The Prisoner closed the heavy wooden door that lead to his cell and locked it behind him. He has spent too long in that cell with only The Warden and Dryn as his visitors, and now it was time to get back home. He looked down the dimly lit hallway and began to move at a brisk pace. It had been so long that none of this even felt familiar to him. These hallways were different than he remembered.
I remember they had to carry me, he thought. I had been struggling against them after my...my... Trial? No. No, wait they found me wandering and I had... Killed somebody?
The Prisoner struggled for a moment as he brought a hand to his head.
I was lost... I was lost looking for her, but... I must have come back, The Prisoner regained a bit of his composure. The Shadow Lord was planning something. He was meeting with his people. I had to... I had to take action. To protect everyone.
He heard quickened footsteps ahead of him and The Prisoner scrambled to find something. He fumbled with the keys taken from Dryn as he pushed up against a door on the left side of the hallway.
"Over here, hurry up!" The Guard yelled from down the hallway. "She's calling for us, there must be an announcement."
At the last moment he found the right key, and the Prisoner quickly opened the door and tucked inside. He leaned against the door and held his breath as a few sets of footsteps run by.
"Hello?" a man called out from the room. "It must be my lucky day to get two guard visits in a day."
The Prisoner looked up and finally looked at the room he ducked into. He was in a small chamber with three solid metal doors. The wall had several weapons stored for quick access, and a single chair. There was a small slit on the bottom that allowed for food trays, and the Prisoner could see something moving on the other side of one of them.
"Not a Guard," the Prisoner said. "I'm just trying to get out of here."
The man laughed for a second before talking again.
"A Prison break, huh? Hey, are you that Elf guy they've got locked up? I heard some pretty wild things," he said, trying to get his face as close to the floor as possible. "Any chance there's a red, spiraly-lookin' key on there?"
The Prisoner looked at the keys and didn't see one.
"No," The Prisoner said flatly. "And just because we're both Prisoners here doesn't mean I'd let you out either. I may not deserve to be here, but you might actually belong here."
"None of us belong here," the man said, laughing dryly as he stepped away from the door. "This place is tied to really strong magic, but it's not able to hold onto new inmates as well as the ones who have been here.... My guess is you're like me, and you can see past the illusion."
The Prisoner thought back to the rivers of his cell, and the confusing interaction with Dryn.
"Would the illusions mess with my memory," the Prisoner asked, stepping forward. "I'm remembering things that others aren't. I just need to get out of this tower. I have people who are depending on me."
"Wait a minute, that voice... it sounds so familiar," the man moved back toward the door and crouched near the slit again. "You... You're the reason I'm in here! YOU AND YOUR FUCKING PEOPLE."
The man started screaming and thrashing in the room, and the door started to glow with a very faint blue. Runes started to appear on the door that the Prisoner recognized as anti-magic runes.
The Prisoner stepped back towards the door just as the metal door exploded off the hinges at him with a boom of thunder, smashing through the locked wooden door. As the Prisoner looked back, there was a cloud of dust, but he could see the Shadow of a man moving forward. When he stepped into the light of the torch he saw his eyes were black, like pools of black ichor. He looked ragged and starved but he was focused on the Prisoner.
"You... You promised me," the man said, stepping further past the door revealing skeletal, withered wings that had a faint glow to them. "AND NOW YOU'LL PAY."
The Man launched forward at the Prisoner, who stumbled back to the wall. The Prisoner grabbed a sword and brought it forward just as he hit with the full force of the Man.
For a moment, they both stood there breathing, almost a comfort to feel another warm body after all this time. Then the Prisoner felt the warm drip of blood hitting his feet, pouring out of the wound left by the sword now running through the man's stomach.
The Man looked up at the Prisoner and weakly brought his hands up to his face and began to squeeze with the last ounces of strength he had left.
"Fuck... You....," the man said as he dug his fingers into the Prisoner's face before he went completely limp against him.
And that's when the Prisoner remembered.
Suddenly the room started filling with guards alerted by the sound of the door smashing. They scrambled to get the man off, and fought with the Prisoner until he was face on the ground being shackled.
"Good News, the Warden says he'll see you," one of the Guards said with Dryn at his side.
The Prisoner let out a long breath as he let his face sink into the stone floor, and he started to cry.