Waking in the Wailing Prison

Dear Sisters,

This one hopes that this letter finds you well. It is hoped that the writing of this letter will both share some of my journey with you and indeed, to help this one recall more of her past. To explain…

The light that woke me was not the sun pouring warmly through a window, but the flickering dance of a fire. A nearby plate with two radishes reminded me of the empty pit in my stomach. Regardless of the consequences, I feel like I must eat and drink soon or I won’t survive long.

Radish on a plate in the Wailing Prison

One radish down. I’ll leave the other for now.

I appear to be in a prison of some sort. Don’t ask me why, most of my memories seem as lost as the Dwemer. Only two things am I certain right now, and those are that you and I shared our birth mother’s milk, thus marking us as sisters. I carry no memories of anyone other than the two of you, and thus this is directed to you, although I have no idea of where in this vast world I am located or where you might be currently found. Hopefully, my memories will come back over time.

The radish doesn’t seem to have hurt me, I actually feel better from eating it, as though I’m starting to recover from whatever was done to me before I landed in this place. Time to explore my surroundings.

Rotted meat and bones in the wailing Prison

Oh sisters! I am glad that you are not here with me, although I crave the company. The floor is littered with the bones and skulls of others who were here before me, including a skeleton, who looks like he died in mid-scream, lying on a sleeping mat. There is rancid meat in one corner, making the whole room reek. What meat it is, I dare not even venture a guess.

Sleeping skeleton in the wailing prison

There is someone here with me! I jumped when I heard him address me. He does not seem completely alive, more of an apparition from a children’s tale. I am not sure how he came to stand inside my cell, although I can not say that I am sorry to see him, even so; this is not a room that I would want to spend much time in alone. Even if he is crazy, which I strongly suspect, since he claims that he is the past and the future, despair and hope.

As to his name, he says I can call him the Prophet. And my job is to rescue him, and then he will rescue me. He must be crazy, right? Either that or I am going crazy myself. I am not convinced that isn’t what has happened. I have gone as crazy as Sheogorath or perhaps somehow fallen through to his realm and the world has gone crazy around me.

The Prophet disappeared! After telling me to find someone named Lyris Titanborn. Then an Argonian appeared, telling me to hurry quickly, and unlocked my door.

Now I hear him in my head. The Prophet, that is. Have I died, my sisters, and my eternity is to be in Sheogorath’s realm forever?

Exiting my cell

Lights in the Wailing PrisonWhat god have I angered? This is not the madness of Sheogorath, this is much worse, a land of damnation from the nightmares of Oblivion.

The rooms that I pass through are horrors worst than any nightmare.  And even worse, I am not the only one here. The place is filled with people from all races, trying to escape from the horror that is our surroundings. But where are they running to? What awaits us once we escape? I haven’t been here a day and yet I find myself afraid to hope that outside leads to freedom. I feel like I have been left in the worst nightmare a crazed mind could conceive and from that kind of nightmare there is usually no escape.

Basket of skulls in the wailing prison

Read Part 2 of the Wailing Prison adventure.