Chapter 13 Fire That Never Goes Out

When they reached the castle, they were met by two guards. Both guards were equally tall, their eyes peered over into the eyes of the army, as if they had it all. But instead as they took out their muskets to fight, the resistance shot at them with a barrage of musket fire of their own. Then they stormed the castle, and eventually fought long enough until they were apprehended by the guards. “Take them away, take them away.” the chief guard said. And then the group were taken to their cells. Fina, Nina, and Airaca should have known this was a ruse. And they spent the rest of that night in a cold damp cell.

She felt like her bones began to ache, a moment; eternal absence of the sun. A moment to take, a chance to shake away the moment to take. Her sister found sticks in her pocket, but they were not sticks but bird bones ripped away from their sockets. For a moment, Fina wanted to save them -- as she was not sure when they were going to get their next meal, whether the the scraps would be their last. Both of the girls were close together, holding their knees with their backs to the walls. Fina already felt old, and wondered of at any moment Nina would change back into that moment of saving grace. Remembered how she changed into someone, that was not Nina -- but someone else. Then passed out onto the ground of the cell, with sand in her face.

There was a knocking on the door, and Fina wondered “is that for me?” No, only the sound of clashing trays. Those fiery eyes of, the guards faces displays. She looked onward and shook.

“Beware the spirit of the cells,” the guard said. Then placed the tray of food through the slot in the door, which carried a sort of soup and drink. “and their hooks.” The guard then left into the darkened hallway, his echoes drifting into silence. This voice gradually merged into another voice, of a slightly different dialect. From something that sounded not like a man, but different from the other skeleton men. “I am Beck.” Fina simply crawled to the wall. And stared at the old skeleton head. Didn’t have a chance to leave, not at all. “Fair child,” the old skeleton head said.

“Who are you?” Fina said.

“I am simply a prisoner,” Its voice began to echo itself, through out the damp dirt prison. It merged with the sound of rats crawling along the walls. “like you.” And then its the echoes from it’s speech began to gradually die down once again into silence. And she saw it’s body, hung aloft by the hooks on the wall, just as the black hooded skeleton guard had warned. No escape, none at all. Then Nina pushed herself up, and then she was woken up. Her eyes opened gradually. She felt the cold of the room. A quickened breath, her soul to take. The chance to shake off the nerves of their confinement. There was no question of the old skeleton mans alignment, until it spoke in a whisper. Then she heard the voice, of speaking Beck. A sound, a specific agony, of the skeleton mans own personal heck.

An fire that would never go out.

“I tried to talk to your sister,” the skeleton man spoke up, and then his quieted down. The man had long sense given up any sort of escape, but he hoped somehow maybe this girls could. He had heard from the other prisoners, of the old skeleton king being tortured up stairs, and wondered if it was his voice that he had heard, screaming in the dark. “does she normally not speak much?” Nina gave a sort of silent speech, resembling more like moving lips. She was to silent to speak. “Can you here that, it’s the revolutionary at the scaffold. You should perhaps try to find a hole in the wall.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Fina, let’s go.”

Fina and Nina are walking to one of the walls, and notice that there is a fairly large hole. Nina turns around to look at the skeleton head. “Are you sure your going to be fine?” But for a moment the skeleton man did not answer. Instead it was as if the skeleton man were not still alive after all. ...Then he spoke briefly.

“I will be fine, leave me behind. Don’t come back.” The girls then crawled through the hole. Nina went in first, because she wanted her to be the one that was not seen. She then went sideways, and crawled through the hole in the wall. They came upon another side. The hole was larger enough, so much that it almost looked like a hallway in and off itself. Almost if it were a hall itself that was built over. Fina and Nine were walking upon the dirt, and Fina took out her binoculars to look to see how far they needed to walk.

It was a good ways.