Four metres below the ground she lied, with only a moldy, cloth blanket to keep herself warm.
Food was thrown in the hole once a day, while the water would be lowered in a metallic bucket, attached to a long rope.
During that small period she would be able to savor the few precious but painful moments of sunlight that reached her eyes.
After that it would be dark again, and she’d use her hands to search for the food amidst the dirt she slept in.
The hole was roughly three metres wide, and one corner of it was occupied by her stinking relief while another was used for a small metallic water reserve.
Situated away from the main encampment, she still could hear the distant, joyful banter of those above ground.
The voices were rarely close enough where she could make out the details of their conversations, but they were welcome distractions regardless.
With little else to do she’d longingly listen to them, and like every night she’d dread the silence that would fall with it.
When Sascha went into the hole it had been obvious that it sat empty, and in the weeks afterwards she had felt around inside her tiny confinement a hundred times over, if not more just to make sure.
Even when she could not find anything, regardless of her zealous efforts, she knew.
She knew she was not alone.
After nightfall, it would talk to her through thoughts that were not her own.
At first it seemed like merely gibberish, lacking any real meaning or purpose, but over time the many thoughts harmonized to repeat the same sentence over and over again, for weeks on end, if not more.
She’d see luminescent faces across the dirt walls, only to wake up to another pure-black half dream.
She tried to climb out while biting her fingers in the earth, but whatever was laid on top of the hole, it would not budge.
Now, she simply lacked the strength to even try.
She had been sick a multitude of times already, and Sascha was very grateful to have had the dexterity to find the proper corner during each of those moments.
However, that would not save her from the sheer, overwhelming and rancid stench that came from it.
She wondered how long she’d have before she died of food poisoning or simple starvation.
How long has it been, she wondered.
The first few days were easy enough to count, but after around three weeks she had lost the exact number.
A few weeks after that she had lost the ability to even guess.
Wondering if her eyes were still open, she looked at the ceiling of her makeshift prison and vowed that if she ever got to walk the surface again she’d lead a life that mattered.
One full of personal agency and meaning, where she would be free to make her own choices.
That would be the only thing of value that Sascha had found this disgusting, shame filled pit, the time and inflection needed to plan ahead.
She now knew for sure that her place was not alongside the rule-bound Niedling people who had wronged her to such an extreme degree, it was instead with those who bravely dared to oppose them.
She chuckled at the thought.
At last, she agreed with Albert.
And it took only a month or so in a filthy, shit-filled hole to change her mind.
She wondered how they were doing.
Willem wouldn’t understand, she knew.
Her parents would be hurt, deeply, but they would persevere.
In time, they would thrive again.
It would be the same for the hard-working, noble Albert.
Complain as he might, her partner had been born in perhaps the most advantageous position possible, and with enough dedication he’d make it far, she knew he would.
She wondered if she’d ever see him again.
She sincerely hoped so.
But if they did, it would definitely be in the Anderslanden.
Even without her enhancements she would still be useful there, she’d wager.
Healers were always in high demand in times of great conflict, even if they were only limited to work by hand rather than through the spirit.
She’d take a different name to protect her family from retribution, dye or cut her hair and maybe even go so far as to ask a face sculptor to adjust her features.
That way, she would be able to immortalize her fathers great work and save their shared, grand dream without him being hanged for it.
‘If that twisted thing ever came off.’ her dried lips formed.
Days, or perhaps weeks passed.
Sascha’s constitution dropped significantly as she felt her limit had been reached a thousand times over, and then some.
Even simple movements proved to be too much for her as she had fallen ill again.
This time however, she was unable to constrain herself to a single corner, and her living space became that much more unpleasant and unlivable for it.
Surrounded by rotten, contaminated food and her own filth, she finally accepted it.
This was the end.
Forgotten in a stinking hole.
A worthless death, one that surely could have been avoided if she had chosen her words more carefully, back with Ezekiel.
Just for a few days, he had promised.
To Sascha, he looked so sincere at that moment.
She wondered if something changed, or if she was just plain bad at reading people’s intent.
Night fell, and the dark walls birthed many shining, disturbed faces again.
Laughs and cries, whispers and screams, countless emotions yet all of one mind.
Their intruding thoughts began to whisper from within, this time chanting a different song.
They were clear.
They were loud.
‘Three.
Days.
Three.
Days.
Three.
Days.’ They kept going, their many mouths forming the words on endless repeat.
If she had the energy, she would have laughed.
Three days for what?
Rescue?
Death?
Something else?
She was tired of it.
Tired of being scared, of holding out hope for someone or something that would never come.
She mocked the very idea, brutally telling the voices to shut it.
Despite herself, one hour later she was looking for uncontaminated food again, “cleaning” her hands in the dirt every time they’d touch something unwanted or foul.
She’d smell the food, and if it didn’t make her flinch it would be good enough to eat.
She sat against the cleanest corner she could find while doing so.
Her strategy was as simple as it got.
The small spot left of her was still left clean.
Near everything else was not.
She placed her blanket over the filth in the center of the pit so that some of the food dumped on her would remain fully uncontaminated.
Shivering from the cold during the harsh nights, she somehow managed to survive for three more days.
Then they came.
At first it was a night like any, where the energetic, hopeful sounds of the day were slowly replaced by the disturbing calm of night.
She could hear silent, careful footsteps above her.
A sword unsheathed.
Mumbled orders were given.
A pained scream was prematurely cut off.
People started shouting.
She heard screams, swords and spears clash into each other, yet she could see none of it.
The reek of smoke entered her stay, and she could feel the warmth of distant fire.
Then the calm returned.
She could hear a handful of voices, slowly moving towards her spot.
The footsteps stopped, and the voices grew quiet.
A calm, blank voice broke through the strange silence.
‘What is your name?’ It asked.
Sascha wasn’t sure if the question was directed at her, and contemplated her answer.
‘You in that stinking, filthy hole, I have asked you a question.
If you want to live, you’d best answer me in full.’ Sascha recounted the endless nights where the voices in her head had retreaded the same sentence over and over again, to the point of near-madness.
Without any further hesitation, she chose to repeat its most strange contents.
‘I am Dieter of the Bad Dreams.
I have come here to rescue you from a fate worse than death, and I am to take you to my camp to await further instructions from my benevolent master.’
She fell silent again, hoping she didn’t doom her chances by trusting those warped, intrusive voices inside her head.
Outside it went silent as well, if only for a moment.
Then, she heard the familiar rumbling and shaking, and was blinded by torch light as she could vaguely see a man with his arms outstretched looking down on her.
A lean, average sized bald man of around thirty years wore a smile too big for his simple but uncannily shaped face, as he curiously looked down on her from above with a torch in hand.
‘That I am,’ he lightheartedly mocked.