He found, after some time, that he could put himself to sleep. But the return of this gift meant nothing anymore. He remembered nothing. This was his life. Sleep. Wake only when an inquisitive creature strayed too close. The rush of agony consuming him when his heart beat. Conserving as much strength as possible to try to draw food to him. Sources were few and far between. Even insects learned to avoid the place of darkness and the malevolent creature who dwelled there.
In the endless moments that inched past during his waking agony, he would whisper his name to himself. Jacques. He had a name. He was real. He existed. He lived in hell. He lived in darkness. The hours turned into months, then years. He could no longer remember any other way of life, any other existence. There was no hope, no peace, no way out. There was no end. Only the darkness, the pain, the terrible hunger. Time continued to pass, meant nothing in his limited world.
His wrists were manacled so that he had little room to maneuver, but every time a creature came close enough to awaken him, he scratched at the walls of his coffin in a vain attempt to get out. His strength of mind was returning so that he eventually could coax his prey to him, yet only enough to barely survive. There was no way to regain his power and strength without replacing the huge volume of blood he had lost. There was no creature underground big enough to do that. Every time he woke, moved, fresh blood would drip steadily from his wounds. Without the necessary amount of blood to replace his loss, his body could not heal itself. The circle was endless, hideous, an ugly cycle that would last for all eternity.
Then the dreams began to intrude. Waking him when he was starving, without a way to fill the void. A woman. He recognized her, knew she was out there, alive, no manacles, not buried beneath the earth but able to move freely around. She was just out of his mind’s reach, yet he could almost touch her. Why didn’t she come to him? He could summon up no face, no past, only the knowledge that she was out there somewhere. He called to her. Begged. Pleaded. Raged. Where was she? Why wouldn’t she come to him? Why did she allow his agony to continue when even her presence in his mind would ease the terrible sense of isolation? What had he done that was so terrible that he deserved this?
Anger found its way into his world. Hatred, even. In the place of a man a monster grew, deadly, dangerous, grew and thrived on the pain, became a will impossible to crush. Fifty years, a hundred—what did it matter if he traveled to the very gates of hell for revenge? He already resided there, imprisoned in it every waking moment.
She would come to him. He vowed it. He would bend his will to finding her. And once he found her he would become a shadow in her mind until he was familiar enough with her to force his will on her. She would come to him, and he would have his revenge.
Hunger gripped him each time he woke, so that pain and hunger melted together and became the same. Concentrating on finding the path to the woman, however, saved him some agony. His focus was so complete that he could actually block the pain for a short while. First it was only seconds. Then minutes. Each time he woke, he bent his will toward finding her; there was nothing else to do. Months. Years. It didn’t matter to him. She could not escape him forever.
The first time he touched her mind, it was such a shock after all the thousands of fruitless tries that he immediately lost contact. And the rush of elation caused a bright red spray of blood to erupt around the stake buried deep within his body, draining his remaining strength. He slept a long time in an attempt to recover. A week perhaps. A month. There was no need to measure time. He had a direction now, although she was far away from him. The distance was so great, it took his full concentration to focus and reach for her across time and space.