first glimpse was of another prisoner sat across from me in the wretched and filthy grotto that represented a cell I was in. Like a drunkard I blinked away the stupefaction, taking in the other person's black and white striped jumpsuit which confirmed where I was. 

As my vision sharpened I screamed and railed my skull painfully back into the bricks behind me. I was the only breathing thing in sight: hunched against the walls were at least three fully intact skeletons clad in prisoner outfits. The bones were darkened and picked clean from ages of disintegration. A singular brick opening devoid of a glass pane provided me insight of the habitat on the coast where thunder rumbled mercilessly and lighting cracked back and forth with industrious aggression. 

My breath wafted from my nostrils only to produce white clouds of wintry vapor. It was so cold and guttural that my fingers and toes had gone pink. It was the sort of establishment that one might detect a Gregorian chant growling ominously through the structure. Bricks of hundreds of years in age harbouring significant weathering reinforced my entrapment, with moss lingering in the cracks and slimy putrefaction on the wall surfaces.

Before me in my lap my hands were chained together over a striped convict dress. My gaze trailed after the long tail of coiling chains which ended at a barbarous stone ball in the corner with gigantic metallic spikes protruding from it. Even if I were to escape the cell I would not be able to lift the heavy concrete orb, and would only be able to move dysfunctionally and slowly as it would catch on everything porous due to the thorns.