VINLANDA

THE PROLOGUE

MAVI

INSIGHTS

What happens when realism is mistaken for fantasy?

When truth and lies are mixed, what could be the outcome? There are always consequences to every decision.

And that consequence had come for me.

Mavi lay in an open, dark room, with only a dying candle for light. He was bound to the ground by long, crossing chains fastened to a pole. The sense of danger was everywhere around me.

Sudden faint rhythmic sounds came from the tips of his toes.Eventually, he felt soft nibbles on my exposed stomach. Small, quick feet were running all over Mavi's body.

After some time, Mavi felt a sudden sting in his lower abdomen. What more could he endure?

He tried to move and shake whatever it was away, but he could not. The chains held him stiff down so tightly that even his own breathing seemed to be strangling him.

Something was slowly slithering around his exposed body. It was soft , but stinging. As much as Mavi tried to look, he really could not see a damn thing. But what he did know was that there was a repulsive feeling coming from the cellar. So repulsive that he had begun getting infected. Different thoughts were running inhis head. Iver time, his lower body was consumed by numbness and pain. It slowly crept to his chest and head.

immediately, he knew what was going to happen. That was not the fiest time he had seen or felt that. Mavi had once seen it happen to another criminal, and it was not pretty.

The man's body had grown numb and stiff, followed by a violent inflammation in his stomach. Mavi was forced to look as his intestines had burst from his body and piled onto the floor.

This was to drive fear In a sore criminal deservant of death. But first, his tormentors had made it their priority to make his death more painful.

The guards would only laugh and toye with the dead man's guts. They even bagged the guts and fed them to to their pets.

That was weeks ago.

And now, it was Mavi's turn to face the same thing.

That day, about five criminals had been executed on the stake. Others suffered death between animal jaws.

Each if them had different offences and felonies that distinguished what type of death they would have to face

For Mavi, his case was rather a disturbing long story. Each day, he would grow more violent and ruthless. Revenge was his top thing....then murder.

Different cries of pain were carried from the other prisoners who met their end. The nearest cry came from the cell next to his own. Mavi could not see what torture the poor man went through, but he knew it was heinous and inhuman.

On his end , his body had grown stiff and hurtful. The nibble had now grown to bites. An odd thing was wrapped around Mavi's waist. Surprisingly, it moved. It moved and pressed down on my stomach.

But for my endurance and courage, I would have been dead by then. With my limp body and fragile bones, I could break any minute.

The thing around me squeezed harder, forcing my breaths to come in quick. The pain had also increased in my lower body. I could feel my blood vessels stop and swell.

Over time, the biting feeling got to my chest.

It burned—really burned. I felt my insides start to churn and ache. When the burning reached my head, I could not breathe. My heart seemed to stop for a minute.

Now, my whole body was in pain—the kind of pain I had never experienced and never wanted to experience again. Honestly, I did not know how I started screaming and screeching.

My eyes were popped out and scared. Scared of death. I did not want to die. I conveyed my pain and anguish in my cries. Like the rest of my body, my voice started to wane.

Finally, I was left doing nothing but listening to my throbbing body. Even when blood was flowing from my mouth and ears, and the thing wrapped around me withdrew, I still did nothing.

They had succeeded, those devils. They had finally succeeded in killing him.

What more could I do but meekly die? Besides, I was just another condemned criminal, deserving a punishment more than death.

I knew it was only a matter of time before I burst open, with my insides spilling out. What I prayed for was for it to be quick, not utterly painful like the way he felt.

When I finally lost all strength, my breathing slowed down a lot. As I felt my life escaping from my body, I welcomed good thoughts to get me to the other side easier. But wait, did I have any good thoughts?

A sharp thing had pierced through my abdomen. But due to the already existing pain, it made no difference. The candle had died out, but I could see a shadow over my face. I took no attention to it. It could be another animal ready to slaughter me like prey.

But it did not kill me. At least, not yet.

Instead of more pain, I was feeling relieved. My muscles relaxed, and I sank back into position. Doing that, I saw a small glowing lamp approaching my cell slowly. My eyes were not yet clear from the crossed vision. Only when the lamp was outside my cell did I get a chance at seeing the person.

It was a man, short and bald. The small lamp revealed only his white beard and ridiculing, pale face. In the illumination of the lamp, the man's lips separated into a grin.

“Bring the scrawny fool out,” the man said, laughing.

A guard came in and untied my arms. He pulled away the chains crossing my chest. But before he did, he gave me a hard kick at my left temple.

“Be careful there. I wouldn't want him to die a simple, painless death.”

I was forced to stand and pushed out of my dark cell. I hit my head on the bars of another. Before I Fell, a slap left me stunned. The moment I was on the floor, merciless kicks forced me up once more.

I was led down a corridor, with the man holding a lamp up front. When we passed some cells, I saw different types of suffering criminals inside, with their candles still burning. Others had a missing leg, while others had no eyes. Like me, all of them were thin and weak, as if they were barely alive. In other cells, dead people and skeletons of humans still lay untouched.

When we got to a room with some red lights, I entered it. I took a minute to adjust to its brightness. I was in a big room, with nothing inside but one strange chair in the centre of it. When we reached the ground, I was forced to sit on it.

The chair was unusual. It had a soft backrest, a much more mechanised and padded seat, and some other complicated stuff dangling from behind it. Its top had a meter that actually was connected to two blue metal rods attached to the chair.

“What are they gonna do?” I asked myself, still breathing hard.

“Was that not torture enough?” I wanted to escape this living hell. But how?

All I needed was a plan and some help. But as I think of that, I recall that my friend had been murdered, beaten, and killed. They all had been killed in cold blood by this Dracula-like scum. That repulsive pile if shit, screw the mother hole from which he came from.

All I needed is an opportunity to escape....to slaughter the bastard....to find my brother, Dany. I only hope he is thinking the same as I am.

Besides, what could one more kill do? I must endure. I must endure , and live through everything.

I have....I have to kill my friends’ and family’s murderer. It would be a pleasure to butcher the son of a bitch. Besides, there’s nothing better than slaughtering your worst enemy... or should I say, your closest rival.