Zenith. Lindsay Cummings

       Cell 306

      The Past

      ENDLESS DARKNESS.

      It surrounded him in Cell 306, twisting and turning itself into his bones until he and the darkness became one.

      His thoughts had long since stopped running wild with every groan and creak of the prison walls. A thinning blanket, his only companion, was wrapped tightly around his shoulders, but it failed to block out the cold kiss of air that snuck through the threads.

      I am Valen Cortas, he thought, rolling the words over and over in his mind. It was the only thing that kept him going, leashing a sharp coil of courage around his veins. Vengeance will be mine.

      What he would do, what he would give, to have a single moment of time in the light. To feel the touch of a warm midday breeze on his skin, to hear the rustle of leaves on the trees of his home planet, Arcardius.

      He had lived on Arcardius all his life, and yet in Cell 306 the memories of his home had begun to grow dim. Valen had always looked at the world and seen it in a thousand colors, his fingers itching to paint each turn of the light, each curl of the wind sweeping through the silver streets.

      Every shade was unique in his eyes.

      And yet...he was losing the colors.

      Try as he might, Valen couldn’t remember the precise shade of purple that spiraled across the Revina Mountains. He couldn’t recall the exact hue of the blue and red moons that mingled together in the sky. The sparkle of starlight when true night fell, a constant, glowing guide through the sky. As each moment in this abyss passed, the colors all melted into a single shade of black.

      He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around his emaciated frame.

      The pain of remembering things loved and lost had sunk its claws into him, threatening to crush his bones.

      Somewhere in the dank prison, a scream rang out, razor-sharp, like the tip of a blade scratching its way down Valen’s spine.

      He rolled over, pressing his hands to his ears.

      “I am Valen Cortas,” he whispered through cracked lips. “Vengeance will be mine.”

      Another scream. The sizzle and pop of an electric whip, a flash of blue light that ghosted across the bars. Valen gasped, his eyes aching, head throbbing, memories churning. Color. A blue like the powerful sea, a blue like the open, cloudless sky. And then...darkness again, and silence.

      The new prisoners always screamed for days, until their throats went ragged. They cried out the names of loved ones and tried to hang on to who they were.

      But on Lunamere, everyone became a number in the end.

      Valen was 306. Deep in the belly of hell incarnate.

      The cold was endless. The food was enough to keep skin hanging on bones, but muscles atrophied and hearts slowed. The stink of bodies rose up like a wave, a scent that had long since sunk into the obsidinite walls and bars.

      Those walls of obsidinite were the only thing separating Valen and the other prisoners from the void of space and their untimely deaths. He’d thought of escape, as every other prisoner had. He imagined leaping through the wall, diving out into the airless abyss.

      Death had once scared Valen, but with each day that passed, it grew closer and closer to becoming his greatest wish.

      Still, deep within his tormented soul, he knew he had to survive.

      He had to bide his time and hope that the Godstars had not forgotten him.

      And so he sat, dreaming of darkness, wrapped up in its cold arms.

      I am Valen Cortas.

      Vengeance will be mine.