***********

***********

Prologue: Immortal Anguish

Imprisonment, torture, starvation – elements of cruelty possessed only in the nature of men and spawned by their malicious ambitions of controlling the weak; Power over the less spirited. It has been done century after century and for Morgaine, it was a play of dominance well worn-out. Human nature turned into wickedness, into a state of pure and utter corruption, when it was found deficient in life. Sadly, it was the way of things.

The days passed on slowly, the stench of sweat, rotting flesh, and waste flaring within her nostrils, choking the air and her sanity. She sat numbly in discomfort atop the floor; her legs and arms weakened of their strength and etched with cuts and bruises, as she stared with vacant interest at the bare, chilled walls of her prison cell.

Her hope for escape was running out; for even the dead were left unburied, their decaying corpses still shackled and strung up like a discarded rag doll within their cage. There they were left, untouched, as if they were nothing more than a mere animal pelt. The poor souls they had once been… She had watched them die, slowly, rotting away from flesh to bone, in front of her.

Screams came day and night, ringing in her ears as the bellows of her tormentors followed in hot pursuit of fierce questioning and demands. They call themselves men; they call themselves messengers of a great God, Christians of righteousness… but in truth they were not but barbarians, men secretly enjoying torture whilst claiming that it was the will of their own God…

She was their favorite person to tell this to; they had discovered her secrets by their inhuman games of pain and bloodshed. She was a Pagan, but also someone who healed quickly and couldn’t die. An Immortal.

And to them, a demon of the underworld.

Waiting for help faded; waiting for escape and freedom, in this weakened state of hers, also ceased. She couldn’t die, as she had hundred of times before, to give her peace. She would awaken and then the pain and torture would begin anew.

She had been in this hole for a year, the longest surviving victim than any person who had ever been trapped in this place of pure hell. Most were lucky to last even beyond four months. Not her. She had died and awakened, countless times, and each time filled her with a new sense of dread. Imprisonment, torture starvation…--

‘Freedom,’ her mind prayed in silence.