Consciousness returned to Gina, but the darkness remained.
Was she dead and in hell? It seemed doubtful. Her head still echoed with the blow she had received, and her memory was filling in the pieces. This was not the land of the dead, it was something worse. It was a cage.
She was imprisoned, and what a cell it was. Locked away in a cell of dark stone, Gina forever would be hidden from the light of the sun. She would never lift her voice again in praise to the rising sun, never feel its warm rays upon her skin in the cold of winter, never hear the song it sang to end the day. The sun was a constant in the life of her people. They measured their lives by its coming and goings, and ordered feast days and events both great and small by the length of the days it lingered overhead, and by the seasons its moods gave them. Sometimes the warming sun hid behind clouds, and sometimes evil forces in the heavens threatened to eclipse her, but always the sun returned and walked with her people. Her daily presence was something Gina always had taken for granted; her smile was something Gina always had cherished above all else. It had never occurred to her that men could be so cruel as to hide another from the watchful eye of the sun.
Yet here she was. Forever denied another glimpse of the snow-capped summits of the land of her birth, that was a blow. Never again to thrill at the trill of a new language, never to feel the wonder of the next new city that lay just over the horizon, that was worse. Perhaps worst of all, never again know the joys of caressing the curves of a trim young wench.
It was hell, she decided. It was concealed beneath the palace and manned by soldier instead of undead souls, but it was hell nonetheless.
Alone in the cell, Gina sat on the floor, her head slumped in her arms, and she began to despair.
Vortoj de la Maradanto 