by Tahlia

New Beginnings

Chapter I

The End

This is how my life ended. Sitting alone in a dank dark cell, I knew at any moment I could be taken away to be tortured or killed; or perhaps both. As time went by, my body had wasted away. I was at the point where I could see my ribs poking up from my chest, my hair and beard were looking more like a great unkempt bushy light brown mane. Starvation seemed like another possible end for me. Looking down at myself, I could already see my thin pale legs sticking out from the dirty tattered trousers they had me wear. I wouldn't have been surprised if many others had died while wearing them before me.

I didn't even know why I was brought there in the first place. I knew I had been accused of treason, but beyond that, no one would tell me what kind of treasonous acts I supposedly contrived. I never expected anything like this could happen to me. My life was going well, I was happy, and best of all I was law abiding.

The day I was arrested, I had been overseeing the work done on what would become the largest merchant vessel to ever set sail. I was there on behalf of my employer, who happened to also be the richest merchant in the Western Kingdoms. I was never aware that the town watch had a bounty on me, or that the city guard were on their way to the dockyard. Having them surround the entire worksite was a shock, but not as big a shock as when it was me they approached, swords drawn and declaring my arrest openly to everyone. There wasn't much I could do but comply. I was terrified, confused, and embarrassed. The human workers gawked at me, while the felian slaves did their best to not draw too much attention to themselves.

I arrived at the prison camp later that evening. At first, they put me in a larger and more open cell with captive felian slaves and prisoners of war. We'd been at war with the felians for some time now. The feline beasts had started growing more aggressive a few years prior. It became more than a nuisance when the amount of raided merchant caravans and pillaged villages started to effect the wealth of the Kingdoms. That was when they were forced to act and declared war. Felians were to be taken as slaves or killed on sight. Prisoners were only taken in the hopes to gather information, they wouldn't be leaving this place alive.

Since they claimed I had betrayed the human Kingdoms in favor of the felian Tribes, they stuck me with them as a kind of joke; or at the very least to humiliate me. Thankfully, they didn't bind me up like them. Their hands rapped up tightly in leather, rendering them unusable and to prevent the captive felians from using their claws. Their muzzles were also strapped shut, but they left enough wiggle room for them to feed off of the runny lumpy slop that we were all fed. But these were the lucky ones.

My first night there, I'd seen what they did to the unlucky ones. The guards came in and took a felian from my cell at random, and shackled him down to a blood stained stone table. They removed the leather binds around his hands once his wrists were secured and proceeded to break all of his fingers one by one. The haunting cries of agony stayed with me for a long time. Of all the torturous bellowing I heard at that prison camp, these bothered me the most. I averted my eyes, but I could do nothing to prevent myself from hearing those screams. The guards continued by tearing out the prisoner's claws, forcing them out of the damaged digits with pliers before cutting them off with a large heavy knife. I was horrified and disgusted by the brutality of it all. It was the only time I would see someone there tortured openly in front of me, and I hoped I would never have to witness such a thing again.

It wasn't long before I was thrown into a cell alone. I didn't know why, but I was sure it meant they would execute me soon. Instead, I was there for months without ever seeing anyone. I tried to keep count of the days as best I could by keeping track of the routine sounds that echoed through the halls at certain times. Each day started with the sound of prisoners being taken from their cell. Some days they only one unlucky soul, but usually they took more. I could hear the captives struggling as they were taken to one of the torture chambers. I wasn't sure who had the best outcome, the ones that would be put back into their cells later that day, or the limp and lifeless bodies I could hear being dragged down the hall by the guards.

The day that everything changed, I woke up from the cold stone floor feeling a certain uneasiness. I heard no guards walking down the hall, no prisoners being taken from their cells to be tortured... just silence. That silence drove me mad. I was starting to wonder if I was still asleep, or if time had simply stopped. That uneasy feeling stayed with me for what felt like hours, until I heard someone at the door of my cell. I felt my heart tighten in my chest. I was sure my time had come. I heard the person on the other side lift the heavy iron bar that kept me blocked in, setting it against the stone wall with a loud metallic thunk.

The door creaked open, and I pushed myself back against the mossy wall. I was in that dark cell for so long that when I saw the lantern slip in between the door and it's frame I was blinded. I averted my eyes and closed them, hands up in the air to protect myself from the light. I could hear the footsteps get closer and stop a few feet in front of me. I tried to open my eyes again, it was painful, but I pushed through it. Looking at the man I could tell he wasn't a guard. He wore an oversized dark cloak. I couldn't make out his face.

He lowered himself, bending his knees to get a little closer to my height. "I bring you a gift" he said, placing a wooden platter on the floor and removing the wooden cover. The smell of freshly cooked fish wafted into my nose, my stomach knotted up painfully. It was perfectly fresh and prepared with fine spices. The presence of a warm meal was almost like torture to me. It took all my willpower not to just devour what he presented as quickly as I could. I knew this was too good to be. I did my best to look at what ever was under the hood. There I saw two large round glowing pupils. Those were definitely not human eyes. I felt my heart racing, I was afraid of what was going on. Nothing about this was right.

"Who are you?" I asked, and I got nothing but silence. "What did you do to the guards?" I asked, and again he did not speak. "What do you want from me?" I was sounding more desperate, my fear showing through my unsteady voice.

"Eat" is all he said, slowly rising to his feet. "Eat, and you will live." he added before turning around. With the faint light coming from the doorframe I could see something was sticking out from behind him. It was a tail, but not a felian tail; a wolfen one.

I was grateful for the food, but not knowing his motives bothered me. I would have taken this as a sign of my imminent execution, as a show of mercy before my death. But it made no sense for a wolfen to be here. They weren't treated as badly as the felian, but they weren't held in high regard either. "Why are you doing this?" I asked.

He let out a suppressed laugh, turning around as he passed the threshold "I'll be seeing you." is all he said before shutting the heavy door with a bang. I heard him place that metal bar back on my door. Who ever he was, he wasn't here to rescue me, but it sounded like he had plans for me.

As I looked down at the faintly visible food, my stomach quivered. I brought a hand down to press against my stomach to try and ease some of the discomfort. I got to my knees and crawled through the darkness, grabbing the fish with my both of my dirty hands. Once I held it, hunger killed all other thought. I sunk my teeth into the flesh, tearing at it like an animal. I didn't care as bones prodded my pallet. But the pain in my stomach wasn't going away. In fact it spread away from my core, feeling worse in my joints.

At one point, my fingers hurt so badly I couldn't even move them. I heard my knuckles cracking and snapping as they shifted. I would have stopped eating if I hadn't been been driven by a ravenous hunger. I kept eating what food was left with my face directly in the plate. I kept eating as best I could even as my jaw cracked and locked painfully. I felt like my teeth were growing larger as my tongue rubbed between them, the sharper canines making themselves known.

When the pain in my body grew stronger than my hunger, I let myself fall to the floor. I tried to scream, but I was unable to produce any sound. I brought my hands to my face, in the gloom their silhouettes were remarkably different. It looked like I had lost my finger tips: my hands looking much smaller, while the palms and finger tips began to swell. My breathing became more and more labored until I suddenly felt as if my rib cage caved in on itself in one swift motion. I struggled to take in a breath but I couldn't. I was suddenly paralyzed as the pain wracked by back. I felt like hands had gripped around my spine and were trying to pull it apart. There was also a great pressure inside of my head, as if something inside my sinuses was trying to push my face out. My ears popped and the pressure behind my eyes made it seem like they might pop out. But all of that wretched pain was made minor by the one blooming in my groin. It felt like my balls were being squeezed ever more tightly, and like my manhood was being pushed into itself.

I don't remember much after that. My last thoughts were of how I was sure I had been poisoned, and that I would be dead soon.