Dungeon

           The dungeon was dark.  The palpable air, smelling of moist, moldy bread, dead grass, and faintly of chalk, filled my lungs as if to drown me.  My gasping for air joined the cacophony of drips, dripped down on the stone floor to pooled around uneven spots.  Not that any parts were dry, of course.  I didn’t inherently hate the dampness of it all, for in the beginning it was just damp.  Then came the cold.  The temperature was my torturer, stabbing invisible needles in my nose, my face, my legs, my arms.  He sucked the moisture away, and whispered in my frozen ears that he would take me away, too.  He gripped my fingers in his hands and turned them blue, then purple, then black … but that was before they fell off.  Icy waves of pain rolled through me.  I grew accustomed to my own shrieks of pain as precious heat found new ways to abandon me.  Now he prods my face more; but what control I have left is thrown into keeping my dry mouth shut.  I must keep my tongue!