Hollowrattle

*Warning: gruesome, gore.

    YAAAAAAEEEHHH! 

    A piercing scream rang out from somewhere deep in the bowels of the prison. Jareh was unfazed. He crouched in the corner of his tiny cell, his back pressed up against the wall and his knees only about a foot from the iron bars. This was the most comfortable position he could achieve, so he stayed still.

    A man coughed to his left. The crying woman to his right sobbed. A pair of skeleton guards walked woodenly by. He remained, chin resting on his forearms, eyes blank and unmoving as he let thoughts of his lovely wife, Nena, and their beautiful daughter, S’tar, carry him away like eddies in the sea. 

    Something finally stirred him, however. There was movement down the hall to his right. Something different from the usual horrors on patrol. He heard the clattering of two skeleton guards, but there was a third, more solid presence. They were heading his way, and as they got closer, he could make out the tromping of boots. No, this was not the usual horrors, this was something new.

    He actively brought his mind out of hiding, and the din of the world came back into focus. It was jarring after the trance-like state he had been in for the past few days, the mental equivalent of pins and needles. A deep breath of the stagnant air seemed to pull itself into his lungs. His back ached almost as terribly as his stomach, which felt like it had shrunk to the size of a raisin. His neck creaked as he picked his head up. His tongue shifted in his mouth, disengaging itself from the back of his throat with a crack. His eyes moved upward like wheels wanting oil.

    Rattling chains accompanied the visitors, and their footfalls came into focus. Thump, thump, thump, thump, went the boots. It sounded huge. 

    Then they stopped, not far down from him. The woman’s crying quieted to a whimper, then sped up to hyperventilation. Bones were scraping against each other and metal gently clanged on metal, followed by the reeeaaau that must have been her cell door swinging open.

    Jareh leaned forward and pressed his face against the bars, willing his now wide-open eyes to somehow see down the hall. He was quickly remembering what fear was, and so was the poor woman. Her crying turned frantic as she was undoubtedly pressing her back against the wall, eyes full of terror and tears. She sobbed something that might have been, “No, no!” had she any humanity left, but this place wastes no time in robbing you of that.

    Sobs turned to screams and the booted creature took a step toward her. A choked gurgling sound, then a blade tearing cloth and flesh, and then a wet plop. His stomach churned, but had nothing to expel. The creature let out a deep, guttural sound. Is that supposed to be laughter? Hruh hrueh hureh hurrh. Whatever it was, this thing was not human. Could it be… 

A man in one of the neighboring cells had spoken of a creature people called “The Warden,” before he disappeared one night. A masochistic monstrosity, known for the brutality of his kills after he’s done playing with them. As if on cue, Jareh heard the sound of tearing flesh and more movement, and the cell door slamming shut, causing his own door to shudder in its frame. Trying to imagine this thing was making him sweat.

More stomping, heading in his direction. The thing stopped at some of the cells and grumbled something he couldn’t, or didn’t want to hear to their inhabitants. Cries and metal being dragged over metal and stone. He leaned back again, trying to make himself as small as possible, so as not to draw its attention as it walked by, and when it came into his field of view it stopped and stood still, swaying slightly, like some kind of ancient watchtower, taking up the whole corridor. Was it even breathing?

Jareh stayed as still as he could, observing it with wide-eyed terror. Every second that passed sent cold shocks through his body, thinking an array of increasingly frantic thoughts. Why is it standing there? What is it doing? What is it thinking? Why isn’t it moving? Is it trying to scare me? Does it even know I’m here? Does it care? Why would it be doing this right here, of all places? 

    It seemed like an eternity that the creature stood there, and Jareh didn’t know much longer he would last before breaking down. Sweat was practically pouring down his face when it finally turned its head to him, looking him dead in the eye. Tears burst forth and every muscle in his body turned rigid. He was literally quaking with fear. 

The thing’s lips curled upward into a grim semblance of a flesh-and-tooth grin as it slowly held up a dismembered human leg. It held it aloft before Jareh and reached up with its other hand, which was clutching a huge rusted and blood-soaked meat hook. It took its time in forcing the point of the hook deep into the thigh, then brought it down, ripping the flesh apart and splaying it open like a gutted fish. The slash had gone all the way through to the bone, which was also pared apart. At no point did it break eye contact with him.

The beast leaned in close to his cell, still grinning. It struggled to make words. “DooO yoU knowW WH at MAR-rowW is..?” 

Jareh was crushing himself against the wall behind him. He’d squeeze himself into the cracks if he could, yet he managed to jerkily shake his head.

The Warden brought the split leg to its mouth with both hands and began pulling chunks of the bone and flesh up with its teeth. He watched it gorge itself for a minute before it cast the mangled leg aside. “Itt..s DeLICIOusSs.” It howled with that unholy laughter-adjacent sound. “Annd… YOUrs is N E X T…” it finished, then continued making its way down the hall.

Jareh was violently shaking at this point. The fear had nowhere to go but in, and it was on a mission to seek and destroy all hope. His body found the moisture to make tears, and they didn’t stop. He tried to remember his family. His wife was so kind, his daughter so pure… But even those images soured in his mind, corrupted with thoughts of this happening to them, or any of the other countless terrible fates that could befall them in this twisted world. These made a mean pairing with remembering that he’ll never see them again, never be able to protect them.

He spent another two days spiraling into madness… And now he walks the prison corridors, his bones left filled with nothing but crumbs to rattle about as he was forced to patrol, helping to doom others to similar fates.