The iron doors groaned as they swung open, revealing a narrow, torch-lit corridor lined with stone walls damp from the weight of years. A guard ascended the stairs, his boots echoing on the worn steps. He stretched his arms with a groan and yawned, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes.
"Night shift's up," he muttered as he passed another guard at the top of the staircase. "Good luck down there."
The man taking over for the night shift merely nodded, adjusting his helmet before beginning his descent. The further he walked, the colder the air became, thick with the scent of mildew and old blood.
The lowest level of the prison was almost a myth among the guards. No one spoke much about it, and those who did only whispered. There were no cells lining the walls down here, no rows of prisoners waiting out their sentences. There was only one room. One prisoner.
The flickering torchlight barely reached the iron bars as the guard stepped forward, staring at the figure inside. The prisoner sat cross-legged in the center of the room, wrists shackled in thick iron, his head tilted slightly upward as if waiting for something. His skin was unnaturally pale, his features sharp and regal, as if he had once been someone of high stature. But his eyes — dark, endless voids — held something in them that sent a chill up the guard's spine.
The guard swallowed hard, stepping closer. "What could you have done," he murmured to himself, "to deserve this?"
A low chuckle filled the cell.
The prisoner shifted slightly, chains rattling softly. "Ah," he exhaled, as if he had been waiting for this exact moment. "Would you like to hear a story?"
The guard stiffened. "A story?"
The prisoner nodded. "A tale of knowledge, of balance… of the truth that binds all men, no matter their wealth or their suffering."
Despite himself, the guard remained silent, waiting.
The prisoner's voice was smooth, hypnotic. "There once was a man, a man of great education. He spent his life studying the nature of people, the delicate scales of wealth and poverty. He saw a world divided — where the rich, no matter how much they possessed, always wanted more, while the poor wanted nothing more than to live."
The guard's grip on his torch tightened.
The prisoner leaned forward slightly, eyes gleaming. "So this learned man devised a test. He sought out a rich old man, one who had spent his entire life hoarding wealth, stacking gold upon gold in pursuit of an endless hunger. To this man, our scholar gifted something of exquisite beauty — a crown, adorned with the finest jewels, fit for a king."
The prisoner smiled.
"But the crown held a secret. Tiny thorns, nearly invisible to the naked eye, laced with a slow-acting poison. When the old man placed it upon his head, eager to own yet another piece of grandeur, the thorns pricked his flesh. The poison seeped into his veins. And in mere moments… he was dead."
The guard exhaled slowly.
The prisoner tilted his head. "Now, what of the poor? The learned man would not ignore them. He found a woman, broken and starving, clinging to life like a candle in the wind. He gave her something precious — tools, food, shelter. He gave her a future. And as she began to build herself up, as her life took form once more, he took it away."
The cell seemed darker now, the torchlight struggling to hold back the shadows.
"The man realized something." The prisoner's voice grew softer, almost reverent. "No matter what they sought — wealth or survival — it did not change one thing. In the end, they both met the same fate. Death is the great equalizer."
The guard swallowed. "And so he kept killing."
A slow nod. "Yes. The scholar became the hand of balance, bringing equilibrium where there was none. The kingdom was bloated with corruption, with excess and suffering alike. He burned villages of the rich to ash. He freed the poor from their chains… only to bind them in death, as was their equal right. He did what kings and gods could not."
The prisoner spread his hands as far as his shackles would allow.
"Until," he mused, "they caught him. They called him a madman. A murderer. A demon."
The prisoner smiled wider now, teeth gleaming in the dim light.
"Would you like to know what happened to him?"
The guard didn't answer. He could feel it in his bones.
The prisoner straightened, his chains rattling against the stone floor. "He was bound," he continued. "Locked away in the dark, where men could pretend he did not exist." His voice became a whisper. "But the world remembers."
The ground trembled.
The guard's breath hitched as a boom shook the prison walls, dust falling from the ceiling. The torches flickered violently.
Then — an explosion.
The far wall of the cell erupted in fire and stone, sending shockwaves through the prison. The impact hurled the guard back against the iron bars, his ears ringing, dust and smoke choking the air.
Through the chaos, silhouettes emerged from the night beyond the broken wall. Figures in dark robes, weapons gleaming in the torchlight, their movements swift and deadly as they cut through the guards rushing toward them.
The prisoner — no, the scholar — stood.
The shackles that had bound him fell away like rotted vines.
The guard, struggling to push himself up, could only watch in stunned horror. The prisoner stepped forward, his silhouette wreathed in the smoke of destruction, the firelight licking at his pale skin.
He looked down at the guard, eyes alight with something ancient.
"Balance," he murmured, stepping through the rubble.
The battle raged behind him, but he moved with an eerie calm, as if he had already foreseen all of this.
The guard tried to move, to shout, to stop him —
But by the time he found his voice, the scholar had disappeared into the night.
And the world, once again, trembled beneath his shadow.