"He's finally up!"
That was the first thing Nayavu heard upon regaining consciousness. His head hurt, his mouth was dry, and the air he inhaled smelled rotten.
"Here, water."
Nayavu took it without thinking and gulped it down. The people around him said nothing. They just stared at the young man in silence.
He looked around; there were walls of steel around the room where he and many others seemed to be locked up—all of them people of Inyankara.
Suddenly, a sharp beeping sound pierced his eardrums all the way to his brain.
"Ah! What's that?" Nayavu cried out, pressing his palms on his ears.
"This is how they keep prisoners from using magic. This painful sound prevents us from forming thoughts complex enough to move anything around," the one who gave him water—an old man whose skin only covered bone—answered.
"Look at him. No marks on his skin. He must have been in the middle of his coming-of-age test. How can a life end before it even started…"
That crying voice came from a woman who looked no better than the man next to Nayavu. It was not hard to understand the situation they were in.
"Prisoners, huh?"
"That's the sad truth… You, just like us, have been captured by the Reman forces."
Nayavu took a deep breath. The noise around him made it hard to think, but he tried his best to remember how he had gotten in this situation. Yet, in the end, there was not much to think about. A moment of carelessness led to him taking a hit from behind and losing consciousness.
There was, however, a reason for why he was out in the fields in the first place. Fuzzy as his memories were, the young man was able to remember one name.
"Tatanka!"
Once he remembered, Nayavu took a brief look around. His mentor was nowhere to be seen.
"Have I been brought with another man here? One who wears the height of mountains?"
The prisoners looked at one another for a brief moment, their gazes clouded in confusion as the oldest one answered.
"I'm afraid that you're the only one we know of. This is the personal dungeon of a general. There shouldn't be any other rooms where they hold prisoners."
Nayavu breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least, he didn't lose anyone again, but there was no doubt in his mind that Tatanka had already noticed something was wrong.
"Hey, old man, what's your name?"
"Makala," the man answered, banging once on his chest with what little strength he had left, a common way of naming yourself in their culture. "I used to be the high elder of a village around here, but as you can see, those times are long gone. What about yours, young one?"
"Nayavu," he answered, replicating the gesture.
"Tell me, Makala, how long have you and your people been trapped here for?"
"Oh, young one, days have long lost meaning here. The only daily occurrence here is being put to work. Even food and water only come when the guards feel like giving us something. Still, I can say enough time has passed for me to end up in this sorry state," the old man said, presenting his beat up, malnourished body.
Truly, everyone there looked like they were one step away from the grave. They were barely kept alive for the sole purpose of working when needed.
"Many of us have already perished, either here or up there doing the dirty work. They do not care. They just throw the bodies in the nearby canyon, letting them be taken away by the next heavy rain."
Truly a hopeless situation…
Nayavu contemplated the next course of action, but the noise in the background made even such a trifling task feel gruesome, and that noise started getting louder and louder.
"Roll call! Is everyone still alive? Did the new guy start moving?"
A couple of guards entered the cell. For some reason, they seemed to be unbothered by the sound. No, one of them was producing it.
"I beg you! This boy is still young. Please, let him live his— Ah!"
The kind woman who took pity on Nayavu got kicked by one of the guards.
"Do not touch the royal guard! If you have so much energy, how about you spend it on something useful?"
That same guard grabbed the woman by the hair and started dragging her out of the cell, screams of pain escaping from her throat as she was holding onto her hair with her frail arms.
Maybe it was the moment he had been waiting for, or maybe he just did it because it was the right thing to do, but Nayavu decided to lunge at the brute.
Almost instantly, a loud whistle resounded in the room. The sound was so strong that every prisoner curled up on the ground, blood dripping out of their ears as the ones with some strength left screamed in pain.
The source of the sound came from outside the cell—it was the whistle of one of the guards.
"Look at this idiot!" the aggressive guard shouted. "What did you think was going to happen? Did you think you'd be able to take us all down just like that? What are you savages even thinking? Hah! You belong to Sir Marcelli now! Better get that through those underdeveloped brains of yours!"
The arrogant guard kicked Nayavu, finishing the act of aggression with a spit and a sneer.
"You had a lot of fun doing this out on the plains, didn't you? Look! You left a pretty nasty scar on me!" the guard said, grabbing him by the hair.
"Fuck you!" the young man answered between coughs of pain. "Next time I'll make sure to plant it between your damn eyes."
"Oh? We've got a feisty one over here! So be it! I was itching to teach someone a lesson. Those walking corpses would die on the spot were we to touch them."
That night, while the other prisoners were taken outside to work on weapons, loud screams echoed from the depths of the dungeon.
Anyone who dared venture near would have their hair stand on end just hearing the roars let out by Nayavu—roars that, complemented by the crack of the whip, would later become the source of ghost stories whispered throughout the region.
*****
Days in the dungeon were all the same. Sometime around morning, guards would come and take everyone out of the cell, giving them something to work on. Once the work was done for the day, everyone would be taken back to the cell. On some days, around this time, they would have leftovers or a bucket of water thrown in their cell.
Besides the constant sharp noise, the cell was silent. Nobody wasted any energy on speaking unless they absolutely felt the need to. They would all spend their time trying to sleep. Sometimes they were curled together, other times they spread their limbs on the cold, hard floor.
All of them except Nayavu.
Every day, when the prisoners were sent back, Nayavu would be taken somewhere else. The location changed constantly, so no one knew where he was or what was being done to him. The only constant remained his screaming voice that resounded every night from afar. Sometimes it was a howl of pain followed by profane words. Other times the words would not even find the place to get out from all the screaming. Still, the most disturbing were the nights when his screams would turn into muffled cries drowned out by the voices of drunk men.
After his daily dose of torture, Nayavu was be sent back to the dungeon in the middle of the night.
"Make sure to take more care of yourself! I don't like it when they start looking like they're about to starve to death!" a guard said as he pushed him into the cell.
The others, woken up by the ruckus, would always try to help the young man by giving him food and water, but it was often that he refused. On top of it, he even refused to sleep, spending all of his time in the cell meditating.
Three painful weeks had passed this way. During those three weeks, Nayavu ignored all of the food offered to him, only taking a quick gulp of water followed by more meditation.
When the other slaves tried talking to him, the boy ignored them. Everyone assumed he had either gone insane, or was torturing himself to spite the guard that had taken a liking to him. They tried talking him into taking care of his body, but they never got an answer. The young man had truly locked himself into his own world in a matter of days.
His body was deteriorating quickly, but Nayavu paid it no mind. Another day passed, and the only time the he seemed alive was when he was being tortured for the entertainment of the guards.
After getting thrown back into the cell, he once again started meditating. Ignorant to those around him, the youngster closed his eyes and separated himself from the harsh world.
Seeing how the youngest one had his mind broken and his body soon to follow, the others grieved in silence. They didn't want to see such a young flame run out, but they were powerless in the face of the Remans. All they could do was accept their fate, witnessing the fall of another brethren.
Still, not everyone had given up on him, and Makala once again approached Nayavu like every other time.
"Here, we have a bit of food left. I've also saved you some water. I really think you should have some—"
"Ah, thank you, Makala," the young man said, grabbing the food and gulping down the water. Afterward, he smiled at the troubled man and onwards at the other prisoners who had all opened their eyes wide to the unusual happening.
The change was instant, as if the boy had never suffered. His smile was pure, as if he was a free man. It was unreasonable. It felt too natural. The others looked at Nayavu as if he had lost his mind.
For a second after, everyone stared at one another through the faint light—all of them surprised at the sudden change of heart.
"Boy, does that mean you are feeling better?" the lady prisoner he tried to save weeks ago asked while dragging her frail body across the floor.
"I was so worried that you had given up! I hated the idea of seeing such a young soul wither away right next to us!" she added.
"You remind us all of our children who chose to fight until the very end!" another voice continued. "If we couldn't protect them, let us at least protect you!"
It was almost as if Nayavu's actions triggered something. Seemingly out of nowhere, all of the prisoners did their best to stand.
"Thank you for standing up for us that day!"
"It's time we do the same for you!"
Inspiration came from an unexpected place. With no words nor actions, Nayavu managed to lift the spirits of the prisoners for a simple, selfless purpose.
"If this is the life we have to live, I say we follow in our children's footsteps and decide our own ending!"
"I agree! Tomorrow when the guards come, I say we all rise! They may be able to take on these old bones, but at the very least we can give the youngster a new shot at life!"
An uprising decided through whispers—that was all their plan was. They knew they stood no chance. A single guard was probably enough to handle them, but they didn't care.
As elders of a village, as parents of their late sons and daughters, and as protectors of the next generation, they would do their best to pave a path towards someone's future, just like they had done time and time again.
"Thank you, Nayavu!" the old chieftain said. "This little push is enough. You may have sent us to our deaths, but we will face them with contempt. So tomorrow, please, don't let this chance go to waste!"
"Waste? Hahaha!"
Nayavu laughed at Makala's words—a laugh that resounded throughout the cell, drawing all eyes to him.
"Nayavu?"
"Don't worry about it, old man. I didn't do it just to rile y'all up. Haha! What a funny way to put it!"
"I don't understand… Then what are you—"
"Y'all wanna get out too, right? Just leave it to me! All of you rest up now!" Nayavu said, his smile full of confidence.
"Tomorrow, all you have to do is run."