I wore blue, for as a story seeker, that was the only color permitted to me; I walked across the blackened stone floor of the dungeon. I feel a draft of an echo of this place.

  A shiver is cast down my spine; I look into the small decrepit corridor that has outlasted empires and seen the births of New Year. It was an unassuming corridor, but there was a depth to it, as if it stole away some of the life of the prisoners as if it siphoned their very vitality and added to its own. This dungeon has held heirs of great families, genius savants, and palatines that I am not fit to speak their very name, but the man I was going to see was nothing but a street urchin. I arrive at room twenty-four; it's neither the biggest nor the smallest room; I would say it's one of the most average ones. The door was an ugly thing, ……….. I look into the door and wonder what man will be behind it. Pressing the key into the lock, I hear the sound of an echo, and the door unlocks. I walk into the dimly illuminated room. I see a bed in the corner of the room, and right next to it, I see a small desk. I then slid in and shut the door behind me.

  The inhabitant of room twenty-four is staring at me; I lift the white slip, and he looks at it and nods his head. Every man reacts differently when you tell them they're going to die. Some cry, some beg, some try to hide their sadness, and some don't care. This man was the latter; he looked hollow as if the world had stolen his soul, and as I stared into the eyes of the corpse in front of me, I saw a subtle strength or vitality in his eyes, as if one part of him was still alive. It's nearly impossible to describe a man's eyes, but if I were to, I would say they were hardened steel, but they were faded as if the steel had rusted. His face told a story of grief, for his face was plastered with scars as if he had been anointed in the fire; he looked almost handsome, but the years had stolen that from him. He reeked of promises broken and oaths forsworn.

  I asked the man, "Do you accept, and if you do, name your boon of the court”. The man looked back at me and licked his lips, and in the steel, I saw fear, not of death but fear of reliving the past and the mistakes that come with it. The job of a story seeker was hard, but not for the reasons you think. You would assume telling people that they were going to die was the hardest part; no, it was stealing their story, for the men and women that would find their way here have less than nothing. The world has beaten and stolen all that they have until the only thing they have; that connects them to their humanity is their story. It is the very essence of their being, and I come to steal it, the one thing that the world could never steal; I take. They don't have to accept the offer, and most of the time I wish they didn't, but they always do. Sometimes they do it for an old vice, some for the company, some to tell their story, and some to leave more of a spec on the world, so that the world can remember them for just a bit longer. The man nodded. I asked him, “What is the boon that you seek from the court?” The man responded in a hollow tone that told a story of grief and sorrow as if it would take a philosopher just to grasp a visage of his pain. I nod and ask him if I can sit down; he nods his agreement, and I walk into the room and I sit down at the desk. “Are there any accomplishments or titles that you want to mention?” The man looked up, and for a second I thought he wouldn't speak, but he did. “I only have one dead worth counting…. I was the friend of a man who was sheltered from this world.”

  Beginning

  I was neither tall nor short, neither intelligent nor a dullard; I had a caramel complexion, and I had eyes that would shift depending on the whims of the sun. Sometimes they were a light brown, and at others, they were a deep bronze. I don't remember my parents, for the last memory I have left is that of a pale sunset. I could start the story there, but that was before I was taken by this world, and those memories will die with me so that I may boast that I have died with a small part of me still intact. So if I were to recount the deeds of my life, I should start with my only deed. It was the third day of the week of Augusto, and it was the zenith of noon. I was hungry and was down to my last two pennies, for I had just treated myself to a pastry, and the memory of the flavor still plagued my mind. I had been looking for the perfect mark for the last three hours, the type of people who thought they owned the world, you know the type. I was sitting down at my favorite place. It was the steps of an apartment that was perfectly positioned so that you could see all the people walking in and out of the crosswalk. Then I saw a man wrapped in cloth of gold, with pale blue eyes walking as if he was the duke of this Esantino, but this wasn't true for the province of Esantino, which was beholden to no kingdom, for it was run by the table of commerce. Standing up, I scurry into the crowd looking for the man that just passed me. Shoving my way through the crowd, I scan every person I cross, hoping above hope that I will see my target. I saw a glimpse of him, but then my foot was misplaced, and I stepped on a man’s shoe. The man pushed me back, and then I lost him again. I ran faster and faster, and a drop of sweat ran down my ear. I started to get scared, and my mind started to run: “What if he is already gone?” “What if he was never there in the first place?” it says. I'm broken out of my trance when out of the corner of my eye I see the man; I slow down so that I'm walking above a crawl. I observe the man looking for a bulge, and then I see his rightmost trouser pocket. I speed up just a bit so I'm walking at a speed wall, and then I start to count 5, 4, 3 2 1 Now, I bump into the man. The second I bump into him, I squeeze his leg and pull out his wallet. By the time he turns around to face me, his wallet is securely placed in my breast pocket. The man turns around and hits me in my rib cage. I move with the blow so that he only grazes me. He storms off while yelling profanity after profanity, to be exact, 3 types of feces, 3 types of animals, and 2 types of intercourse. I get up and walk back the way I came; I finger the wallet; the brass finishings are cold upon my skin, and the leather is soft but stern, like a firm handshake. I walk faster, and a thought crosses my mind; my hand moves as fast as a viper striking my right hidden breast pocket, and it's gone, my savings there gone; in their place, there's a note: “Come and find me. P.S. I want my wallet back.” It was signed “no one.” I skulk back to my hideout while thinking through possibilities. Was the man insane? But he was still able to find where my coin was and steal it without me noticing. Maybe he was some kind of mad genius, and then another thought came to my mind: What if he was looking for apprentices, but he was wearing clothing that was worth at least 2 talents? No way any normal thief could make that. My mind comes to a stop when I notice the great scratch which marks the entrance to my hideout if you can call it that. It was an unimpressive thing: it was hidden in the intersection of two buildings. When I finally arrive, I sit on the one blanket I own and take out my wallet. I opened it, and as I suspected, it was empty. Looking back at the wallet, I thought to myself, “This has to be worth at least 20 silvers, so Oliver will probably give me 8”.I knew I needed the money, but I had never seen something this nice before, so I decided to keep it unless I needed the money.

  Lying down, I thought of the odd man and his note, and then slowly sleep took me and my issues which had seemed so life-changing before away, like how the ocean takes the tide and gives them respite for one infantile magnificent moment, and then they rage again only waiting, and hoping for that respite that they felt before. For I pity those forces of nature who are condemned to a seas lies eternity of existence, and I do pity humanity for we do get an eternal respite but do we still fight against those eternal forces, and in that, I as a human take pride in my very existence and the existence of my species. I woke up crawling out of the sewer I called home; I looked into the city of Santino, with buildings rusted and caked in dust with pathways that meandered as if a drunkard had painted the plans to the roads and streets. There were drunkards on every corner and star-eyed addicts on every other corner; the city was placed in the perfect position so that it was either boiling so hot that if you sat on blackened cobbles, your pants would catch fire, or so cold that your snot would freeze before it dropped. The hovel, which the people called a city, was built in a grand manner where the duke once lived.

  There had been so many assassination attempts on the duke at the time that there were hundreds of watchmen at any given moment, and they were permitted to butcher anything that stepped foot on the green valley that the duke called a “yard.” Though the duke lived like an emperor, there would always be an excuse or another on why the tariffs or the taxes had to be raised. One time there was an “infestation” of killer rabbits that had to be quelled, but I must have been blind because I never saw a single rabbit that year. One time it was for a new kennel that needed to be built, but the project got closed for “not enough water supply”, even though the lake that it was siphoning water from was 50 feet deep and looked more like an ocean than a pond. The mansions of the duke and the councilmen always seemed to grow grander and grander, and it seemed that there were always more and more luxuries that were imported for the duke and his men. Every once in a while there would be a councilman who would ask funny questions like, “Where is the money that was set for this bridge?” The oddest thing would always happen next: they would always have some alignment and would be found dead the next day. Sometimes it was a poison, and other times their head would just fall from their neck. What an odd coincidence that is. One time there was a friendly gathering in front of the duke's palace; if I remember right, it numbered something like 10,000 strong. That's a big party if you ask me, but I never really was a social butterfly. They would hold up fun signs like “Down with the Duke,” “The Duke is a bastard,” and other fun things like that, and they would scream and chant fun profanity. I'll leave it up to your imagination. They partied like this for hours until one woman with skin of rough leather and hair the color of the setting sun walked onto the lawn of the duke; her eyes were a light brown faded as if they had seen countless tragedies, but there was something else hidden beneath the fatigue: it was a strength in the incoherent shell of a thing, but it was as present as the whisper of a dead man. All the partygoers held their breath for some odd reason that must be escaping me; they waited and waited, but nothing happened. Then one by one they all followed the lady into the yard, and it seemed those wonderful guardsmen who would wander in battalions seemed to be all gone that day. What a coincidence! Maybe they got the flu; they must have been unlucky, for it was a fine day. The group marched for 20 minutes until they reached the manor; they knocked, and the duke opened his grand Victorian doors, or they broke them down; I can't remember. I don't know what happened next, but the next day the city square was bathed in blood, and there was a new ornament with blue eyes placed on a pike in the city square. From that day on the province of Esantino was ruled by the Table of Commerce, who happened to have made a small donation to the party.

  “To call upon strength or vitality that is not inherently yours requires avarice and vanity so deeply interviewed that they become one. Yet to invoke upon this strength and to establish your laws and regulations upon it, and for it to head your commandments as its own requires a credence that could block out the sun.”

  —A man who has seen the stars

  The day was wet as if the essence of that day was born forth by a merciful god, yet knowing the truth is only useful for those not bound by fate, those who are not ensnared by the will of humanity, the incoherent force that shapes our reality. Pacing into a new day, the incoherence of life struck me, the meaninglessness perceived in every action, yet we persist; we fight against the incoherent meaning of life for no reason other than to prove to ourselves that we possess the very strength of will that is required for humanity to continue. This epiphany hit me while staring up into the dark infinity that I had always hidden from, the realization that we are nothing but a blip in history that will be forgotten. I persisted despite this epiphany, or did I continue because of this dark truth that I still do not know?

  Gazing into the streets of the indecent city, I looked for the merchant who had been known to me as “the man with the beard,” for he was a basic man; if you were to put him in a crowd of 20, you would eventually pick him out, but he wouldn't be the first, and as you would guess, his one distinct factor was his graying beard. For the people of this town who had so little, who inhabited hovels and prayed for better days, this man’s beard must have been one of, if not the most precious, earthly possessions that he ever owned. I walked against the current looking for the old weather between stalls. I finally see the stall while walking up to it and the man notices me. He didn’t smile at me but the corner of his lips twisted up, without saying a word he handed me a 2-day-old loaf and I placed the 2 pennies on the counter. This man was a bastard, but he was a fair bastard at that. I give the man the slightest nod and start to pace away while biting the bread. Then I started to walk back to my steps, even though I didn't own or maintain them or live in the bungalow above I still called them mine for they held a connection that was greater than the simple monetary connection that was connected by owning a piece of property. It was a connection of will, the unspoken force that bound our reality. My legs felt scraped raw; they were like the legs of a table that had been worn down to almost nothing, but the pain pushed me forward in some sadistic way. When I arrived at my steps I saw something, it was the man from last time, but this time instead of going through the bridge like he was last time he was walking through the allies around the bridge entrance, I was given two choices A sit back down and forget about the man or B test my luck, and I could have use some luck so I picked the latter. My body disagreed with my mind's choice, but what they said in the country of Athuiania was “The mind is dominant over the body for the flesh is weak” or something like that I can't remember. This time I divided early enough that I didn't have to run. I was a few seconds behind him when I first lost track he had just turned into the first ally, and then a few seconds in turned in too. This repeated a few times until the fourth ally we turned in, the man had just turned to the next ally and I was just about in the middle, and then I saw four men built like great oaks come out of nowhere they were 6 foot tall and half as wide, and one man had a sack which seemed to be spilling a white powder, and if my instincts were right, that was Athuiania white powder. It cost a small fortune, I thought about stealing it and then I remembered what predicament I was in. In a way, I was kind of honored that these men would spend a fortune just to knock me out. I'm not going to say what happened next because I think you can guess on that front. When I came too I was hit by _____ it was one of the worst things I have ever smelled and that's coming from a man who has lived on the streets and inhabited sewers. All I saw was darkness, I reached my hand to attempt to pull off the sack that I thought was still on my head, but my arms were locked in place something was holding them down, I used my right hand to feel the thing that wraps around my left hand its steal cold to the touch, it's thick, it's almost half my thumb thick and there tight I try to twist it around my hand so it's in a more comfortable position but I can't. Looking down at what my hands are attached to I can barely make out through the darkness. I see a long circular wooden shaft that disappeared into the wall, and there is a hole on the top which my hands connect to. Looking down at my feet I notice that there not bound to the wood, the chains they disappear down into the ship, I try to stand up but my legs are asleep, I try and massage life into them, and then slowly they start to gain fell ing, after a few minutes of this I try to stand up again, I succeed this time, I try to turn myself so my hands are facing the wood and I try to take a step backward while fully extending my arms, but I'm stopped by the chains that bind my legs.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I sit back down and start to observe my surroundings, when I see a shadow, I call out, but my voice is raspy from the lack of water say “Hello, is anyone there” but what comes out is a whisper, i cough, and try again, this time something audible comes out of my mouth. Then waiting above hopes that there was someone else here, then it came me a voice cut through the shadows “So you're awake ” his voice seemed to echo so I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but the voice persisted it was like a fire a cold night, a ledge in the midst a storm. “What's your name, " he said, not thinking I responded _________. Or I tried too but what came out was an incoherent sound, but then I heard a second voice, and the instant his voice touched my lips I knew I hated the guy. I have never claimed to be a saint; I do judge people based on one characteristic, and that is whether they are good people or not. Sometimes you can just tell, from their voice; if a person's eyes are a keyhole into their soul then the voice is the translucent glass window. In a grating deep tone, he said “Bet he doesn't have a name”. Then a third voice was separated from the maelstrom “Of course he has a name, all men have one”. I tried to speak again and blessedly an audible intelligible tone came out of my mouth, “My name is _____”. Then I heard the first voice again, “I'm Hector Marcell”, but the other two voices were silent as if they had forgotten me, the voice that I had come to associate as “hector” sighed, “Were in a gally”. Then the realization hit me like a sword to the back, the darkness, the wooden rod that my hands were bound to. I decided to ask a third question “What day is it ”, the man responded “No clue ”, then he asked me the same question,” I don't know but I was last conscious on the fourth day of the third week of gusto”, Then he asked a second question “what country were you in ”. From his last question, I knew that he did not know his whereabouts, so this was the only card that I held up my sleeve, i was stuck at a standstill, I had three options the first was to lie and see if he would answer my question, then tell him the truth but what if the question was a test and he already knew the truth, and he wanted to see if I was trustworthy.The other route was to withhold the information and to trade it for some information but what was stopping him from lying to me in return, or he could just not tell me anything after I told him? There was a third option: the truth, if he was testing me I would pass. It probably had the highest chance of getting me factual information and in this case, being ignorant is significantly better than believing incorrect information to be true. So I picked honesty, I was last off of __________ in the city of _________ when I first got knocked out. Then for a moment, there was silence, I guess the entire cabin was listening to our conversation.Then a second later I heard a creak that cut through the silence, and then I started to stair up, and there I saw a sliver of moonlight, which grew until what seemed to be a door had been swung wide open, a second later a man stepped into the light, and his shadow was cast down the staircase into the brig. He looked divine, standing there the shadow was his armor and the silence was cast around him as if it was his mantle, in each hand he held something that looked like…. But then he took another step and the divine infallible deity standing there only a few seconds ago was gone. He was not a small man mind you, he was still almost a giant with a neck the size of my two thighs put together and thighs that more closely resembled tree trunks. Even though he was a prime specimen of man, what one in a thousand ? one in ten thousand? It did not matter for he was still a man of flesh and blood, not the divinity that stood here only a few seconds ago. What I had once seen as implements of a god turned out to be nothing more than a lantern and a bucket. He took another step until he reached the ground level then he stopped for a second. He started to finger his lantern a second later the room was engulfed in light, I started to squint against the bright light until my eyes had fully adjusted, I looked into the cellar with new eyes what had been a dark abyss was now a bare allumette cellar it held 10 men comfortably on each side with a walkway in the center, without uttering a word the man took two steps that were neither fast nor slow until he reached the first man then he reached into the bucket. Then when his hand reemerged it appeared to be wrapped around 5 pieces of hard tack. The man chained to the oar put his hands together just like how the beggars who lived on Third Street right across the temple would. Without a word exchanged the man took another step and then he was at the second man, the same event happened with one difference instead of putting his hands together the man kept them by his side as if it was a form of defiance, the man giving out the bread seemed nonplussed and dropped it anyone. This continued until he reached me, “Why am I here?” I asked in a voice that was akin to a scorched desert. The man did not respond, he didn't even have a facial expression, he just continued. But there was one difference he didn't drop me anything, he just pivoted and went on to the next man then I realized his trick how do you keep men in line you can whip and torture them but that takes time and resources isn't it just easier to starve them. Then the man did the same for every person, he didn't speak once and anyone who acted out would just be skipped. Then he left and he took the light with him, and then slowly as if it was a roaring fire the racket came back until it was as if it had never left. I tried to listen in but it was as if they spoke a different language. They used thick accents and sentences that didn’t make sense: at first, I thought they weren’t speaking English but after a moment I was relieved that they were using too many words that I know for it to be a coincidence. I never spoke proper English I spoke the broken parts my English was a bunch of rags sewn together by twine that was fraying at the edges.Yet in comparison to this dialect that the 20 or some slaves had managed to create my English was a priestess satan garment and there was the rag carpet you would find in front of the markets, worth so little that even the beggars wouldn’t steal it for fear of contracting some infection. For a few minutes, I just sat there trying to understand the new language that had taken birth in the cellar. Until they remembered me again and the familiar voice spoke again, but this time I noticed an oddity in his speech: it wasn't the broken dialect that everyone else used. It was perfect English. The kind they used to write books, was elegant like a rose but there was also a strength hidden beneath like the thorns of a rose. What’s your name? The rose said, then I gave it to him, and I in returned a question of my own “Why did he skip me”, I knew the answer the second I saw it happen but I had to be certain. “They don’t feed the people who talk to them” the rose returned. Then I waited for his question as it was only fair. He asked a question I never thought he would ask not because it was crazy or because it was unheard of but because

  Then they sang oh how they sang with an elegance that belied the prison that they were constrained by. For when they sang they weren't the filthy slaves that were below the lowest of beggars, they were something more, something incomprehensible, they were ideal. They bellowed like canons, without any preparation they sang better than any grand band or symphony I have ever heard; and I was part of it. I was one of the voices that was found in the maelstrom; even though I didn't know the word they came to me. The words appeared as if the gods had implanted them into my head.

  “One day I'll see the sun, one day I'll feel the warmth on my skin, then the ships will burn (2), and then will be free (3)” Those three lines repeated indefinitely as we rowed. They were the glue that bound us together; the glue that kept us growing. Then the cold seemed to bite just a bit less, the smell seemed to be a little less potent and the backbreaking force seemed to ache just a bit less. So we continued to row and time seemed to move just a bit quicker and life seemed to be just a bit more bearable, and everything seemed to be just alright. So we rowed and we sang for hours, and everything of this world had been concentrated into one point balanced by the complexity of the two inversely bound actions. Then a bell rang and we stopped, and I was freed from the trance and what had become the world to me came back into focus. Then I noticed I was breathing heavily, my mouth was hyperventilating, and I was drenched in water, it had leaked through my garments until they had almost become translucent. I laid down and closed my eyes and just breathed, trying to recover but then my arms started to ache and it started to slowly move up my arm until it reached my shoulder, then I slept. It was the best sleep I have ever had up to that point in my life, then I was woken by the bell, and then we were fed the same food as last time. But this time I learned my lesson and I didn't speak so I was fed. Then I realized the schedule we would eat after the first bell rang, then we would wait until it rang once more, that would signal we would start rowing, and after the third bell, we would sleep and then repeat. That is what became my life for weeks and then months, I would start to despise the second bell and love the third. In between the first and second bell, we would talk about tiny things, the things that kept us sane. We would talk about small things like the taste of a good beer or arguing over which country would have won this or that war if there had been a change in one thing or another. The world had become concentrated into one point in this room and the bell was my god it told me what to do and when to do it, it almost became a part of it for it was what commanded the strength of my arm, and the thoughts of my brain. One distinct detail that I always seemed to ponder in the few minutes of consciousness of my life was why did these men never talk about their life?, Or we became close closer than brothers for we became one en we would rois when we rowed. My life became simple a simplicity that I have never seen in my life, my brain never needed to think about anything. So I rested and I became a caged animal, one that shared more with a bull than a man. An indiscernible amount of time passed until something had broken the illusion of stability that the endless repetition of meaningless actions had crafted. It was the sound of iron, it was the sound of a battle. For some reason or another, this sound woke some part of me that I never knew excited from its trance, and some semblance of vitality seeped back into me. The sounds continued for a few more hours, and as time went on they started to lessen in intensity and come less often until they stopped in their entirety. Then everything went back to normal, but it wasn't that small part of him that had awakened and called for freedom, and blood. This Call echoed within me screaming to be let free, and as days passed the scream claimed more often and it started to come lower. Then other parts of my entirety started to listen to the screams; until one day it culminated in my entire being from the depth of my soul screaming for escape. Then I stopped rowing, and I screamed and raged against my bonds for hours. Then the devil came down again, and this time I told him what I felt about his policies. I shouted profanity after profanity, and I raged at my bonds just trying to bridge the gap between my chains and the man but I was only human, and I could not bend iron. Even though I screamed and raged he didn’t acknowledge me in any way other than passing me over. I raged for three days straight until something had connected, and the circuit was completed. Then I felt its indescribable power, and the chains that seemed unmovable instructional only a few minutes before broke. Then I ran with no thought or reason, straight into the wall, and the war broke. The water was cold and unforgiving but was freedom, and there I was baptized in salt. The coldness of the water also brought my mind back into focus and the insanity that had plagued me disappeared as my instincts for survival fought to keep me alive.

  Then the predicament of my situation, yes I had escaped my bonds but now I was in the middle of nowhere in cold water with no inclination to where land was. So I decided to swim until I died or I reached freedom.

  Then I swam the water was cold but I persisted, I didn’t know anything about my life but I knew one thing, that I was to swim so I swam. I didn’t swim with all my force but I went at a constant effort, I went through the motions but I never applied an excessive amount of force. So then I swam, I would swim for hours until my strength seemed to disperse and then I would float on my back until I would swim again. So I was bound to the ocean, as the tide is bound to the moon.

  Then slowly as time passed, my strength strengthened and wavered inversely proportional to the coming and going of the waves. So my mind retreated from the cold sea, and the wet sting that had infested the rest of my body. It found refuge in an indescribable place, somewhere that was both real and not; It was a respite from the pain and starvation that had plagued me.

  An indescribable amount of time passed, that had seemed to be found in between the fine line that is used to mark substantial and inconsequential.

  For I still lived so the length of time could not truly be that great; yet my skin was weathered, and a portion of the rags that had made up my attire was consumed by the great depths.