When the prisoner awoke in complete darkness to the damp smell of moss, of humid but cold air that felt heavy in his lungs, to say that something felt wrong would be an understatement.
His mind was blank, refusing to provide him with any explanation of the how and why he was here, his memories were fuzzy, and his body felt numb.
He slowly and laboriously pushed himself off the ground beneath him, the only solid thing assuring him that he wasn’t drifting off in some kind of lightless void. Stone slabs felt uneven and raw underneath his fingers, this… Didn’t feel like the floor of his apartment-- he vaguely thought.
“What..?” He started before closing his eyes as the headache spiked, the sound of his own voice unnaturally loud to his ears.
He squinted his eyes at the surrounding darkness, starting to feel unnerved at the oppressive and stale atmosphere that lingered around him.
Slowly, he dragged himself across the floor, tentatively probing at the ground until he found the base of a wall, made of the same roughly textured rocks.
What the hell.-- his fuzzy mind thought through his migraine as he dragged his hand up, leaning on the hard surface to try and stand on his feet.
This simple movement had siphoned the majority of his strength out of him, the numbness he felt when he had woken up starting to fade, making him acutely aware of a sharp pain on his back, right between his shoulder blades. One that only seemed to slowly spread to the rest of his body.
It burned. It felt dizzy.
Despite the low temperature of the cell (cell ?) he was trapped (trapped ?) in, beads of sweat started to pearl down his back. He ran a hand absent-mindedly under his shirt (the fabric was rough, he didn't own anything like that, did he ?), trying to wipe it away, it bothered him.
It was warm, a bit too thick to be sweat.
He exhaled and slid back down against the wall, sharp corners of uneven stones scratched the skin of his arms.
He stared at his hand in the darkness, unable to see anything more than a vague outline.
He frowned and, in his dazed state, opened his lips to taste the liquid,
Somewhere in the back of his mind, an alarm rang at the bitter and metallic taste that spread in his mouth.
"Oh my god, what are you ? A crybaby ?" A voice drowned by static noises mocked fondly in the back of his head. "It's just a bit of blood, look I'm sorry, I'll get you some tissues."
His eyes fluttered in the dark.
...
He didn't know how much time he had spent curled in the corner of the dark room, breathing unevenly, fogged mind trying to make any sense of what was happening to him. He drifted in and out of consciousness, oscillating between fevers and shivers. The pain of his back had dulled, but the burning sensation was still there, keeping him awake when all he really wanted at the moment was to sleep.
Distant memories kept him company in his delirious state. In the darkness, he saw silhouettes running, laughs echoed in his head as he watched their blurry figures walk away, swallowed by the dark of his cell. In addition to sounds and visions, ghost touches felt themselves on his skin. A hand hovering on his forehead, taking in his temperature, or a playful pat on the shoulder, encouraging him to get better.
In rare moments of lucidity, he sometime was able to name the voices he heard, the most recurrent, a girl whose face escaped him, was it Lara ? Lora ? Lana ?
"Come on, you're the smart one-! Get us out of here!" A ghost hand shook his shoulder, his body jolted, the wound on his back burned in a way that numbed his brain, the voice faded away.
...
He felt sick.
Not physically, at least, not anymore. The wound on his back, although of nature still unknown to him, didn't hurt the way it did when he had woken up for the first time (how long ago was that ?). He was uncomfortably aware of the dried blood that clung to his skin underneath his shirt, but hadn't tried to scrape it, too scared to peel off the coagulated coat that was probably the only thing preventing him to go back in that semi-conscious state of hemorrhagic delirium.
He was also aware of the sticky puddle of blood at his feet as he crouched with his back to the wall, glaring at the darkness in front of him, his own. The stench was disgusting, the stale, heavy air, now tinged with a metallic hint that left a bad aftertaste in the back of his throat. But he swallowed his bile back, there was no need to worsen the sanitary condition of this place.
Talking about this place, where was he ?
Why was he here ? How had he gotten here ? But there was no use, his brain still felt sluggish, trying to remember something past the time he had spent here (still to be determined) was like trying to move through quick sands; the harder you tried, the more it seemed to fought back against you.
It vaguely occurred to him that he should've felt overwhelmed by panic at the moment, that would've been a perfectly reasonable, expected reaction to find oneself in an unfamiliar, pitch black environment. But, truth be told, he was exhausted, and his mind still felt fogged.
He sighed.
The rough sound echoed in the room.
The ghastly silhouette of a young girl curled at his sides, looking straight ahead of her, appeared in the corner of his eyes.
She watched the lake in front of them, stems of herbs, growing on the shores, swayed in the wind, the foliage of trees fluttered above them, light filtered through the leaves. She clicked her tongue in annoyance, a habit they both seemed to share, and squinted her eyes.
"Hey, Shin, give me your sunglasses."
"Buy your own." He answered out loud in a cracked whisper, voice dry.
He didn't know many things as of right now, but he did know that;
one. He was very probably losing his mind
and two. He was named Shin. And for now, that would be enough to cling to.
I liked your cover
A completely valid reason to start a book