The Echoeing Darkness

“ I am,” I thought to myself. My eyes scan the cell for a hint of light, but they find none. In the dungeons of Hanorean Keep, there are four levels. The first is for petty thieves who will soon be out. The second level is for those charged with manslaughter and embezzlement. The third level is for traitors, rapists and murders…but the fourth level…is called the dark level. It is basically solitary confinement, with soundproof walls. A guard brings a thin gruel once a day. In the pitch black darkness, you cannot see or hear. The smell of my bodily excrement’s cloaks the air in reeking smells, especially in one corner. Stale is how the air and food taste. If someone killed me in my sleep, no one would ever know.
I recall how I earned this lifetime of darkness. I believe it started when I killed the King’s heir, the Queen’s illegitimate child. That was no loss, the King and his ‘bastard’ heir are both dead. The boy king had tortured my twin brother in a way that would send most to the dark level of Hanorean Keep. My brother was nearly killed several times. Slowly by torture; brought to the brink of death, nurtured back to health, brought again to the brink of death. This cycle continues even now, years, months after the bastard King’s death, for time has no meaning here. If I ever am released from here, the first thing I will do is inquire about him. Silent laughter tickled my throat as I thought of how unlikely that event is.
I can imagine the seen foolish girls and egoistical knights who make up the court, following the bastard king and yelling, “praise the king!”
I would yell “King, what King, that’s a whores spawn!” for the Queen is indisputably a whore. Saying this brought forth a gurgle of laughter, which quickly subsided. My lips hurt, like I had licked them, then kissed a frozen pole.
Lost in my musings of the past, I failed to notice the sounds, the screeches and clangs. I had not heard anything but my own voice for a day… eternity. Sounds did not exist in my dark prison. I heard a thud and suddenly the door flew open. I screamed, the bright light burning my eyes. Living in darkness for so long, I felt like someone twice my size had tackled me. My head was spinning like a planet on its axis. A kaleidoscope of colors swirled in my head, then grew darker. Then, everything went black.
My dreams were not nightmares, nor were they pleasant. The dreams made me afraid, but I still thought it was trance. Then the dream became reality! My brother really was being beaten! Every blow bruised my body as well as his. Our unanimous screams filled the air. Seeing lashes landed upon his back filling my own skin splitting. Ravished by near unbearable pain, I manage to concentrate on my surroundings. An execution in the coliseum, full of the catcalls and jeers of the small folk. “Ahhhh” I roared in the oblivion of pain. The torture stops for a minute. I see my brother, pooled in blood, lying on the floor of the coliseum beside me.
Then I saw her. Standing a few meters away was the Queen. Her face the purest alabaster, blemish free and smooth as silk. Her nose was strong and proud, jutting out at an odd angle. Pale pink lips like a rose against a letter pouted at me, contrasting her alabaster skin. Thick silver blond hair fell past her waist, like a river flowing down her back. Her shapely body cloaked in a non-descript dress, clung wantonly to her curves. Then I met her gaze. Stormy grey eyes clashed with my own in the ancient battle of wiles, seeking domination. Neither of us would surrender, so we stared for hours, minutes. Time had no meaning. There was only the Queen, fate and myself. Fate would eventually win, as always. My brother would watch me dying, suffer my pain. They would keep him alive for another year or so, to drive him insane from his own memories. Suddenly the queens teeth clenched, she scowled.
Her lips parted, and she screamed “she killed my son! Kill her!” At the edge of my view, I saw guards’ hall my brother up, then seat him in a chair, so close he could see every lash, every drop of blood. Every bead of sweat on my forehead, and hear every scream. The guard raised his whip, “craaack!” a scream ripped through my throat and my body withered in pain. “Craaack!” the whip lashed me again directly on top of the first one. “Craaack! Crack! Craaack!” I lost count of the times I had been hit. My eyesight began to go blurry; my body lay in a pool of my own blood and excrement. My senses were fading, and I knew I was dying. I ignored everything except my brother, whose horrified gaze scanned my body. I forced my self to smile, even as I screamed.
“Brother, do not remember my suffering! Life is slipping away, I won’t last another lash!” Tears began to flow freely down my brothers cheeks.
“Sister, I will join you one day!” I saw the look on the Queen’s face, the slight movement. Then she clenched a dagger in her hand. She threw, even as the lash impacted against my back, his neck was bit by the dagger. Even as the Queen realized what she had done, in killing my brother while I was on the brink of death. She had lost both of her playthings in a single act. It occurred to me that I no longer cared about the Queen, the bastard or the kingdom. Human emotions and sacrifices do not exist in death, I recalled. That was my last coherent though before death won its final conquest of my life, before I became one with my brother.