The man reels in his own filth. But he doesn’t resemble a man now. He’s an animal, grunting and howling as he scratches himself and lopes around the room on all fours.
There is straw in the chamber. The straw makes it easier to clean the excrement at the end of each day… which is done by an old prisoner who has been here for thirty years. The prisoner is afraid of the man-animal, but the cleaning represents his only freedom, and so he hefts a shovel and a sack and goes through the iron door every evening.
Tonight, the sack contains a knife. And the prisoner is crying, tears creeping through his white stubble. What he is about to do could get him slowly lowered in boiling oil over the course of a day. But if he does it, the Prince has promised him freedom and comfort for the rest of his life.
The man-animal snarls at the prisoner when he opens the door, as though he senses what is coming. The prisoner thinks about the years he has spent in a solitary chamber, craving a hot meal or a blanket or a friendly voice. He thinks about his own declining senses, and death in a cell.
He lifts the knife and strikes.
The man-animal shrieks as his throat is cut, but the rush of blood means that another strike won’t be needed. The prisoner has succeeded.
But he did not know that one can still scream with a cut throat.
Brought by the noise, the outer guard slams open the door and stares in horror. There are footsteps of more guards in the hall.
“The King has been killed!”
Too late, the prisoner realizes that the Prince will not, could not possibly, keep his promise.
The Home of Forgotten Stories 