“I will retrieve you when necessary." Her face is unnaturally blank and still. She thrusts me towards the men. They are both tall, wearing the winter warrior garb. The blunt ends of their spears rest against the ground.
One gives Hibsej a bored look. "What's this?"
She straightens, glaring at the both of them. "She needs to spend the next two weeks in there."
The guard pauses. "Cause?"
"She didn't please her master." Hibsej spits.
The men nod. One lifts the rusted handle.
The smell intensifies by a thousand.
The air is thick with decomposing human waste mixed with rot. The fumes choke me as I am shoved toward the mouth of the darkness.
The butt of a spear rams between my shoulder blades. I tumble through the entrance, and I crash into the damp, spongey ground.
Sharp pain from the impact radiates through my bones. I stop breathing. Save the few moonbeams streaming through the surface, I am surrounded by darkness and can only make out a few glinting surfaces of something wet.
I try desperately not to look too closely, wrapping my arms around my body, despite my stinging flesh.
I take deep breaths through my mouth and close my eyes, trying to ignore whatever lurks in the darkness. I look up to see Hibsej's face, along with the other giants. A short ladder extends down toward me a few rungs.
Not nearly low enough to reach.
"Please," I beg.
She shakes her head, nose wrinkled. "Gods, it smells like shit."
"We'll let it air out a bit," one grumbles.
She waves a hand and then leaves.
“Have a good evening, Hib," one of the men says, but I don't catch her reply.
A few more moments pass when I hear, "That's a comfort woman, yes?"
I freeze, panic rattling my bones.
"Yes," the other replies. "But she services that bastard Eneko. You don't want to taste that."
"Perhaps I might."
"Later."
They grumble something else too low to hear.
I scamper away from the light over something slimy. When I press myself against the wall, a wave of fear washes over me and grips my chest with an iron fist. My heart starts to race, pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
I can't catch my breath; it feels like I'm being smothered, and no matter how deeply I try to inhale, it's never enough. Sweat drips down my face, and the tremors in my hands spread to my whole body. Everything around me starts to spin.
I see Eneko's and Hibsej’s faces.
Then Ra'Sa enters my thoughts, followed by my girls.
My precious daughters.
My stomach churns violently. There's no fucking way I'm going to make it out of here. The entrance is easily three times my height.