This spectre in this strange place; this chilling narrator that he knew certainly was another form of torture; this voice that echoed off of stone walls and into his head, shaking around inside of him until his very bones rattled with the icy cold of fear.
“Why are you here?” He asked, his voice hoarser than he last remembered. His throat was raw from the screaming. He wasn't sure if it was from the nightmares or what he had to wake up to. Silence is what greeted him from the other side of the wall. Silence so thick that Amathlan was sure he had imagined the voice in the first place.
“I could ask you the same thing,” his beloved phantom replied from the cell next to his, sending another cold shudder through his prison. She continues, “but the answer to your question is too long a story to tell. Does anyone know that you are here?”
Amathlan was not sure. The hesitation in his speech - along with the dry mouth that came with a lack of water - prompted the other to speak once more.
“There is someone looking for you.”
It wasn't a question. The fact that the statement was so assuredly asserted only send him spiraled further into stunned silence. There was a twinge of remorse in the comment, or longing, as if there was not someone searching for her. It drew his thoughts to Ithilwë; but his thoughts in this place rarely strayed from his husband, whom the very thought of had become a lifeline. There was someone looking for him. The very dim spark of hope that came from that assurance beat away some of the chill that had settled in his chest.
“We have to get out of here,” the voice said from the other cell.
It is just in my head.
“We have to escape.”
It is not real.
“If you want to survive, you will need my help in getting out.”
There is no help I can receive from a ghost.
“Amathlan! Those who seek you will not find you if you cannot help yourself!”
You are supposed to be dead.
