A Deadly Bite

33 || A Birdcage

The dark shouldn't have a taste, but it does. It's the first thing Fiesi knows: a bitter, watery syrup sat in his mouth, gratingly stale, seeping into every little gap between his teeth and under his tongue and everywhere. Sawdust swims within it like rough silt, lining his throat. He wants to spit it out, but his jaw is like rock, frozen and distant when he tries to work out how to move it.

Pain comes next. As if staticky clouds rub against one another in his stomach, it begins as a fork of lightning cast in sludge, spawning in his abdomen and then spreading steadily outward in a maze of needles. It's hot, and it burns. An all-consuming blaze that devours every bit of flesh in its path.

His battered senses blur like they've been buried in thick mud, yet his ears still detect the faint whimper. It takes him an uncountable amount of time before he works out the pitiful sound is his own.

Pathetic, he muses, his thoughts slurring and knocking into one another. I can't even die right.

Or maybe this is death. Maybe this is the eternity fate has designed for him: forever drowned in darkness, swallowing the stars' white fire instead of air every time he tries to breathe. Fear wriggles from his gut and scuttles through him like a spider with too many legs, prodding at the lightning-flame pain as it squeezes through his insides. Decay, that's what the dark tastes like. Has he really earned that? A slow, agonising wasting away, the stars taking their time over searing out his existence until he's nothing but a pile of shaking bones? Is that how they deal with cowards?

Another whimper, this one pitched higher, and this time he feels its strain as it rears up in his throat and rolls into sound. He finds he can lift his tongue. He presses it up against his teeth, lips twitching.

I need to open my eyes.

His eyelids are leaden mountains, but somehow he hauls them upwards.

Nothing changes. He forces a heavy blink, cracks his eyes open wider, but still there's nothing to see. Fear's pincers lock into his heart, skipping its next muffled beat. There's nothing but blind, unbroken darkness.

Electricity sparks in his blood, chilled by panic and tingling with adrenaline. Too much darkness.

He sits up sharply, then feels a jolt of regret as knived agony cuts his middle in response. A thick wave of dizziness floods over him, wielding claws that threaten to drag him back under, and he grits his teeth against the whine building in his jaw, waiting for the sensation to fade. It doesn't. Pain is a beast eating him alive, and it's starving. He feels caught in its jaws, hands curled around its fangs until they bleed as he fights to keep them from closing over him again. Whether this is life or death, consciousness or the black, nightmarish void of sleep, he's desperate not to lose it. At least he can think. At least he's still himself, still something.

He holds his breath for as long as he can, until his lungs ache, and then cautiously sucks in air through clenched teeth. Even that hurts. His fingers curl in a shaky attempt to anchor him, uneven nails scraping over a cold, metallic surface.

It isn't the chipped, bloodied castle floor he last remembers. It isn't soil or wood or carpet either, but it's a floor, and it's uncomfortably unfamiliar. Where am I?

After several moments of preparing himself, he gingerly parts a hand from the floor, resting heavily on the other as he lifts it before his face. His fingers wander through the darkness, wriggling as he paws at the icy air in search of something else to break up the emptiness. It truly is cold, achingly so. A shiver courses through him, prickling at the hairs on his arms.

His arm reaches full stretch and still he touches nothing. With a hiss, he pushes himself up further, adjusting the angle to cut more horizontally, and his fingers discover more smooth metal.