Chapter Text
Darkness was all Five had ever known.
Around her, constantly, was the looming idea that she would be nothing more than what surrounded her.
Everyday, she’d open her sleepless eyes and hope to feel something other than the weight of chains on her wrists and the cold of her cell seeping into her bones.
She learned quickly that in this cruel world, life was as easy to lose as it was to give. If she ever failed to comply with whatever the scouts had her do, she would get hurt.
It was common knowledge, and some might say it was fair; she was a basilisk and they were witches. She was a monster and deserved all of this because all she would do was bring fear and bloodshed. Because of this, Five was locked away, shielded from a waiting world.
All she had known was that room, but she knew there was more to the land than a dimly lit cage and the smell of sickness.
She wished she was on the other side of those bars with all the free will she could ever want.
For a while, she thought that wasn’t possible. Five would spend her long, dark days by leaning against the walls and listening to the other basilisks around her talk or growl, knowing this would be the only interaction she would get. Some were mean, some were nice, but they all shared one thing in common:
They were in the same situation she was in. They all hated where they were and longed for the sun. Every once in a while, one of the older basilisks would try to reach their talons out and feel the outside of their cell, their eyes glazed over with longing and bitterness. Few would be angry at the way they were treated. They would snap and snarl at the utensils used or fight back at any given moment. Those were the ones covered in the most scars. Five hated the look in their eyes—they seemed to have forgotten themselves in the experimentation. All that remained was a jagged scribble—an angry, broken thing, worn thin for the Emperor’s gain. Those basilisks were angry at what was ripped so violently out of their eager, waiting claws.
The rest were hopeful. Like Five, Two and Six were waiting for their moment.
Two was the eldest. He told Five of the brilliant sun and the long stalks of grass that they would eventually get to slither and bound through, their scaly arms stretched wide out to feel the wind and the wisping aromas of climbing flowers.
Six was Five’s age and she had the same childish energy. She was fierce and angry, but had not forgotten what they were out for.
They were out for the sun. To feel its brilliant rays and to grab at the shining orb.
At least, that’s what she imagined it as. She imagined it as a circular yellow light that lit the entire world up with warmness and the new day. But Five had never been outside before. She never felt the morning dew on the blades of grass or held a deep purple flower up to her nose.
She wished to, though. She longed to dance and sing and belt out whatever she wanted to the blue, blue, sky where the sun might finally hear her voice.
If she cried out to the ceiling—she wondered one lonely night when all the others had been taken by sleep—would her voice climb high enough to brush the sky? Would her aspirations and her dreams of something–anything–more, float up to the sun and finally be answered?
Five could only sit there in her cell, claws bound by heavy iron shackles, and hope.
________________________________________
Five awoke to the sound of banging and screeching two cells down. Her eyes snapped open and at once, she lifted herself off the ground and leaned against the bars to try and peer through her cell.
Three scouts were barking something at one of the basilisks two cells from her own. One had a sharp looking utensil in their grip and was waving it threateningly around.
The basilisk gave a low, guttural growl. Claws swiped from outside of the bars and caught the scout’s cloak. They immediately yanked the scout against the cell, sending the tool flying out of their hand. The basilisk attempted to bite the scout, their teeth clacking dangerously close to their mask.
There was struggling for a while; she heard the rattling of cage doors and the slamming of flesh against metal. Finally, Five could hear the basilisk’s jaw cleave down on the scouts arm. The next thing that echoed around the chambers was the crunch of bone.
The scout in question let out a bellowing scream, using their boot to drive it into the basilisk’s head. The basilisk squealed and drew back, releasing the broken scout.
Five watched as the group huddled around their coworker, gently attempting to assess their broken bone. (She couldn’t see what exactly was broken, but if she could guess it was either their arm or wrist.) One scout drew a deep blue spell circle–at this point she knew if it was a dark blue like that, it was to heal–and ran it gently over the injury. Five pressed her face further into the bars, attempting to get a better look at the glowing blue magic.
It didn’t fix right away because she didn’t hear the bone snapping back into place or the squelching of tendons knitting back together.
While they tried to help their comrade, one whirled up off the ground and picked the tool up. Now, she could see it was the utensil to shock. Five looked away for this part, burying her face in her talons.
She couldn’t block out the sound of crackling electricity and the way it muffled when it was driven into the basilisk’s scales. They didn’t even make a sound until after it was over; a low whine.
Whisking footsteps and the labored breathing of the injured scout drew further and further away until Five decided it was safe to look. Outside of her cell was the exact same before the scouts had even arrived. It was the same bleak lighting, the same rust that crawled up the walls, and the same cold floor underneath her scales.
Gingerly, she gripped the bars and spoke.
“Are you okay?” her voice shook.
It was what seemed like an eternity before the basilisk down the room answered. Their voice was raspy and hoarse. It came much louder than hers. “Five, shut up.”
A bang came from the other side of the room. Six, on the other wall, with her deep emerald scales and her almost black stare, was white knuckling the bars. “Hey!” she snarled, her lip curling back to reveal crooked yellow fangs. “She’s asking if you’re alright, you don’t need to be a complete ass about it!”
Five tilted her head at Six. “What’s ass?”
Six shrugged. “I dunno. One of the scouts said it.”
The basilisk on the far side of the wall, the scarred figure that rarely spoke, rolled their bloodshot eyes. “Just let me sleep! I don’t need little lizards telling me how to feel.”
On the other side, her friend gave a rumbling growl and looked at Five, giving a disquieted huff.
“Whatever,” she said, releasing her deadly grip on the iron bars. She half expected to see indents on where her claws once were. “You’re too stupid to know basic empathy anyway, Three.” Six snarled.
Before Three could open their gnarled lips to retort, Two spoke up. Five didn’t know how big Two was or what he looked like, but she assumed he was mighty with the way the room quieted whenever he interjected. “Quit your bickering,” he hissed. “Soon we will all see the sun and things will be as they once were.”
The room was silent for a long while. She waited for somebody to speak up or to say something to break the suffocating tension, but it didn’t come.
So instead, she did what got her through the day. Five reached her claws out of the bars and slipped them to the wall next to her, opening and closing her hand in quick succession. As prompted, she felt Two’s own magenta claws grip hers.
The feeling of Two’s scales against hers was usually all she needed to survive. She lived for having somebody to trust.
“Tell me it again,” she whispered. “Tell me the story about the sun.”
Two chuckled—a sound more rattle than laugh—before a hacking fit of coughs took over. He turned away to spit, his free hand shielding what dignity he had left. When he turned back, his grip was weaker, but his voice still carried warmth.
“Oh, it’s wonderful. I wish I could describe it to you all,” Two whispered, resonating tones lined with harsh illness. “It’s warm and bright–you couldn’t imagine how bright it is,” he paused. “You know, they say you can’t look at it for too long, or you’ll go blind.”
At this, Five gave a stifled gasp. “You’re kidding,” she breathed, squeezing Two’s hand in excitement. Once she saw the sun, she wouldn’t care if she went blind; she would look at the sun for as long as she pleased.
“I wish I was,” Two said slowly. “To light up the land for the coming day; I’m sure it will be bright. The sun brings its rays down on us all, we just have to wait for it to reach us.”
At this, Six spoke up, her barking voice reaching the pair far too easily. “Say, doesn’t it light up the moon, as well?”
“It does.” Two answers.
The other gives a smile, the gloomy lighting reflecting off her twisted teeth. Her black gaze twinkled impishly. “When I get out of here, I’m going to rule the night,” at this her smirk grew larger. “They’re going to call me the Terrifying Terrorizer.”
Five frowned. “I don’t like that name.”
Six’s expression fell. “Well,” she said after a moment, averting her gaze to the ground. She fidgeted a little before continuing. “We can point at the constellations and count the moon phases together. I don’t have to be a Terrifying Terrorizer.”
Five smiled. “A moon phase is when the moon changes form, right?” she turned to her hand clasped around Two.
Six nodded fervently. “I like when the moon looks like this,” With a tiny pebble, she scratched a large circle in the ground and then cut out a small sliver, shading the rest in.
“A crescent?” Two asked.
She grinned. “Yeah. I remember when you told me about the lights and the moonlight. I like it when it’s after the brightest moon, y’know, like when it’s almost a fully dark one but not quite? It’s almost gone but the light is just barely hanging on,” she paused, looking down at her pathetic little pebble. “Like us.”
The room fell silent once more; a comfortable silence that allowed each of them to sit with their thoughts. Five gently unclasped her hand from Two’s and brought her claws back inside her cell to cradle her face.
“Maybe,” she said gently, rolling onto her belly. The motion caused her chains to rattle faintly, banging together like wine glasses. “When we get out, we can spend the day sleeping in the sun. Or smelling the flowers,” at that, she turned to Six’s cell. “What do you think flowers smell like?”
The aforementioned paused for a moment, biting her lip. “I don’t know. I’m sure they’re lovely, though.”
“They’re unique. Every flower smells different.” Two’s voice came suddenly, causing Five to jolt in surprise.
Both of them glanced at each other, their heads tilted toward the ground as they tried to imagine what a flower smelt like.
Then, another question came bubbling up; unprompted and nagging.
“Two?” Five reached through the bars again, patting the ground to get his attention. A grunt from the adjacent stall told her he was listening. “How do you know all of this?”
“He’s been outside before.” A raspy voice came from the end. It was Three again; out of the corner of her eye she could spy Six giving them a glare that could burn through their bars.
Beside her, Two gave a heavy sigh. “Only briefly. Enough to remember the birdsong.” The dim light outside of their cells flickered.
“Alone?” Six asked suddenly, her hands closing around the bars.
Two fell silent. Only the rattling of shackles sounded as he reached outside of his cell and gripped Five’s awaiting hand. He squeezed, breathing heavily out of his nose. She could tell he was on the verge of drowning in another fit of coughs. “No, not alone. I was accompanied by another basilisk. She’s gone now.”
Three scoffed a couple cells down and another basilisk Five did not know gave a small hiss.
“Was it One?” she asked gently, giving his claws a reciprocal squeeze.
“It was.” His response was quiet and wobbly. She glanced over to Six and her expression seemed similar. Her brows were furrowed and her nose was crinkled.
“I’m sorry,” Five blurted. “It must have been hard.”
Two released her hand and slinked further into his cell. “It was, but there’s no time to dwell on the past,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”
Without the warmth of somebody’s hand in hers, she was unable to fall asleep. Five sat restless in her cell for a while, whiskers quivering in the still air. Every once in a while, she would glance at Six but she was already curled up and her chest was rising and falling in a slow, methodical way. A whisper of a snore played out of her mouth.
Once again, sleep had taken the minds of everybody around her.
Soon, she hoped it would take her mind too, because she did not want to linger in her cell for any longer. She wanted to dream of the sun and the climbing moon and the smell of rain.
But when she shut her eyes and curled into a little ball, no dreams came for Five that night.
_______________________________________
She was the last to wake up the next day. A soft knock on beside her stirred her from her slumber—Two.
“Five,” his voice came softly. “It’s the morning.”
Five wished she could tell if he was lying. Perhaps, they woke up during the night and slept through the day, instead? There were no windows in wherever they lived, so it was likely they were just trusting instincts and sleeping whenever they pleased.
Just as she heaved herself off the floor, she heard the thunderous boot steps of marching scouts outside. Her ears flicked just slightly to pivot toward the direction of those screeching steel doors. Then, she waited and listened silently for it to push open.
When it did, three scouts of all different heights marched in and behind them dragged a rickety cart with squeaking wheels. On the cart, as usual, was the only food Five had ever known. It was thick, greyish, and if you spent too long chewing your bite it would get stuck to the roof of your mouth. You’d spend hours trying to get the taste out.
One drew a spell circle and the plates roughly shoved themselves between the bars. Most of Five’s food splattered out of the bowl and onto the ground.
Six gave a snarl that simmered in her chest like clanging nuts and bolts. The scout in question only chuckled lightly, their fists opening and closing. At this, Six’s own bowl was deliberately flipped midair and all the contents went splat on the floor of her cell. The scout released the floating bowl and it landed on the pile of ruined food.
Then, they left after all the food was dispersed and filed neatly out of the room.
Five chewed some of her food, watching the flicker of green scales as Six sat staring at her food.
“Are you going to eat?” Five asked gently, drawing her tongue and licking up the last bit of mush from her bowl.
Six’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know, I never eat it off the floor,” at this her fists tightened. Five could see the quivering shake of her frustration in her claws. “I hate that scout.”
Five raised a brow. “Well, I don’t have any more to give, I’m sorry.”
Six shook her head and gave a gentle smile. “It’s…” she paused, eyeing the seeping food. “It’s fine.” she said, then used her finger to scoop some into her mouth.
They all were too hungry to complain about the taste; most of the time Five couldn’t taste it anyway.
However, that night, she couldn’t help but feel something was off. Two and Six had already fallen asleep and the languid sense of nothing at all filled the dungeon.
She was used to this, to listening for anything going on outside but hearing nothing.
But Six wasn't snoring like she usually was. She could hear the deep resonating breaths of Two on the other side of the wall. They came slow and echoing.
There was a chance Six might have still been awake, because there wasn’t a singular night that Five could remember when she wasn't snoring or making some sort of shuffling in her sleep.
“Six?” she whispered, attempting to reach her arms from the cage as far as they would stretch.
Six didn’t answer. She jerked and her ears twitched in her sleep, but her breaths came all the same. To Five, they sounded different, but maybe her mind was playing tricks. Maybe, tomorrow night, things will go back to being normal.
When she finally fell asleep and awoke the next morning, Six’s bright emerald scales were dull and she was turned away from the light. The scouts brought the gruel all the same, but when they came across Six’s cell and tossed the bowl in, she didn’t even stir.
At this point, Five had begun to worry. It wasn’t a gentle worry; it was far from something quiet.
“Six? Six, you are going to eat, aren’t you?” Five asked naggingly after she didn’t touch her bowl.
“Not today. My head hurts,” Six said, her voice deep and congested.
That same night, when all else laid to rest, Five reached her hand out and knocked softly on the floor. Then, Two’s claws held hers.
“She’s ill,” Two said. They both paused for a minute to listen to Six’s wheezing. “But she will pull through.”
At this Five relaxed considerably. The panging worry became less.
But that morning, Six’s hands trembled uncontrollably and the twinkle from her black eyes was gone. Her usually emerald scales flaked off and scattered haphazardly around her cell. Five could hear her wheezy breaths—more prominent than ever—she could see the sway in Six’s focus, she could smell the illness wafting off of her.
Six was replaced by a frail, shaking basilisk. This was not the bold, shouty friend she once knew. This wasn’t Six.
Today was another testing day and Five wasn’t sure if Six was strong enough to do what she was told to. Surely, the scouts would take one look at her and decide to let her skip this one time. She hoped so, with all of her heart.
So when they filed in with tiny portions of food, (she knew by then that a poorly hidden sedative was embedded into the slop, but she was too tired to care) the scouts stopped by Six’s cell. They stared down at her and her uneaten portions of food and shook their heads.
“This one is sick,” one spoke gruffly, their deep voice was almost as hollow as Two’s.
“No SHIT, you’re here everyday, have you not noticed?” one snapped; her voice was higher and sliced through the air like a knife.
“Whatever,” the other grunted. “We’re under orders to stop the infection from spreading, so let’s just do that now and take the others.” He said, as if there weren’t other beings in the room.
Relief flooded her veins. Finally, they’re going to heal her! Five so dearly missed the way Six’s eyes twinkled and the way her sharp teeth caught the light. She watched eagerly as a scout drew a spell circle.
Just a second too late, she watched as bright, angry red magic came from the fingertip of the shorter scout. It wasn’t blue healing magic. It wasn’t a dark blue spell circle. It was angry. It was dangerous.
Five cried out a moment too late. Her claws slammed against the bars. Next to her, she could hear Two’s sharp intake of breath.
Magic shot from the spell and hit Six. Her body flailed helplessly, her black, hopeless eyes blew wide and her teeth grit impossibly hard. She didn’t make a sound. Six seized for a moment, her entire body going into overdrive; and then she fell onto the floor with a thud that silenced everything and everyone.
Nothing moved. Nothing spoke, not even the incessant purr of the artificial lighting.
Then, everything hit her. Hard. Fast. Burning her like a billowing fire.
Five’s mouth split and she let out a wail, slamming her head into the bars. Her arms reached out of her cell, reaching for something—ANYTHING. They moved against her will, her claws gouging the floor as she cried.
Tears fell hard and fast, wetting the dirty dusty floor below.
The only thing she could hear were her pathetic wails as she pressed herself to the back wall, burying her face in her hands. She shoved her hands into her eyes and squeezed them shut in an attempt to brainwash herself. Would things be better if she had never known Six? Alas, she was dead and she could do nothing. Five just sat in her cell and sobbed.
Six was dead.
Six was dead.
Six was DEAD!
The thought was foreign to her as she sat against the back wall; tears like an ebbing current flowing down her cheeks.
The scouts marched out of the room, silent and unfeeling all the way.
She cried throughout the night and nobody silenced her. Three didn’t tell her to shut up, because they knew if they did, she wouldn’t get defended.
Then, when she had finally wailed and bawled until there was nothing left, Two’s magenta claws flickered at the edge of her cell. He knocked slowly on the ground, but Five did not take his hand.
“No.” her voice was not her own. It was sore and painful from her blubbering; one could definitely hear it in her tone. Now, all Five wanted to do was wallow.
“Five,” Two breathed, their voice wheezy and urgent.
“No.”
“Don’t you want to see the sun?” he prodded.
At this she fell silent.
“We have to get out, and it must be soon.”