Bartolina

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The heavy clang of metal echoed down the narrow hallway — swallowed almost instantly by the suffocating dark.

A lone guard moved slowly.

Footsteps cautious. Deliberate.

Flickering fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, barely cutting through the gloom. Jagged shadows stretched along the cracked concrete walls.

He exhaled. Shallow and steady.

Eyes darted from cell to cell — some empty, others holding silent prisoners with hollow stares.

The air was thick. Not just with mold or dust… but something heavier. Forgotten secrets. Fear.

He tightened his grip on the flashlight.

This prison held more than inmates.

Something unseen.

Watching.

Waiting.

The hallway grew narrower the deeper he walked. The ceiling felt lower. The chill deepened.

At the very end, half-swallowed in shadow, was a small iron door.

The bartolina.

A cruel little cell.

No lock. No light.

Just cold steel and complete isolation.

He stopped in front of it.

Then scoffed — too forced to sound brave.

> “Enjoy your last night, freak.”

His voice echoed off the stone… but the silence that followed was louder.

Then, from the dark inside —

Something moved.

A figure stepped forward. Just enough for the light to catch a glimpse.

Eyes.

Wild, sharp, gleaming with bloodlust.

The man’s long, greasy hair hung in tangled ropes across his face.

His prison uniform was orange — stained, threadbare, soaked in damp filth.

He looked like he’d been rotting in there for years.

He didn’t speak.

He just stared.

The guard flinched.

His jaw tightened.

He raised the flashlight slightly — but not enough to reveal the full face.

Maybe he didn’t want to see it.

Maybe he already had, once.

And never forgot.

Still, he turned away first.

> “Tomorrow,” he muttered. “Then it’s over.”

He walked back down the corridor, quickening his steps — trying to pretend he didn’t feel those eyes boring into his back.

But he knew.

What waited behind that door…

Wasn’t human anymore.

Then—

A laugh.

Sudden. Ragged. Twisted.

It tore through the silence — raw and unhinged.

It bounced off the walls like a melody of madness.

Too loud. Too long.

As if the darkness was laughing with him.

The guard didn’t look back.

He couldn’t.

His breath hitched.

His stride faltered.

Still, he kept moving. Eyes ahead.

But he felt it —

That stare, slicing into him like a knife.

There was something in that laugh…

Not just deadly.

But broken.

The prisoner’s eyes — moments ago burning with bloodlust — now shimmered with something else.

A storm behind bars.

Raging… and weeping.

The guard’s bravado crumbled with every echo of that haunting laugh.

And still, he walked away —

From the bartolina.

From the thing inside.

From whatever nightmare waited for the next day to begin.

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