They called it mercy.
Locking the child away instead of killing him.
They were wrong.
The Cell
Deep beneath the palace, carved into the black belly of the earth, they made a space too small to stand, too narrow to stretch.
A pit.A prison.A tomb.
No light touched its walls.No warmth reached its air.
And there, the third prince of Verdantia—nameless, hated, forgotten—grew.
If it could be called growing.
Death, Repeated
They executed him daily.
Poison in his food.Knives in the dark.Boiling water. Hanging. Holy blades.
He was stabbed, crushed, drowned, burned.
But he would not die.
So they changed their goal.
If they couldn't end his life,They would teach him what death felt like.
And make him live with it.
Pain Without End
The first year, he cried.The second, he screamed.The third… he stopped doing both.
They brought snakes and acid.Insects and iron.He learned to catch them. Crush them. Endure them.
Every wound healed. Every bone regrew.
But the pain remained.
They could not kill him.
So they tried to kill his mind.
The World Above
Above ground, festivals continued.
The queen bore no more children.
The king ruled with a steady hand and a cracked heart.
No one spoke of the third child.
Most had forgotten him.
Those who remembered… paid to see him.
Nobles came to witness the "demon" suffer.
A public spectacle of blood and silence.
Some laughed.Some vomited.All left unchanged.
Only the boy remained.
Chained.Breathing.Waiting.
No Name
They never gave him a name.
He was "it.""The thing.""The cursed one."
Even his mother never came.Even his siblings never spoke his name.
His sister called him a stain.His brother promised to kill him.
But no one ever succeeded.
And still… he waited.
Inside the Silence
In the dark, time lost meaning.
Seasons never reached him.Years slipped by.He didn't know his age.Didn't know the day.
Only pain marked time.
But deep inside that silence… something waited.
Not hatred.Not madness.
Something colder.
Something sharper.
Something that remembered.
The Child Remains
By his tenth year, he had no reason to speak.No reason to cry.
The guards beat him. He didn't flinch.They poisoned him. He didn't blink.
He simply watched.
Eyes too old.Too quiet.Too dangerous.
The world had tried to break him.
But it had only buried him.
And something buried…Eventually rises.