Confined

e began to come round. The sharp coldness of the stone floor on his bare feet shot along his nerves, the signals reaching his brain almost instantaneously. There was a repugnant smell of stagnant water filling the stale air in the small room. His back was cold and wet with what seemed to be slime on the floor. He suddenly stood bolt upright and tried to open his eyes, but in vain. He felt the cold, hard iron leg irons around his ankles. He fell on his knees and began to feel his way around the dark, dank enclosure.

He crawled in one direction, stopping only when his lowered head rammed into a wall. He then turned right and felt his way around the wet, smooth wall of his prison.

The floor had a layer of cold water, motionless except for the ripples caused by his slow movements. The walls were covered with slime, dripping droplets of water from the walls and ceiling to add to the small lake already on the floor.

He continued on his lonesome journey along the wall, when it changed direction, but not in the way he anticipated. He had expected it to be a small box shaped room, but this wall went the other way, down what seemed to be a tight narrow corridor. He continued on passed the passageway, around the room. He would investigate down there later.

He came to another small narrow corridor but this one only went down about three feet. He crawled down it, into the darkness. Without warning his hands fell from under him and he fell.

He had fallen only five foot when his fall was broken by a slimy soggy rotten mess.

He felt around slowly.

All of a sudden his hand came across a smooth round object. Then there was another and another. He tried to open his eyes again. He tried with all his might. They flicked open.

The seal had been his own (he presumed) blood, which was congealed on his eye lashes. He slowly looked towards where his hand was resting on the object. When his eyes came to rest on his hand he leaped out of the pit and half ran, half crawled back down the tunnel. It had been the rotting body of a fellow elf. He had been felling the decaying ribs of one body.

He stopped at the edge of the room and looked about. There was very little light to see by, but he could make out the other end of the tunnel he had found earlier. Just then, something fell on his shoulder.

He froze.

After a few minutes when the thing had not moved he slowly carefully turned around. There on his shoulder lay a hand, looking further round he saw the hand was connected to a body, well what was left of it that is, which he must have dislodged when he came back into the room.

The rest of the room was bare, except for a straw bed in one corner, which looked to be covered with slime like the rest of the room.

When he had his breathing under control, he made his way across the lake of water towards the other tunnel, which he had found earlier. He looked into the entrance, but could see nothing, and it didn't smell to good either, so he decided to sleep for a while. He made his way over to the bed of straw, and tried to sleep.

The room was covered in a fine mist. He awoke to the smell of burning, but at least the room now had some warmth in it. The mist was coming from the tunnel he had not yet investigated. Now was the time, as he was feeling no longer tired, but yet he was hungry. It must be days since his last meal.

He crawled towards the tunnel and slowly made his way down it.

It was bleak and bare and all he could see was a faint glow away in the distance. The smoke was thicker in here and he started coughing. The further he went in the thicker it got, but also the brighter the glow became.

He came to the end of the tunnel, which opened out into a large cave, which was about twice the size of the cell. It was half full of other bodies rotting and decaying. The smoke was beginning to clear and the other side of the cave was now visible. It opened out into another cave which was larger still.

In the distance he could see a large green and red dragon asleep, this was causing the glow he had seen in the tunnel. With the dragon were many other types of creature, including balrogs, trolls and cyclopes.

As he peered out into the large cave, they caught sight of him. He appeared not to be the only hungry creature around here. He started to run back into the tunnel, but was caught by a cyclops and thrown into the middle of the cave.

He tried to escape the ring of hungry monsters all trying to eat him, but it was no use, he was totally surrounded. There was nowhere to run.

A troll caught him by the leg as he made a valiant attempt to escape and threw him into the air. Waiting for his return to the ground was a balrog, which stood under him, mouth open wide. He fell straight into the waiting mouth of the expectant balrog. The balrog slowly closed his jaws, and munched away on the flesh of his latest victim.