Abandoned Prison Pt. 06: The End

Kass woke up from a dreamless sleep. He didn't bother to sit. He just kept staring at the ceiling of the cell, like many times before. The drips of water were still falling from them slowly filling the puddles below them.

He couldn't rest too much over the night. The physical pain has gotten better but the pain inside stayed. The only difference now was that he got used to it.

He could hear steps again. Coming from the corridor towards his cell. When they stopped he just glanced to the side to see who bothered to visit him. To his surprise, it wasn't Nadia or Ania but instead, it was the older woman who he saw only once when she and Nadia visited him for the first time.

After he saw her he started staring into the ceiling again and listening to the sounds of the drops of water falling down.

"I see that Nadia was right. Your soul doesn't have any more use for us" she said with a cold and strict voice.

Kass let out a tired sigh. "What do you mean? What are you going to do with me now?" he asked with a tired voice.

"Your soul is damaged too much. No more rituals can be done on it. That means you are useless to us."

"So what are you going to do with me now? Let me go maybe?" he said and laugh.

"No, you will be turned into an undead. That is the only useful thing that can be done with you."

The moment she said that the lock to his cell clicked and he could feel the cold aura from the ghost approaching him. The face of the guard appeared above him but the look from yesterday had remained in her eyes. There was still a hint of compassion in them.

She unlocked his cuffs and he slowly stood up. At first, it was hard for him to find a balance so he had to lean on a wall until he could stand on his own legs.

Even though they walked slowly some of the burns on his body started to hurt again as he was moving and a pained expression appeared on his face. He frowned and discomfort appeared on his face when they entered the same dark floor where he was cleaning the cell from the ash.

He knew where they were leading him. If this was yesterday he would have probably started panicking right now and try to convince them to don't lock him here but now he didn't even have much mental energy to be bothered about this.

They took all the power from him but at least he didn't have to let them have the pleasure of seeing him suffer. That was the only thing that he had left.

The guard opened one of the heavy wooden doors to uncover a small dark room with chains and cuffs ready to take freedom from the poor soul being locked in here.

He was chained to the wall by the guard and he didn't even care about her freezing touch anymore. "You will stay here until you will be on the edge of life and death. Then someone will come to perform the ritual on you. Until then you can rest here in peace. No one will come to find you here," the necromancer said.

Then she gave him one last disdainful look before the doors were shut in front of him and the key rattled in the big heavy lock in the doors. He was left alone in the darkness and like the witch said at least no one will bother him here.

After a while, in the cell, the darkness had awakened some thoughts inside of him. He wished that he would have never get captured by the necromancers. He had no other choice than to go to the mountains with his men because he learned to don't trust anyone else to solves his problems.

He was tired from having to do everything alone. His life was a success after success. He knew that eventually, a fall would have to come but he never imagined that he would fall so deep.

When he started thinking the pain had gotten stronger both in his mind and in his body. It made him slowly start to feel numb again as he awaited his end in darkness and silence.

Nadia was lying in her room on the highest floor of the prison. The room was small with stone walls and one narrow window that let barely any light through. The only furniture in the room was a wooden table with a chair a closet with a spare robe and her winter clothes and a bed in the corner of the room.

Zanzara told her that the soul of Kass really is seriously damaged so no more experiments can be done on him and he will be turned into an undead. She couldn't get any more work done after she heard that news. She was disappointed with her self and she spent most of the day locked in her room.

She wasn't in the mood to study right now or do anything else except lie in her bed. When Ania told her that she won't be allowed to do any experiments on humans she didn't believe her but this time it turned out that Ania was right.

She had to hold in her anger when Zanzara came to her and told her that she should take a break from experimenting on humans until she gets more confident with performing advanced rituals.

Even though it didn't go well with her experiments in the last days she was still desperate to try something and get the approval of Zanzara and other witches instead of being held back like a child from doing more advanced experiments.

She remembered that the book about souls said that souls are much easier to control when they are broken or weekend but the author said that he never had an opportunity to perform such a ritual. There was also danger that the soul could get shattered during the ritual and escape from the body forever so the results couldn't be guaranteed even if all the steps were followed properly.

When she was reliving her frustration on Kass yesterday something in him seemed to change as if he got broken by the torture. She did feel pity for him but she tried to not question how moral were her actions yesterday.

Nadia thought that she could do the ritual again but this time his soul would be weaker so she shouldn't get overwhelmed by magic like last time.

However, she didn't just want to bring the soul out of his body but to also capture it so she could have something to show to the other witches.

The problem was that the only thing that could hold a soul inside was an amulet that Zanzara had in her room so she would have to steal it from her.

She was tired of waiting and even though the amulet was very valuable and her teacher would be mad if something happened to it she decided to take the risk. She felt like after what she had done to that man it shouldn't be hard to capture his soul she just needs one more try and to give it everything she has.

Nadia quickly stood up from her bed. Her teacher should be either in her experiment room or eating dinner so it shouldn't be hard to get the amulet now. She walked out of her room and carefully listened for any sounds or talking but she couldn't hear anything it looked like no one was on the top floor right now.

She opened the door to her teachers' room. It was empty and it didn't take her too long to find the amulet on one of the shelves in the room. Then she quickly left and she let out a heavy breath when no one was outside of the room.

Then she quickly went to her experiment room and mixed all the ingredients in the wooden bowl like she did last time. When she got out of the room she walked down the stairs all the way to the floor with the solitary cells.

It was completely dark there as always but she didn't need too much light so she lit only two candles in the corridor. She took the keys that were hanging from the wall and then she opened all the doors from the cells until she couldn't open the locked ones.

She opened the doors and she saw a dark silhouette of a man chained to the wall.

It didn't look like he noticed her as he didn't even lift his head but suddenly he started talking. "Leave me be. You are disturbing my peace. There is no way that you can hurt me anymore. My fate has been already sealed by your master."

"My teacher has plans with you but it doesn't have to end like that. You don't have to be an undead," she said.

"I doubt that you will let me go so there is nothing that you can offer me," he said with a careless voice.

He had her respect. Most men would beg and cry for mercy but he was calm and it looked like there was nothing that she could say to scare him anymore.

"No, I won't let you go but you don't have to turn into an undead either. The undead have no will of their own they can't feel anything. Your soul will slowly crumble until you will never remember being yourself even if you would die and your soul would leave your body.

He kept staring at the ground and he didn't say anything but it looked like he was listening to her so she continued.

"I can store your soul in an amulet where it will be safe and it won't crumble. Maybe it can even heal if you give it some time," she said.

The man sighed and said "It doesn't matter if I am turned into an undead or if my soul gets trapped in your amulet. I will lose control over my life either way."

"When I met you were always full of life and trying to resist at every cost. What changed?" Nadia asked him.

"I made a mistake coming here and now I am paying for it. I couldn't rely on anyone else but at least I don't have anything to lose except my wealth."

Nadia finally understood what was wrong with him and she knew how to make him do what she wants even though she couldn't use any power on him.

"I can see that you were always alone and had to do everything yourself. You must have felt so tired and it had to be so hard for you. I know how it feels, trust me. But if you surrender your soul to me all those problems will go away and I will protect your soul," she said and tried to sound nice and understanding.

He finally looked at her. There was pain and uncertainty in his face but it looked like he was thinking about what she said.

"I don't know if I want this. Will the pain go away if I surrender my soul to you?"

"If you become undead your soul will crumble over time, it will be even worse. But if I store it in the amulet it can heal over time."

She looked at him and she saw that tears started to appear in his eyes. "Trust me. Just do everything I tell you and it will be alright," she said to try to calm him down. He didn't say anything but he was still crying. She could also hear that his breath was shaking and she unlocked his cuffs.

"Come with me. I can feel Ania's magic here so we have to do the ritual somewhere else or I could lose focus because of her and something bad could happen.

Nadia helped Kass to stand up and they walked out of the cell. They had to be careful when walking through the prison because she would be in problems if they saw her sneaking outside with a prisoner. Kass couldn't walk very fast and they had to stop a couple of times to hide from some of the witches but they managed to make it all the way to the prison tower.

Kass had to cover his eyes when he saw the sunlight for the first time in a couple of days. "Now you need to calm down and don't resist anything that will happen to you." He nodded and she could start with the ritual.

She told him to lay on the ground. Then she sliced into his hand again to get the blood for drawing the circle on the ground. The rest of the ritual went the same way as last time until his soul was chained down by the magical threads.

When the soul was in her grasp she imagined it getting pulled in the amulet. It took a lot of her concentration and energy but she couldn't feel too much resistance from the soul this time so she just held on until the whole soul finally slipped into the amulet.

She had to sit down and lean on the tower wall for a moment to rest after the ritual and Kass just kept lying on the ground.

After a while, she finally stood up and she saw that he wanted to get up as well but she touched the amulet and told him to kneel in front of her. A pained expression appeared on his face and he had no other choice than to do as she told him.

"Kiss my boots now," she said and try to sound dominant and confident.

He looked at her with a confused face but she put on a strict expression on her face and he did as she told him and kissed both of her boots. "Good, you can stand up now."

Then she went to the edge of the tower and looked over the wall. Kass joined her and they were looking at the deep wild forests below the prison and tall mountain peaks covered by sunlight.

Cool mountain breeze blew over them and Kass asked " So what will happen next?"

Nadia smiled and said "You will be helping with my experiments and cleaning my room and probably doing other work around the prison. He didn't look too excited about his future.

"Don't worry there will be no more stress and no hard decisions to make I think you will like it," she said.

He frowned and it looked like he was thinking for a moment. " I think you are right. I was always chasing for wealth and living life my life the wrong way."

Nadia looked at him and said "It won't be easy for us. There are some people in the prison that don't want me to have any success and I don't know how will the other witches accept you."

After a few moments, she turned around. "Come, it is time to tell what happened to Zanzara. She looked happy and excited because she knew that he has a strong will and that he will work hard for her and on the other hand, Kass looked confused and tired.

Then they walked down the stairs inside as the sun was slowly setting down over the mountain valley and the wild cool wind was blowing over the towers of the Abandoned Prison.