Cold liquid drops. Her body hurt, sore and tired from being chained to a cold slab. A drip from a crack in the ceiling fell on Berry's cheek. She knew this because she could open her eyes now.

Weird dreams. Strange, scary things in her head. Lonely, shadowy things were whispering to her, begging for things that she wasn't able to give them. They wanted her. Silly things. That's not something to be given or taken.

When she'd first woken up, it was from the slow drip. Maybe one every hour but it dripped right on her cheek. Her head still hurt and she felt horribly dehydrated. Her face still felt crusty and Berry hoped the blisters had stopped oozing. She struggled to see and hoped that her eyes were just glued shut and that she wasn't actually blinded from the boiling water being poured on her face. How long had that been? She had no idea. It didn't really matter. She hadn't heard anyone else in the room for a long time and wondered what was happening. She wondered where Moryssa might have gone off to.

She scrunched her face, feeling it pulse hot and cold as nerves shrieked their displeasure. Things cracked along jagged lines and flaked off a bit. Drip. Wait. Scrunch, squint, squirm. Wait. Drip. Squint, squint, squint. Finally it broke through. Her eyes opened, cracking and flaking away the crust. Her vision was blurry and smudged but her eyes still worked. The grey chamber was unchanged. It was still cold, empty and ominous. A tiny crack in the mortar between two stones let condensation drip from the space above and let it fall on her cheek. Her back hurt from the slab. She was hungry, thirsty, fatigued, sick feeling and dreadfully uncomfortable but, worst of all, Berry was bored.

She thought about singing but couldn't find the strength to. She just wanted out. Her muscles were cramped and she was trying to fidget, wanting to run and climb. Her body was struck by paroxysms of tremors, desperate to move and flex. She whimpered, the slow and pathetic sound that an animal makes when it's lost hope. This was wretched. Cages were horrible things. Her wrists itched from being chained.

Berry shifted and rolled her body as much as she could but the scant inches did little to relieve her. Her heart began to pound and cold sweat formed over her body. Out. Out! She needed to get out! Panic seized her and terror washed over her frail body. Berry convulsively thrashed and pulled at the bonds, howling and shrieking in the tongue that all animals know to mean terror. Something hot happened in her shoulder, something tore and shifted inside the joint. The half elf collapsed back to the slab, exhausted and in a dreamless sleep. Her wrists and ankles were smudged with blood from where her struggles caused the cuffs to bite into her flesh. The forest felt very far away.

* * *

Animal. Cage. The cuffs were still biting into her wrists and ankles. Berry could only lay there, chained to the slab, whimpering. The forest was so far away. She couldn't even smell it anymore. The blistering on Berry's face had been pushed back to become background noise, simply pain somewhere in the distance but her shoulder was hot and throbbing and the room was dark. Not the darkness that comes with night but a sinister type of darkness, a nearly liquid type that leaks through holes and seeps through cracks to saturate and stain whatever it touches. It filled the room, heavy shadows that snickered and sighed, stale air that nearly choked lungs, a dampness that soaked through your body and refused to leave.

The sinister man appeared from her blind spot and draped a cloth over Berry's face, provoking a vicious snarl from the half elf. "Heh, insolent elf still girl?" chuckled the man as he cautiously dabbed her face, a mock gesture of tenderness. He crushed some brittle, dried herbs and made a poultice saying, "Marmo weed, stuff hurts like hell, and it makes scar tissue, but it also gets rid of infection. Don't worry my little elfie, I want you to experiance the pain of this as long as your body can hold out. Now open your mouth." His hand lingered while roughly smearing the paste across her tender flesh while grasping for a ladle with the other. No words, just animalistic snarling as she gnashed her teeth and tried to viciously bite the hand that was so cruely gracing her face.

Anubus smirked,dangling his fingers just out of reach of her biting mouth. "Naughty little elf aren't you." He smirked as he dumped the ladle of water into her mouth, causing the elf to choke and spit some of it out. "Your like an animal. Your friends have finally arrived to Marmo. The fools are gathering knights to come here. Fools, the knights won't make it very far. I'm sure my lurkers will be glad to feed on them." He chuckled as he moved to Moryssa, grasping the dark elf's neck roughly as he inspected her features. "Hmm, the one over there won't do. But you certainly will..." He smirked as he produced a dagger, heating it with a magic spell he looked over her body before opening her shirt and exposing her belly. "This may sting a little..." He cackled as he took the dagger and penetrated the skin on her belly, not enough to kill her but drawing some blood, though the heated dagger quickly stopping the blood flow. He ignored her screams as he began carving runes on her belly. After about 15 minutes an looked over his handywork. "All finished." He smirked as he used the same salve as he used on Berry and covering it with her shirt. "Oh, sorry dear. Was that painful? Get used to it, your hell will continue on for some time."

The stupid man teased Berry, flicking his fingers at her nose and laughing and babbling on about things she wasn't in a space to pay attention to. His voice grated on her nerves. Again, he overturned a ladle on her face, mercifully lukewarm, and left her to sputter and snarl and spit at him.

This is exactly what she hated about people. Stupid people doing stupid things. No one understands, they all just think they know what happens. Dumb, dumb, dumb! Her throughts were beyond words. Contempt rose in her throat and came out as a low growl.

Somewhere nearby and through the the shadows Berry heard horrible screams, shrill visceral cries that shivered through her own body. They hurt and chilled her. She howled sympathetically.