Two hundred and eighty-five days. That is how long I have been waiting, in this cold and lonesome cell. Waiting, soon to be driven mad like my neighbor, who refuses to fall silent even in the darkest hours of the night: shrieking with the wrath of a long-ago warrior, one of the greatest from all nations, reduced to the ashes of insanity. Waiting for something, someone to spirit me away. Waiting for the impossible.

Gloom rises from every corner, living shadows drawn long. A gust of chilling wind extinguishes the torches lining the walls. The frigid air passes easily through the thin orange jumpsuit that marks me as entirely different from all the millions out there, millions who continue about their days, caressed by the sun’s touch, and lie in their beds beneath blankets and the stars that are knit into the cloth of night.

The night-guard, a man dressed in a layered woolen coat, jangling keys dangling tantalizingly from his pocket, lights the torches again with a match, illuminating his yellowed teeth. He turns and plods back to his original position: leaning against the wall with a bored expression. Taunting us with his freedom.

Outside—what does it look like outside, again? There is a sky, and a sun that glares with the force of a million stars. I have nearly forgotten the smell of grass and earth. Wasn’t it wonderful?

It is raining, I think. There is the sound of water falling, and the hound sitting just inside, its back barely in my line of vision, is rather wet. An ominous rumble of thunder sends the mad prisoner into a frenzy, froth bubbling by her lip. A brief flash from outside, and for a split moment, the entire prison is lit in an eerie, white glow.

I see the whites of my neighbor’s eyes, eyes once alive with amber, clouded now with the visible trace of lunacy. I see the thirty-two cells and the barren gray walls lined with crude gouges that seem like they were carved out by the claws of a bear. I see the dark bars, the shivering forms of the prisoners, the trails of dried tears.

The others, they rub their skin raw and bleed, trying for some fruitless attempt at escape, desperate to disappear into the pungent air and flee through the yawning archway. Some have given up; some have turned to their hallucinations as solace from reality; some never stop until they die.

I am different. The wall in my cell is bare. I observe and I remember. I am waiting.

They sent me to this prison because I am unlike any other. They are wary of me, and I of them. I am an unreadable mask. They call me the Viper, and I hold that title an honor. I hear them, sometimes, reminding one another that I am a snake, cunning, and to be careful, because you’d never know what I would do.

When they captured me, they sent me here, because no one has ever escaped this place—a place where the greatest villains waste away, where the most cunning of minds fall apart. A place of fear, regret, and lamentation.

Five hundred and seventy-two… point five divided by three times seven—wait, what?
No—five hundred and seventy-two days.

The boy in the cell across from mine calculates equations day and night, sits in the center of his cell. A mathematical genius in chains, how typical. He’s only been in here for—what, two hundred days?

All of a sudden, he roars, a primal sound of utter outrage, lunging from the floor. He claws at the walls until red runs from his fingertips, hunched over with eyes as wild as the earth none of us have seen for years. He screams again until his voice is hoarse and each breath rattles and rasps in his throat, staggering forth to the bars, panting like a caged beast.

I realize this marks another day when a prisoner is lost.

Am I the last one left?

Seven hundred and thirty-eight. What am I counting, again? Why can’t I stop?

I am in a clearing, the jay-feathered sky overhead. The sun filters out from an emerald canopy, and some golden droplets linger on my face, warmly accepting me as part of the soil. I stand, reaching for the shifting leaves as the grass prickles against my bare feet, and then—

My fingers pass through the leaves and instead close on rusted bars. It was all a hallucination.

I scream of a reality torn to shreds, of a fantasy ripped at the seams.

The guard mutters to himself, “The Viper’s gone.”

I have lost, lost to my wretched mind. There is no solace here, in this vast pit of madness. Darkness edges in on my vision—where am I, where am I?—what color was the hyacinth that used to sway on the old porch, in my home, that little cottage I miss so terribly?

What was the shape of the skylight that had stained glass like a rose? Did it arch, like the stray kitten who used to sleep by my side? Was it flat-edged, like that worn chair rocking by the fire, a roaring beast that once blazed golden and beautiful? I blink.

I am there, again, my fingers brushing against the familiar rust-colored bricks, dusted by charcoal. The kitten stretches on the mantelpiece, lazily, its jaw widening in a yawn. I adjust the clock, turning it gently to the side. Why is its face blank? No, it has always been that way. Hasn’t it?

I cross the room, to the rocking chair, and trace the circular, gold-rimmed windowpane before me with a finger. Beautiful: scarlet and lavender like tulips.

The kitten purrs, turning to me, its coat dusted in ash. Its eyes are the color of amber, the same as the mad prisoner’s—who?—what am I talking about? Oh, yes, it is truly a beautiful shade of amber. I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

Seven hundred and ninety… what?