The next morning, he woke up far before the sunrise occurred. He was so used to taking the first watch, after 5 hours of sleep he was wide awake. Instead of exploring the keep and the fortress as a whole he decided to stay in his room following the normal routines that had been drilled into him over the years. At the moment the sun crested over the horizon a knock came from his door. “Come in” he said, having already unlocked the door and removed the table. The hooded figure entered once again, “Little prince if you would care to follow me there is breakfast with your father and grandfather.”

Jachum calmly followed the cloaked figure down the stairs. They didn’t travel the same direction as last time, instead they veered off and continued traveling down. After another ten minutes they arrived in what appeared to be tunnels. Jachum stopped walking unwilling to go any farther. The cloak figure giggled, “Well, well it seems the little child has become suspicious. After all the fun we had in the forest I would of expected you to be a little more cautious. I guess all those times surviving death have made you feel invincible.” The figure turned, and from the hood bright yellow eyes glowed. “Fuck!” were the only word Jachum was able to get out before darkness overtook him.

Jachum leapt to his feet as soon as he regained consciousness. The first thing he realized was that he couldn’t see. The second thing was that his bags were gone. He calmly checked himself over, he was wearing his trousers and shirt, but his long heavy cloak was gone along with all his weapons save a knife. “Oh, little one.” Came the singsong voice of the fox. “Beware, this isn’t like the children’s games we played in the forest, but the first of your adult game. I have taken away your sight, and for the forceable future you will be blind. The goal of this game is to escape.” There was a giggle from the voice and a laughing “Good Luck.” As the voice disappeared and Jachum was left in complete silence.

The First thing Jachum did was sit down, he was freaking out in his mind the fox had made him blind. He almost gauged out his eyes to make sure they were still there. He breathed a second to calm himself and began to think of how he was going to get out of this mess. He was relatively used to the dark, however even with the tall canopy in the forest, the moon and stars were always able to pierce through. What he was dealing with currently was complete blackness. The first thing he decided to do was find a wall. He became slowly walking towards the left with his arms outstretched. After traveling what he thought was 20 meters by counting his steps he stopped. “There’s no way this cavern is that big.” He thought to himself. Turning what he thought was 90 degrees he began walking once again, running into the wall after only three steps. “My footsteps seem very loud.” Jachum thought. Believing the fox had left him very scary monsters to hunt him and unsure where he was, Jachum placed one hand on the wall to keep track of where he was going and began to walk as slow as possible until he couldn’t hear his own footsteps.

He had been walking for over two hours when the wall his left hand had been touching suddenly disappeared. Jachum quickly retreated back a few steps and found it again. Slowly moving forward he felt the corner where the wall turned to the left. His breathing had sped up when he lost the wall initially as it went down his ears picked up a faint noise. He was having a hard time hearing where it was coming from as the noise kept bouncing off the walls making it hard to find. Jachum sat down cross legged and walked himself through a breathing exercise to calm his heart and focus himself. He sat for hours listening to the sound unable to pinpoint where it was coming from. Suddenly as if something clicked in his mind, the noises began forming structures around him. It was as if they were bouncing off the walls like little arrows and traveling into his brain at different speeds. Jachum grinned in the darkness, he knew where the noises were originating from. Standing up he took a heavy step forward, the structures became really vague. He froze, “Maybe the noise needs to be higher pitched like that other sound. He made a chirping sound out of his mouth and listened; the walls became much clearer. “Hmm chirping seems very annoying, instead I’ll try clicking.” The clicking didn’t work very well, but the chirping was going to be really annoying so he switched to doing that. He kept walking in circles unwilling to go near to sound until he could walk while being able ‘see’ the walls the entire time. Unfortunately, the sound stopped before he could finish, and unwilling to make any more noise decide to try to sleep a little. He dug into the mud wall with his knife and hands until he had shaped a small alcove he could hide in, then covered himself with the mud and tried to get more sleep. The high-pitched noises woke him up after an unknown amount of time. Jachum was feeling kind of refreshed but the inability to see was scaring the shit out of him. Obviously, he was in no position to break down, so he pushed down any feelings of despair and began his practice again.

He slept two more times before he was able to ‘see’ the walls clearly while walking. The sounds were intermittent but stayed fairly high pitched the entire time. Feeling, exhausted, dehydrated and hungry, Jachum began walking down the passage where the noise was coming from slowly, keeping any movement as quiet as possible. He held his dagger out in his left hand, walking in a crouched position ready for anything. Once he was close enough, he realized that the noise was screaming, probably human screaming. Jachum didn’t have anywhere else to go, so pushing himself as close to the wall as possible he continued to move forwards. He reached the edge of the tunnel and he became blind again. He could feel the tunnel walls but the area in front of him was a jumbled mess like the noises were bouncing over and over again the screaming was too loud. “Hey, who are you came?” came a shout from the front, suddenly the screaming were silenced. Unsure whether he had been found out, Jachum quietly took a few steps back while keeping his dagger raised. The was running noises moving towards him hen it grew close a whooshing sound came. Ducking out of habit, Jachum threw himself forward talking the person. He began to stab indiscriminately until he felt the body go limb. He breathed heavily as he pulled himself to his feet. He was stumbling around listen to the whimpering’s of men when a hand was placed on his shoulder without Jachum hearing any footsteps. He quickly lashed out with his dagger, hitting nothing. “Little Prince, your grandfather has been looking everywhere for you, please follow me or there will be more trouble than you can handle.”

“I’m blind.” Said Jachum, a hint of pleading in his voice. He was hoping it was the fox to tell him he had one the game and give him back his sight. Instead, a piece of wood was placed into his right hand. The voice of the cloaked bodyguard said. “I’m holding the other end of the stick, keep hold and I’ll lead you to your grandfather.”

Forcing down a sob of despair, Jachum calmy nodded his head and let the man lead him to his grandfather.