Somehow, Alexander hadn't seen the hulking mass as he made his mad dash down the hall. He felt it first, slamming into the guard as though it was a brick wall. He collapsed on his back, the wind knocked out of him, and then curled his body instinctively against a heavy weight suddenly pressed upon his chest. He grunted and gasped for breath, punching and tugging at the "foot" pinning him down like a fallen tree trunk. Nothing he did made a scratch or so much as nudged the guard.

He cried out when his warden yanked on his hair, forcing him to look at her. Between the difficulty in breathing and the sharp pain, it was a wonder he caught any of her words at all, but the mention of torture devices suddenly had him very still. She had a point; there had been nothing imposing or frightening in his cell...except for the chains, the literal links to the end of his life. He knew that her words were meant to frighten him into submission--they were very effective indeed--but he had a feeling that meeting the torture devices one by one would be inevitable anyway. Would they brandish the pliers with a sneeze? Would they roll in the iron maiden upon a wrong look? This was Hell, after all.

Alexander closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He assumed it pointless to submit, yet he also could not resist, stuck in limbo with his own fear. He waited for the pressure on his chest to subside, for the tugging pain on his scalp to cease, all the while fighting back the despair that threatened to move over him like a silent fog.