Faint light filters in through the cracks in the door. Starlight, he thinks, watching it, but he cannot be certain. Days and nights have blended together here in this pit, and for all he knows the light of the sun has turned cold and grey in the world outside.
He thinks he is going mad.
It is not wet anymore, he can feel and see and smell and sense. It is not wet anymore for the rain has stopped, and the wind also. It is still, dead still as no ship should be the flood the storm the roiling sea but he is not on a ship. He is in a pit of iron, he tells himself, with blood-rust upon the walls and a boarded grate at the top.
But a door he can see, wooden and cracked and with light coming through. He is not in a pit.
Dust motes dance in the light, maybe, but he cannot see them, here upon the floor in a corner. Cannot see them for they are far overhead and flashing red in the light of fire flaming torches blood upon the sand---
And if he is in a pit, it is one of his own making.
He shifts and no clank of chains sounds, and to him that is wrong. With no chains, he can stand escape and flee and kill. He should be chained. To what, he does not think, for the walls are wood though he cannot see them. The hearth is brick and would serve, perhaps, were it not so old and more cracked than the door.
He wonders if the man will come today.
But why would he, he thinks, and why wouldn’t he he doesn’t. The man might come and lift the grate, throw open the door, and bring with him harsh light sharp and blinding since when were the stars so bright?. There would be sound, of footsteps, a cough, a shifting of weight upon nervous feet you should break that habit, little one. And perhaps, perhaps words.
He can see light, of stars, perhaps, through the cracked door, and so he sleeps fitfully once more.
