Where Prisoners Were Dropped and Forgotten

Picture this: It's the medieval era, You're a criminal in captivity awaiting your fate. You are sure that your life would be forfeit for your crime was unforgivable...you have been accused of the vilest crime of all...treason against the crown. Blindfolded, your are led through the castle all the way to what you surmise to be the dungeons right at the lowest depths of the fortress. You hear a sonorous rattle as the putrid gaoler fumbles for the keys. Echoing all around you are the painful wails of the condemned who were now subjected to the most horrendous methods of torture man could device. You are scared, your heart nearly ejecting out of your chest. The iron-barred door opens at last and the gaoler manhandles you inside what you assume to be your cell. Then you feel the man's clumsy fingers over your nape and the blindfolds come off. An empty cell. You are relieved. There were no instruments of torture to be found anywhere. Perhaps you have been offered clemency. You would gladly rot away in this cell than experience the pain of impalement or the press of the iron maiden. The gaoler leads you further in and you come to a stop right at the center of the cold and dark room. Flickering flames bathe the cell in a dim orange glow. The gaoler steps forward and bends down to reveal a secret entrance on the floor. He pulls open the floor and your heart erupts in a flurry of beats and rythms. "No!" you scream "No! Please! Don't. Hanging, beheading, take me to the guillotine. Anything but this"The fat gaoler turns to observe you with his disfigured visage that showed no signs of mercy. He rose to approach you. You jerk backwards and attempt to flee but behind, at the entrance was another even larger man garbed extravagantly in heavy chainmail holding a flickering torch "You shan't be going anywhere... bloody traitor!" He spatThe two men in collaborative effort, dragged you towards the entrance on the floor which you clearly saw on close observation to be a hole as deep as a well. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you what I personally believe to be the one of the cruelest method of torture/execution ever devised...the oubliette.The men heft you up and over the hole and after a scarcely discernible mumble, the man's grip around you loosens and you plummet several feet deep landing at the bottom with a splashing thud. Twisted ankle, fractured leg and quite the throbbing pain. It is dark, cold and wet. You can see nothing so you resort to physical touch to establish any form of sensation. You feel nothing but water and stone...until you touched what felt like rags or perhaps clothing. You probe further and beneath the rags you feel something hard, like a smooth stick. It is then that the reality strikes you that you are not alone in there...you have company in the form of the skeletal remains of the last occupant. You palpate your skeletal companion to establish its proportions. Reality then slaps you like an oaken shield to the helm that this skeleton lying languidly is a glimpse into your future. The hole is only wide enough for you to sit and stand. Such is the acme of cruelty. To leave one unshackled, given free mobility of limbs, yet without room to exercise said freedom. It would have been a hundred times more merciful to have been tightly bound and shackled without freedom of limbs in such a claustropbhobia inducing hole that is only wide enough to sit and stand and nothing more. Like so, you will remain immobilized without space to exercise your limbs' freedom of movement.To worsen your already hopeless predicament, you will be fed meager rations once a day, just enough to keep you alive to prolong you mental anguish. Death will become your dearest desire yet you will be unable to deprive yourself of food whenever it is provided. You will linger in that misery for days and perhaps weeks until either your perish or mercy is shown to you and you are let free. But given the presence of your skeletal companion, the prospects of a merciful release are not very promising.If only they had just kept you shackled or bound to a crucifix or impaled within the intimate embrace of the iron maiden...but alas you are given freedom to move within a space that is wide enough only for sitting and standing and there you shall remain sitting and standing.

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