Darkness. It was everywhere. It seeped through the tiny sliver of dusty light, it swarmed like bees from the stones in the floor. There was no escape. It was coming for her, and there was nothing she could do about it. It filled every inch, every crevice of this damp, dark cell. 

 The prison was suffocating and smothering. The tiny slip of light could barely make its way through the heavy iron bars casting a dim brightness.

The light was some small mercy, she supposed. But it was only a matter of time before it too was snuffed out. The tiny thing that kept her from tumbling into the deep cavern of insanity would disappear without a trace. 

And no one would care. They never had and they never would. No one would miss her as she had missed her beloved.

She could hear the steady drip of water in the corner of her cell, slow and monotonous. It was the only sound of noise, save for her shaking sobs and muffled, haunting screams. Hours had melted into days, which had melted into weeks. She didn’t know how long she had been in this Hell.

She could make out the sound of daunting footsteps approaching, low and ominous. This would be her end. She would die alone and friendless, without a single person to help her through these final moments of life. She would die with the misery of knowing that, when she died, her kingdom would die along with her.

The footsteps neared. She held her breath and the door burst open with a low creak. It was taunting her, reminding her that everything she had ever loved would soon be demolished into oblivion and she could do nothing about it. That the gruesome fate her people were sentenced to was all her fault.

The silence in the room was deafening, louder than any yell could ever be. A chilling clicking noise sent a shiver down her spine. A hazy light flashed on, momentarily blinding her. Not able to shield her eyes from the dim brightness, she tried to blink away the murky fog over her eyes. As her vision cleared, so did the dark, robed figure in front of her. A helpless scream stuck in her throat as she gasped in terror.

"What do you want this time?" she rasped, her voice burning with the effort. "I told you, I won't betray my kingdom."

The man sneered, kicking off the walls, his face becoming apparent with burn marks. "It's not your kingdom. Your ‘kingdom’ left you here to die. They were fully aware of what we would do with you, what we would do to you. And yet, they abandoned you. Why not abandon them?"

She didn't hesitate. "I've said it before, and I'll say it now. No."

The man glared spitefully, abandoning all pretenses of being diplomatic.

"You were raised to kill, to plunder, to destroy them. And now they've destroyed you," he bellowed, his red face flinging spit on her face.

He walked up to her, caressing her cheek predatorially, his hand lingering on her lips for an extra second.

Hissing, his eyes glinted maliciously, "A person can't change overnight. Especially not a person like you. You are a murderer. A traitor," he backed up, a sinister smile now on his face.

"You want to do this the hard way? Sure. Let’s do it. But just know that when your kingdom falls, just know that it is your fault. And just like everything else you've ever been in contact with, you were its downfall."

And he left her, leaving her in the sinister cell, alone. The man paused by the doorway. “Zaros!” he called out harshly. “You know what to do.”

As a series of pain-filled screams pierced the air, the man smirked.

“And so it begins.”