#evecoffn

The mistress had muttered something before she had shoved him in the room and locked the door, a terrible sneer etched into her fine features.  He hadn't realized what she had done until he began to cry for his father; when his attempts to call out did nothing to break the noiseless veil that had fallen over him.

And then panic set in.

It must have been some kind of spell, he realized.  Something that dampened all sound around him.  No, not dampened—eliminated.  Not even his attempts to bang on the heavy wooden door elicited so much as a soft thump.  As if he had vanished from the world. As if he had never existed at all.

Zaresh was no stranger to darkness.  Cicecta laid deep within the bowels of the Underdark, the drow born of the inky abyss in which it thrived.  But this was different.  So, so different.  He had been locked up in varying rooms and closets before, the candles snuffed out and all faerie fire extinguished, but this—

He started to cry again, his heaving sobs amounting to nothing.  The silence was complete, leaving him imprisoned within what might as well have been his tomb.  Zaresh had heard plenty of stories about hunting parties going missing, only for their remains to be found months later within a caved-in section of a cavern.  

It was also one of the mistress' favorite punishments, to bury people alive in some long forgotten corner of their subterranean home, their pleas for mercy falling on deaf ears as the order to block the entrance was given.

Zaresh only began to cry harder as his mind raced, his throat sore from the strain of his silent wails.  What if she left him in here to die?  Like all of the other houseboys she so loved to torment.  It wouldn't be the first time she did away with one for her own amusement.

Nausea curdled within the depths of his belly, his legs trembling violently as he at last fell to his knees before the immovable door.  His head swam, a terrible dizziness overcoming him as he fought for air.  His lungs heaved desperately, and yet it wasn't enough to chase away the clawing tightness engulfing his chest.  He curled up on the cold, dirty floor of the small, long forgotten room, a frightening numbness seeping into his fingers.

Father would come looking for him, right?  He'd realize that his son was missing.  Of course he would.  He was ever-present at the mistress' side, his scarlet gaze always alert and watching.  He'd notice that Zaresh was not among the servants running about the halls, that he had yet to see a single pair of ice-blue eyes among a sea of crimson irises. He had to.

Father, Zaresh pleaded silently, a hiccup he felt, but could not hear, wracking his body.  I'll never anger the mistress again.  Never ever again.  I swear it.  Please, father.  Just come find me.  Please.

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until the room was abruptly flooded with light, jolting him awake.  He squinted against the sudden brightness as he scrambled to his feet, rushing forward.  His eyes were bleary and puffy, and his head throbbed fiercely—but he pushed his way through the doorway and over the threshold, and was rewarded with an onslaught of noise.

A kobold hissed loudly as Zaresh barreled into it, the small, reptilian creature hitting the stone floor with a faint thud.  The telltale sound of his bare feet slapping against the floor.  The ragged sound of his desperate breathing.  The rapid, panicked beating of his own heart.

The relief of it all was so overwhelming, he almost burst into a fresh round of tears.

Zaresh pushed himself upright, his bright blue eyes scanning the dimly lit hallway—hoping, praying to see a tall, familiar figure.  Desperate to know that he hadn’t been forgotten.  That he hadn’t been left to die a silent death amongst the roaches and rats.