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Cole still sleeps. It’s hard to explain. He’s not very good at keeping track of time in the Pit, but he thinks he sleeps every night, just like he’s supposed to. The way he would if he were real, or alive, or whatever that elusive thing is that heisn’t anymore. Sometimes he feels tired; other times, he only closes his eyes because he knows he should, because the templar sentries guarding the entrance to the Pit are yawning mightily, slumped over in their chairs, eyelids drooping. They’ll be reprimanded if they’re caught, but the knowledge is never enough to stave off the lure of sleep.
Cole sleeps the same way he does everything else–aimlessly, thoughtlessly, passing from one place to the next without anyone–or anything–ever knowing he’s there. In a way, he’s lucky. He’s heard that mages are vulnerable to the advances of demons when they dream, and though he doesn’t know any magic, he must be a mage. Why would he be here if he wasn’t? But he doesn’t dream. No demons come to him with their promises. He’s as invisible to them as he is to everyone else.
It’s hardly better than being awake, but sleeping whittles away the hours he would otherwise spend wandering the hallways, trying to get someone–anyone–to notice him, to see him, to talk to him and help him–Maker, he’s so lonely–
So he sleeps. The place varies from night to night. Old crypts, dusty storerooms, abandoned sentry posts that once guarded vast chambers. They must have once held something valuable (or dangerous), Cole reasons, but they are empty now, long forgotten. Even the deadly booby traps lay dormant or broken–not that they would have harmed him, even if they were functional. One outpost has a bed. A cot, really, not much more than a pile of threadbare blankets over a moldy straw mattress, but it’s more comfortable than the floor and the elevated rickety wooden frame keeps it out of the reach of the rats.
It would be one of his favorite places to sleep, except for its location.
He starts to lie down when he hears the scream. It’s loud–a shriek of desperate terror and dismay–and it echoes across the vaulted ceiling like a living thing. It almost seems to get louder before fading away, and Cole knows he won’t be sleeping here tonight.
He hasn’t been back to the dungeons since it happened. Since he became…what he is now. The thought of stepping foot in that place again, of seeing that dank, dark cell where they’d put him, causes a painful shudder to run up his spine. His breath judders out of him like his lungs are made of raw, jagged edges. Sometimes the thought of being so near to it makes sleeping here unbearable. And now…
The prisoner–another mage–screams again, and Cole is halfway across the chamber before he even realizes that he’s moved. The screaming doesn’t let up, and the echoes turn it into a thunderous noise. Cole claps his hands over his ears until the sound of his own hammering heartbeat is louder. Even though he knows they won’t see him, he’s desperately afraid that the screaming will draw the attention of the templars. The templars won’t help him. They’ll throw him back in the dark. He can’t let them see him, he can’t go back there, he can’t.
And yet he lingers, even as the screams turn into wracking, hideous sobs. Something makes him walk toward the sound, toward the dungeons. Terror rolls in his belly, coiling up around his throat till he can hardly breathe, but he walks on, avoiding the pools of yellow torchlight as he gets nearer and nearer to the entrance. The sobbing reminds him of the days after the templars brought him here. Maybe…maybe the new mage will be able to see him. Maybe he’ll be able to make him see him. It hasn’t worked so far–Cole has even ventured up into the upper levels in an attempt to communicate with the mages there–but maybe they have to want to see him? He remembers being in that cell. He knows what it’s like to feel like the world has forsaken you. Suddenly he’s certain that this mage will be able to see him, and he quickens his pace.
There is a templar at the guard post. Cole freezes as he turns to look directly at him. He’s not wearing his helmet, so Cole can see his eyes–they seem to focus on him for a fraction of a second before sliding off to gaze somewhere beyond his shoulder. His expressions darkens, mouth dipping into a tight lipped frown.
“You’re late.”
Another templar walks up behind Cole, skirting around him without so much as sparing him a glance. “My nap ran long,” he says breezily, removing his helm and dropping it lazily on the low table. “Maker, is that blighter still carrying on? Would have thought he’d have screamed himself hoarse by now.”
“Good thing you managed to fit in a nap,” says the other templar, with no lack of spite. “He’ll keep you up for the next four hours running.”
“That’s why I always bring these.” The templar jams two small wads of something pale and formless into his ears–candle wax, Cole thinks.
The first templar scoffs under his breath. “Unbelievable.”
He hangs the thick iron ring of keys on a nail in the wall just inside the door, and leaves.
Cole waits a full ten minutes, shifting nervously from foot to foot. The sobbing turns to bitter cursing, which eventually becomes screaming again, before mutating into something like a moan or a wail, like an animal caught in a trap.
None of this bothers the templar on duty. True to his word, the candle wax seems to be doing its job and the man has started to drift off. Though every fiber of him is demanding that he flee, Cole edges out into the open. Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me, he prays, shuffling around behind the guard, toward the key ring on the wall. Don’t see me. Don’t see me.
The templar doesn’t see him. Not even when he lifts the ring from the nail and his shaking hands cause the keys to clink together noisily. Cole should feel relieved, but instead feels despair welling up in him like a dense fog, paralyzing all thoughts of freeing the imprisoned mage. No one is ever going to see him. He’s trapped here, trapped and forgotten and friendless. He can leave any time he wants, but where would he go? He’s as much a prisoner as the man in the cell.
The templar starts to snore. The sound presents such a stark counterpoint to the pitiful wailing down the hall that Cole is jolted out of his thoughts. He sighs heavily, deliberately, in one last attempt to get the templar to notice him–he doesn’t–before starting down the long dark length of the dungeons.
As he stops in front of the door, it occurs to him suddenly that he has no idea what he’ll do if the mage actually does see him, what he’ll say. He can’t remember the last time he spoke to anyone. He squints into the darkness past the thin slit at the top of the door, peering around the superfluous iron bars that prevented an impossible escape. The templar don’t often use these cells, the ones with the windows. They prefer the solid oak doors, great slabs of wood and iron that let nothing out–not men, not light, not sound. They must not view this mage as much of a threat. That, or they don’t intend to keep him here long.
Cole swallows hard–his throat is suddenly very dry–and whispers, almost inaudibly, “Hello?”
The wailing is his only reply, so he says again, louder this time, “Hello? Are you there?”
The wailing cuts off. There are a few hitched breaths, and then frantic scuffling–and then Cole is looking directly into a pair of wide, bloodshot green eyes.
The eyes look back. They look back.
“Who are you? You’re not a templar, are you? Oh please, let me out of here. I haven’t done anything wrong, I’m begging you!”
Cole says nothing. He opens his mouth, but nothing but a wobbling gasp escapes him.
Pale hands reach up and grasp the narrow bars, framing a pale, round face. He’s Cole’s age, Cole’s height, Cole’s build. He has Cole’s past and present. His voice is high and trembling, rough from screaming. “Please! Please let me out, please! Oh, Maker, please!”
“You can see me. You can see me.”
The mage doesn’t know what to make of this, evidently. He frowns. “Yes. Yes, I– Are you a mage? How did you get past the guard? Oh Andraste, nevermind that. Please let me out of here, I’ll do anything–”
Numbly, Cole selects a key at random and inserts it into the lock. He has to try a few times–his hands are unsteady, and the first key is the wrong fit–but eventually the lock gives a click.
The mage inside hurls it open with desperate strength. Then he’s embracing Cole, weeping expressively into his shoulder, blubbering his gratitude–
He can see him. He can touch him. He’s real, he isn’t a ghost, he isn’t dead, he isn’t trapped–
“Stop right there! Stay where you are, mage!”
They both freeze.
Mage. Not mages.
The candle wax templar is at the end of the hall, a huge hulking shape outlined in the flickering blue light from the glowstones. The mage screams in terror and flees, pushing Cole away from him. He doesn’t get far. The templar charges noisily after, armor clanking, but even if full mail he’s faster than the mage. He does something to the air when he catches up, makes it twist and flicker like a candle flame on the verge of snuffing out, and the mage crumples into a boneless heap.
As he manhandles him into a new cell–no windows, this time–he demands, “How did you get out of your cell?!”
Cole holds his breath. This is it, this is how he gets thrown back into the darkness–
“I– I don’t know! The door just opened, I swear. Please don’t put me back in there, please no–!”
The cell door slams shut on his protests.
He doesn’t remember.
Gutted, Cole slumps against the stone wall. His skin is buzzing with something like shock or fear, but everything else is blank and white and utterly without meaning. When he templar stops in front of him, he looks up, somehow daring to hope–
But he just collects the ring of keys from the ground where Cole had dropped them and walks back to his post.
There’s no screaming to bother him now.
Cole screams for the mage, for himself, screams into the void, and the templar starts to snore.