The Pit and the Pendulum

The CampfireThe openingFree

I was sick. Sick to death, from the long torture. When they finally untied me and let me sit, I felt my senses leaving me.

The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last thing I heard clearly. After that, the voices of the judges in their black robes blurred into a dreamy hum.

I saw their lips moving. Thin, white lips. I saw them saying my name. I saw the candles on the table, seven tall white candles, and for a moment they looked like angels, like they might save me.

Then the candles went out. And everything went black.

When I woke, I was lying on my back. I didn't open my eyes. I was afraid to. I wasn't afraid of what I would see. I was afraid that I would see nothing.

At last I opened them.

Black. Total black. The blackness of eternal night.

I couldn't breathe. I thought I had been buried alive. I jumped up and threw my arms out wildly in every direction. Nothing. I took a step. Nothing. I was not in a tomb, at least.

I was in a prison of the Inquisition, in Toledo, Spain, in the dungeons. I knew that. And I had heard stories about these dungeons. About what was done there. They were too horrible to say out loud.