The Shard's Sorrow

Prologue

Author's Note: Hi Guys! This is my first time ever posting something! I'll try to update it at least every week. Anyways...Enjoy!

Yours Truly,

Ichlgox

Hours pass, or perhaps it's days-time is an elusive concept in this lightless dungeon. Iseno's bells, once a distant reminder of the life outside, are nothing more than a distant memory. Their joyous chimes can't penetrate the suffocating depths of these stone walls, and the rhythmic beat of the drums is but a distant echo, a faint pulse from a world I can no longer touch.

My windowless cell is a testament to the prison's cruel design. The granite walls, cool to the touch, loom around me, their oppressive presence like a vice around my soul. They are a foot thick, and no amount of strength or desperation can hope too breach them. The iron bars, mere two-inch clits, provide a callous illusion of a connection to the outside world-a world I am denied.

The air in the dungeon hangs heavy and damp, carrying with it the musty scent of old stone and decaying wood. The only source of light is a feeble, flickering torch ensconced in a sconce on the far wall. Its feeble glow barely manages to cast long, dancing shadows that seem to mock the very notion of escape.

The cold, unforgiving floor beneath me is rough and uneven, pressing into my weary body, a constant reminder of my captivity. The sound of dripping water echoes through the chamber, a relentless metronome that marks the passage of time in bitter increments.

My senses have become heightened in this oppressive darkness. Every distant sound, every subtle shift in the air, sends shivers down my spine, leaving me perpetually on edge. I strain to discern any hint of movement beyond my cell, but the silence is deafening, broken only by the occasional scuffle of unseen creatures in the hidden recesses of this place.

My own breath, ragged and uneven, is the only companion in this desolate world. Each exhale is a visible cloud in the frigid air, a tangible testament to my isolation. I wrap my arms around myself, seeking solace in the feeble warmth they provide, a futile attempt to stave off the encroaching chill.

There are no guards, no stern faces to mete out their judgment or indifference. Here, in this forsaken abyss, the need for their presence has evaporated, replaced by the very nature of this inescapable confinement. It is a place of perpetual isolation, a torment of solitude that gnaws at the fringes of my sanity.

In this lightless void, I rely on my own sense of time, though my grasp like grains of sand. I count the beats of my own heart as a makeshift clock, and I mark the passage of days by the ache in my empty stomach.

The silence is a living entity, a spectral wraith that wraps itself around my thoughts. It whispers dark secrets and taunts me with memories of the life I once led. It is a silence that knows no mercy, a silence that amplifies the solitude to a deafening roar.

My fingers, once nimble and sure, now clench and unclench, as if grasping at the intangible threads of my past. The memory of the lives I've extinguished lingers in the recesses of my mind, their faces appearing as ghostly apparitions within the flickering torchlight. Their eyes, filled with fear, pain, and regret, are etched in the shadows that twist and writhe before me, like a macabre dance of the condemned.

The weight of my sins bears down on my soul, a relentless burden that I can never fully escape. I remember the faces of those I've taken, the innocent and the guilty, the young and the old. Each life I snuffed out was a choice, a step deeper into the abyss, driven by a twisted sense of duty that once seemed so righteous. The darkness I embraced, the path I willingly tread, has left an indelible mark on my conscience.