Turn Right
You turn right and limp down the corridor, on two feet at first but then on four, giving the beast its head as the human turns in on itself and shudders. Your man’s nature recoils as you pull yourself forward on your bleeding elbows and knees, head low as if you beg an omnipresent spirit to heal your hurts.
You could not deal with a guard, but none come. There are only long successions of occupied cells to your left, most empty- gaping at the man-beast- but a few occupied, with people bound in silver as you were, naked and normal and seeming to sleep and only dream their pain. The beast thinks of itself always, and so crawls on.
Perhaps you were changing into a rat or a stoat: something that dens. You pry off a drain cover, ripping the brittle claws off your human-shape hands like the scabs they are, and writhe downwards into cool damp. The wet walls of the passage are made smoother by the mashing and blood-slicking of the skin on your back and legs. You dive into the dark.
But you’re chasing the light. You follow paths of greater illumination, letting your nose and pointed ears steer you to the surface. You follow fireflies of light until one swallows you whole and spits you into day- into the sprawling town at the foot of the fortress built against the hilltop.
What now?
Written by ouroboros666 on 14 July 2016
The end (for now)