Chapter Nine

Zephyr groaned and whimpered to herself quietly.
She didn’t want to open her eyes and she didn’t want to see where she was. She wished that she could pretend she was still in her bed and everything that had happened had just been a bad dream. She wished but she knew that it wasn’t true. The pain she felt in her head was too real to be a dream, no matter how bad the dream was. She moved to put her claw on the side of her head where the pain was the worst and stopped.
The sounds of chains clanking together made her open her eyes. The room she found herself in was cold and dark, the stone floor was damp and somewhere in the darkness rats were scurrying through small holes in the wall. One hole near the ceiling let in a little light that streamed through like water and pooled near her feet. Other than that, the room was concealed in darkness. She didn’t know how big or how small her prison was, where the door was, or if she was alone.
How long had she been unconscious? The room gave no indication of time, no hint of a clue as to where she was either.
She looked around quickly and strained vainly to make out anything in the darkness. There was a boulder looking thing to her right but she couldn’t tell what it was. The rats squeaked and ran around the boulder like it was something interesting, their eyes catching what little light there was and reflecting it. Zephyr painfully stretched out her leg and poked at the boulder-like thing, curious to know what it was. She strained and then made contact with the closest part to her. It was something hard. She nudged it with her claw and the whole boulder shuddered making something fall off rolling her way and coming to a stop right in the pool of light.
It was a skull.
Zephyr snorted and shook her head. Of course it was a skull. She should have expected that. She looked down at it again as it stared with it’s empty eye sockets back up at her. Then she noticed something about the skull. It wasn’t a Winglie’s skull, or even that of a Furr. It looked different, very different. The back of the skull was round like a ball and the face didn’t have a muzzle. The bottom jaw was missing but the few teeth that were in the skull were dull and flat. Zephyr picked it up with one claw and tuned it over slowly.
Taking a closer look at it she was sure that it was a human skull and she wondered how long it had been here. How many years had the human spent chained to the wall, being eaten by rats and decaying in the darkness. Alone. She dropped the skull and it rolled away from her into the dark for the rats to play on again.

----------

She wondered how long she would be left in the cell and how long until the rats turned to her? How long until everyone forgot about her and stopped looking for her?
Zephyr shook her head hard trying to get the dismal thoughts out of it and causing her temple to throb in pain. She winced and closed her eyes leaning her head back against the cool stones behind her. She turned and put the side of her head against the stones and let the coolness soothe her bruises.
She wondered what happened to Oscoro and Oainix. Wondered if Oscoro had managed to get away from the winglies that had chased him into the clouds. Wondered where they took Oainix when they walked into the woods. Wondered if she would ever see them again or if the bones of the human next to her would be her cell mate until she turned to a pile of bones herself. If she wasn’t in such a dismal place she would be more curious about the human but considering her circumstances, she really wasn’t that interested in human history.
She felt tired. Exhausted. The past few days had quickly caught up with her and she felt herself drifting off into dream land. She didn’t fight the sleep, she welcomed it.
Time passed quickly or slowly, Zephyr wasn’t sure but it seemed like she had only just closed her eyes when she was awake for some reason. She kept her eyes closed and listened. She was sure that she had heard something, something out there in the darkness. Something that wasn’t a rat.
She held her breath and strained her ears to hear whatever it was that had roused her from her sleep.
Silence.
Erie silence. The rats weren’t even making a noise. They weren’t running around. She opened her eyes and didn’t even see any beady little eyeballs starring at her and waiting for her to become vulnerable enough to make a meal out of her.
Her head jerked to the right. She had heard it again. That sound. Something was coming closer to her. Something was already deathly close to her.

----------

Goosebumps ran up and down her body as she heard the hiss and saw the viper slither into the light near her feet, flicking it’s tongue and flaring it’s nostrils. It’s opal black eyes were looking at her and she swore that she heard it laugh.
Zephyr went to swipe it away and found that her chains had grown shorter. The shackles around her wrists were nailed into the wall over her head. When had that happened she wondered as her heart began to beat faster. The viper weaved it’s triangular head around her foot and slowly up her leg. Zephyr drew back on the inside but resisted the urge to move on the outside. She didn’t want to make any sudden movements or she was sure that it would be one of her last movements.
“You should have stayed out of the whole thing,” the snake hissed and it slid up her leg and up her side.
“I couldn’t do that.” She answered without moving.
“You are more like your father than you will even know.” The snake moved across her body and around to her left shoulder. “It’s a shame that you didn’t know him in life.” The viper flicked it’s tongue and wrapped itself around Zephyr’s neck loosely. It moved back to her ear and whispered. “You should have plenty of time to catch up with him in the after life though. It’s a pity to kill someone as special as you my dear.”
As it’s grip around her neck tightened the snake changed to a claw and grew an arm. Zephyr shook her head. This had to be a dream. The arm grew a body and a head sprouted out of it, the General’s head.
No. This had to be a dream. Zephyr screamed in silence as the grip continued to tighten. She squirmed against the wall and kicked her feet but that only made his grip tighter. She looked up at the General, confused and then closed her eyes tight. This has got to be a dream she thought and forced her eyes open.
“Zephyr.”
The images of the General vanished in front of her eyes. Zephyr jumped and pushed herself back against the wall breathing hard. Her heart raced in her chest and she gasped for air. She was still in the dark room, still chained to the wall and the rats still scurried all over. It had been a dream. A nightmare.
Zephyr rubbed her throat and was a little relieved that it had all been in her head. She looked at the bones of the human and shook her head. She didn’t know how, but she was going to get out of this cell, she wasn’t going to die in this room.
She refused to give up that easily.
“Zephyr.”

----------

What the hell, she wondered. Was she hearing things? Or was she dreaming again?
“Hello?” she whispered and waited. She didn’t hear anything so she pushed herself to her feet and said a little louder, “Hello?”
“Zephyr, it’s me. Oscoro.”


(Ok so I wrote all this yesteday. Kinda proud of myself. Which means that I'll have to write more today. I'm really not sure about the end of this chapter or what I'm going to do with the next one T___T I will accept any suggestions.. if anyone is out there reading this right now... hello? T__T )