Captive...

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

He rapped his rhythmic reply against the mildew covered wall. The cold steel clasped his scarred wrists, connecting him profoundly to his environment.

It was at times like these when he felt that it was nature alone that was left to communicate with him. He had lost count of the rising and setting suns, but he guessed now that it had been several months since he saw his captor, since he had been dumped in this pit, since humanity had abandoned him.

He scratched at the lice which crawled amongst his sweat streaked clothing. His skin felt clammy and tight across his bones. He was a pathetic imitation of the man who had cut his wrists to ribbons in one of the many early frustrated attempts to escape. He could feel the straggly ends of his hair brushing his shoulders, damp from the morning rainfall. The length was some indication of how long ago those attempts had been.

He rested his head on his bent knees. His joints had ceased to complain about the natural constraints of the pit’s size, a sign that his body was meekly accepting the longevity of his situation. And where his body led his mind had begun to follow.

It pained him most of all that he was beginning to lose his faculties. The flimsy curtain between reality and imagined was being torn asunder in the darkness of the pit.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

The rhythm eased the delusions, slowed the congested gasps of his lungs, but drew him a heartbeat closer to madness each time. Faith in his release had sustained him for so long, but now all that was left was the final vestiges of rain dripping from the iron grill high above him, corroding his very soul.