The Corrupted Shadow

The wagon stopped.

Ash heard voices outside—low, guttural sounds that barely qualified as human speech. The wooden door creaked open. Cold air rushed in, carrying smells that made his stomach clench.

Rough hands grabbed his ankles. The shackles around his wrists clicked open, and he was suddenly pulled from the wagon. His body hit the ground hard, stones and dirt scraping against his back through the rough fabric.

He couldn't see. Something covered his eyes now—not just the chain mesh, but thick cloth wrapped tight around his head. His world was darkness and pain, and the sound of his panicked breathing was trapped behind the metal gag.

They dragged him.

The ground beneath him was uneven and rocky. Sharp stones tore at his clothes, at his skin. Every bump sent jolts of agony through his battered body. He tried to dig his heels in, to slow them down, but his legs wouldn't obey. They felt distant, disconnected, like they belonged to someone else.

The screaming started.

Not his own—he couldn't make sounds loud enough through the gag. These came from somewhere ahead, echoing off unseen walls. Human voices twisted into sounds that shouldn't come from human throats. High, desperate wails that spoke of agony beyond endurance.

Ash's heart hammered against his ribs. He tried to thrash, to break free, but the hands holding him were too strong. More than two people. Maybe four. Their grip left bruises on his arms and legs.

The ground changed. Smoother now. Stone instead of dirt. The echoes of their footsteps suggested they were inside something. A building. A tunnel. The air felt different—stale, enclosed, heavy with moisture and other things he didn't want to identify.

Then came the smell.

Blood first. Fresh and thick, like a butcher's shop at the end of a long day. But underneath that was something worse. Decay. Rot. The sweet-sick stench of flesh gone bad in the heat. It filled his nostrils, coated his throat, and made his stomach heave.

He vomited.

The bile and partially digested food had nowhere to go. The chain mesh over his mouth trapped it, forced it back down his throat and up through his nose. He choked, gagged, and couldn't breathe. Panic flooded his system as he fought for air that wouldn't come.

A boot slammed into his ribs.

The impact drove the vomit out through his nose in a burning rush. He gasped, finally able to pull air into his lungs. The taste of bile and blood filled his mouth. His throat felt raw, torn.

They kept dragging him.

The surface beneath him changed again. Metal now—grated metal that caught at his clothes and scraped his skin. He could hear machinery somewhere below, grinding and clanking with mechanical rhythm. And through the metal grating came a new smell that made the previous stench seem pleasant by comparison.

This wasn't just rot. This was hell.

Human waste. Vomit. Gangrene. Things that had been dead for weeks in the summer heat. It all mixed into a cocktail of decay that his mind refused to process. His stomach convulsed again, but there was nothing left to come up.

The screams were louder now. Closer. He could make out individual voices—some pleading, some just making sounds that might have been words once. And underneath it all, other noises. Metal on metal. Chains. The wet sounds of impact on flesh.

They stopped moving.

Ash heard a door open—heavy, with hinges that shrieked like tortured animals. The echoes changed again. They were in a large space now, maybe a chamber or hall. The screams came from all directions, bouncing off walls he couldn't see.

New hands grabbed him. These were different—smaller, more precise in their movements. They lifted him upright, 

supporting his weight while his legs tried to remember how to work.

Someone removed the blindfold.

The light was dim, but after hours of darkness, it felt like staring into the sun. Ash squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his cheeks. When he finally managed to open them, he wished he hadn't.

The room was a nightmare made real.

Stone walls stretched up into shadows, hung with chains and hooks and instruments he didn't recognise. The floor was dark stone, stained with substances that could only be blood. And everywhere, covering nearly every surface, were cages.

Small cages. Too small for the people crammed inside them.

Some of the prisoners were still moving. Others hung limp against the bars. A few were making the sounds he'd been hearing—not quite screams, not quite words, just the noise that comes from throats that have been used too much for too long.

In the centre of the room stood a wooden frame. X-shaped. Built for crucifixion.

They dragged him toward it.

"No." The word came out as a muffled grunt through his 

gag. "No, no, no..."

His legs gave out. Pure terror turned his muscles to water. The people holding him simply lifted him higher, carrying his dead weight toward the frame without effort.

They pressed his back against the rough wood. Someone held his left arm while another positioned it against the horizontal beam. He could see the iron spike in the third person's hand—thick, black with old blood, sharp enough to punch through bone.

"Please," he tried to say. The word came out as a whimper.

The spike pressed against his palm. Cold metal against warm flesh.

He looked into the eyes of the person holding the hammer. They were human eyes in a human face, but there was nothing human left behind them. Just emptiness. 

Professional disinterest.

The hammer rose.

Ash screamed through the gag with everything he had left. The sound tore his throat, made his vision blur with the effort.

The hammer fell.

The spike punched through his palm and into the wood with a wet crunch. Pain exploded up his arm, white-hot and absolute. His body convulsed, every muscle contracting at once.

They moved to his other hand.

"Please," he sobbed. "Please, I didn't do anything. I don't know what you want. Please..."

The second spike went through his right palm. The pain was so intense he couldn't even scream anymore. Just made high, keening sounds that barely qualified as human noise.

His feet were next. They positioned his legs against the lower part of the frame, one spike through both feet, pinning them to the wood. The iron went through flesh and bone like they were nothing, anchoring him to the frame with his body weight.

Blood ran down his arms and legs in steady streams. Each heartbeat sent fresh waves of agony through the wounds. He could feel the spikes shifting inside him when he moved, grinding against bone.

He hung there, crucified, while around him the other prisoners continued their eternal chorus of suffering.