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Zack blinks sleep from his eyes. When the world around him finally solidifies, he panics.
Because he is chained up in a dark, stone room.
He blinks rapidly, trying to focus. His head aches, and his mouth feels as dry as a desert. One arm is chained to the wall, although the other is free. Iron burns into his wrist.
The room is cold, and small. And he is alone.
He tries yelling. “Help! Help! I’m trapped! Let me out!” But his voice echoes around the small room, and stays just as trapped as he is. His hands start to shake, a trembling which spreads along his body like a virus.
He can’t breathe. He can’t think. How did he end up here? Where are Milo and Melissa? What is going on? The last thing that he remembers is falling asleep at camp, snuggled up to Milo, Melissa on Milo’s other side. And then there is a dark spot, one that he can’t see into.
And now he is here. Chained up, alone, in the dark.
He definitely has more bruises and cuts than he fell asleep with. But he just can’t remember. So he has no idea who took him, or what they want, or what they are going to do.
He tugs on the chain, but it holds firm. He has a free hand, but the dirty (in truth, absolutely gross) floors are free of any small object that he could use to break or pick the manacle. His pockets have been emptied. And fidgeting with it himself just earns him burnt fingers.
He takes a deep breath, which is shaky. He is terrified, he doesn’t know what to do. And what will happen when whoever took him comes back? Torture? Will they just kill him? Are they mage smugglers?
Shit, they are totally mage smugglers. Mage smugglers who hate his guts, after he outwitted and got a group of them killed, then accidentally murdered a whole different group of them. So this is really, really bad. They are going to sell him on, and nothing good happens to mages who get sold by mage smugglers. And before that? He doesn’t doubt that they will take their revenge, painfully.
So he definitely needs to get out. Now.
But how? He has been chained with iron. Even Milo and Melissa, as clever and brave as they are, can’t escape from iron. So he should wait until he is taken out of it for transport.
But if he does that, then he might be severely hurt while waiting. And what if he is taken right to a cart, still in iron, and he is transported to… to wherever mages are taken when they’re being sold? His mind helpfully supplies the image of an auction, and he helpfully tells his mind to shut the fuck up.
So he needs to get out of here before then. Which means that he somehow needs to get out of an iron manacle, get out of a locked cell, and then either sneak or fight his way out of whatever building he is locked into. And his magic isn’t exactly combat focused.
But he focuses on the present. Given that he has no idea how he is going to accomplish goal one of getting out of the iron, there really is no point worrying about the other goals.
His brain spirals into panic, with seemingly no solution. He just wants his friends. Wants Milo. Wants to go home, which isn’t a place anymore, but a group of people. He is terrified of what is going to happen to him, what his captors are going to do.
And he is tired. Every time he feels happy, starts to feel safe, as safe as a mage can feel in this world… something happens. Something else happens, over and over again, stamping on that fragile sense of safety and kicking the shards around. He has given up on hoping for safety. He doesn’t get it. He will never, ever get it.
Mages have hard lives. But his life has been so stupidly awful, and it just isn’t fair. He wants to rail and scream, tell the gods to fix things, to make him better. He wants to be better. He wants to be able to hope for better. Hope is for people who aren’t him.
Tears run down his face. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.
It’s not fair.
And in his grief, upset, anger, and idea hits him. A stupid, reckless, dangerous sort of idea. Frankly, an insane idea.
But he knows it’ll work.
He braces himself, grabbing hold of his hand. He breathes in… out… in… out. He closes his eyes, steely determination flooding through him. He suddenly feels like he could do anything.
Crack.
Oh gods, it hurts so much. Like he stabbed himself directly in the wrist, like his bones have all shattered, like his wrist is going to fall off.
But he is able to extract his wrist from the manacle now. And then he carefully touches it with his other hand, and it is surrounded by a golden glow. The pain fades to a dull ache as his wrist heals, as the broken bones knit together.
The bruises on his body fade into nothing. He is out of the iron.
He cheers. And then he panics.
He’s still trapped in a cell. He rattles the door, but it doesn’t budge. He has nothing to break or pick it with. So what does he do?
Another, even more stupid idea, pops into his brain.
This time, steely determination isn’t what follows, but terror. No. No, he can’t do that. He can’t risk that! Nothing could be worth the risk, nothing could be worth the amount of people who would die if he lost control. And he has never actually successfully controlled his powers.
And Milo isn’t here to stop him. He has never tested the limits of his powers, but hundreds of people could die if no one stopped him.
But… but it’s his only way of getting out.
And he has been learning how to control it, and there is iron to touch if he feels himself losing control, and…
Oh gods, is he seriously considering this? He can’t. He can’t do this.
But he finds himself reaching out to touch the door. And then he closes his eyes, and focuses on the feeling inside of him. He searches, and quickly finds a cold, spiky ball. He squeezes it.
Immediately, cold washes over him, like he is submerged in a lake. His head swims, but he keeps a tight hold of the ball, squeezing it. He takes a deep breath, watching as the darkness spreads, as the door turns to dust. He is able to keep his head above the water.
But of course, it keeps spreading. He starts to panic, but he forces himself to slowly, gently let go of the ball.
The darkness stops spreading. His body begins to warm again. And the door is gone.
He backs away, looking down at his hands. He can’t believe that he did it. That it worked. That he managed to control his dark powers. That he stopped it, without hurting himself.
“Oi!”
He looks up. A woman is standing there, pointing a sword at him. “Back, demon!”
“You get back.” Zack says, holding up his hands- not as a surrender, not like he would’ve done before, but as a threat.
“Or what?” She cocks an amused eyebrow. “You’ll heal me to death?”
“See that door?” Zack points at the empty doorframe. “That’s what I’ll do to you if you don’t get out of my way.” He doesn’t like the cold bite to his voice, he doesn’t like threatening. But… but not feeling helpless does feel nice.
She looks at it and gulps, but holds her nerve. “Will you, little healer?”
He gulps. Would he? Could he really willingly do that to someone? Hurt someone so badly, kill someone in such a painful way?
But then, does that matter? Or does it only matter that she believes he would?”
He grasps for the spiky ball again, squeezes it tightly. His eyes go black, his hand starts to go black. Dust starts to spread around his feet. “I will.”
Her eyes widen. The dusts spreads, closer and closer to her, and finally she loses her nerve. “Fine! Fine, go!” She yells.
He lets go of the ball. For a horrible moment he expects it to keep spreading, to consume her entirely. But it stops just before it touches the toe of her shoes. He hides his sigh of relief. “Good.” He snaps, marching away. As soon as he is out of her sight, he starts to run.
He needs to get out of here. Now.