You Killed Them

The water came up to his knees at high tide, seeping through the stone walls of the keep's dungeon. In the cell there was no escape from it.

He always preferred the high tide, because at low tide the guards would come down, instead.

He did not care a whit about the sneers or insults. These men knew who he had been before they finally captured him - and it had taken twenty of them to do such.

... But even Es couldn't block out the searing anguish that stabbed and twisted through his heart when that one guard would reiterate, over and over while he rotted in that Valarforsaken pit:

"You beast. You killed them. Your wife. Your little girl. Your father. Your brother. You killed them. You are sick."

The first day he was numb to the words. He'd seen the corpses; he knew he hadn't killed them. He knew who had killed them. A dark wrath as trapped by that numbness as he was by his cell in the flesh.

The second day, he was numb to the guard's words. He remembered the corpses.

.. But I didn't kill them.

The third day, he was numb. The words rolled past him. He remembered his daughter's broken shoulder as she'd been strung up on the sails. His wife's dress, more blood than cloth. His brother's shocked expression. His father's frailty.

... But I didn't kill them. .. Did I?

...

It was around the fourtieth day, when he first agreed. Maybe he'd killed them after all.

"You beast."

"You killed them. Why they keep you alive down here I've no clue.. You are sick."

"How could you do that to your own daughter?"

"You murdered your own family."


By the fiftieth day, he'd convinced himself of a hundred different ways he could have committed the atrocity. Mass murderer, he was called in the city. The guards told him the people demanded his death. Rabidly. Like monsters themselves.

Like him.

They'd tear him apart if they ever released him, they said.

...

By the three-hundredth day, Es knew he had killed his family. He had vivid recollections of every detail of the crime, the hundred different methods. He didn't remember which one he'd used, maybe all of them. He had slain them a thousand times in his head in the days upon days of cold, damp, starving, sunless, thoughtless captivity.

And for his enemies, only passive, empty numbness. Were they anyone at all, down here? Did they ever exist?

.... 

"You beast. You killed them. Your wife. Your little girl. Your father. Your brother. Why? Why did you do it you sick bastard?"

Es smirked and slowly met the guard's eyes.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

The guard couldn't meet his eyes. He finally left him alone. Repulsed.

Es watched him go.

....

But .. What if I didn't kill them?

Don't be stupid. Of course I did.