Wier inhaled the damp, musty air of the small prison cell one last time before the heavy iron door slammed shut. His heart pounded in his chest like a drum of impending doom, the sound echoing off the stone walls. His wrists were shackled behind his back, the coarse metal biting into his skin. He could barely see in the dim light streaming from a flickering torch in the corridor, but it didn’t matter. Soon, he wouldn’t see anything at all.
Wier inhaled the damp, musty air of the small prison cell one last time before the heavy iron door slammed shut. His heart pounded in his chest like a drum of impending doom, the sound echoing off the stone walls. His wrists were shackled behind his back, the coarse metal biting into his skin. He could barely see in the dim light streaming from a flickering torch in the corridor, but it didn’t matter. Soon, he wouldn’t see anything at all.
“You know what they’ll do to you, Wier.” The voice of his former friend, Orlen, echoed in his mind—the same voice that had whispered false confessions to the guards, sealing Wier’s fate.
They had grown up together, inseparable as boys. Wier had trusted Orlen with his life. But trust, it seemed, was the easiest thing to betray when ambition and greed stood to benefit. Orlen had framed Wier for the theft of priceless artifacts from the royal treasury—a crime Orlen had committed himself. The punishment for such a crime was brutal and final.
Wier was dragged from his cell hours later, his legs weak from exhaustion and dread. The guards sneered as they bound him with heavy chains to a wooden chair in the center of the dungeon. He struggled, but the chains dug deeper into his skin. A man in a black hood approached, carrying a cruel iron implement glowing faintly from the forge.
“Please,” Wier begged, his voice cracking. “I didn’t do it! You have the wrong man!”
The hooded figure didn’t pause. He pressed the searing metal against Wier’s eyes.
Agony consumed him. The smell of burning flesh filled the room as Wier’s screams echoed endlessly through the dungeon. Darkness swallowed his world as the pain dragged him into unconsciousness.
Death came slowly. They had left him in the cell to die—a forgotten, broken man rotting away in obscurity. But Wier’s suffering did not end when his heart stopped beating. The betrayal had cut deeper than the blades of his tormentors, and that pain followed him into the afterlife.
When his ghost first rose from the cold stone floor, it was disoriented and weak, his spectral form flickering like a dying flame. He stumbled blindly through the dungeon, his hollow eye sockets bleeding spectral crimson. Rage simmered inside him, growing stronger with each passing moment until it became an inferno.
He wandered for months, trapped in the shadows of the prison, reliving the betrayal and torment over and over. But fate had more in store for him.
The day Wier discovered that Orlen had prospered—that he had risen in rank and wealth thanks to the stolen artifacts—was the day his vengeance took shape. Orlen was a respected nobleman now, his hands stained with betrayal but hidden behind a mask of honor. Wier would be that mask’s undoing.
The first time Wier appeared to Orlen, it was subtle: a glimpse of pale flesh in the reflection of a mirror, gone when Orlen turned to look. The sound of distant weeping in the dead of night, as if the walls themselves mourned.
Orlen dismissed the strange occurrences at first, chalking them up to his imagination. But Wier was patient. Vengeance, after all, was best served slowly.
Soon, Orlen began to hear Wier’s voice—soft whispers accusing him of betrayal. The whispers became louder each night, until Orlen could no longer sleep. His eyes were sunken, his mind frayed. He drank to drown out the voice, but no amount of alcohol could silence Wier’s spectral presence.
Then came the dreams.
In these nightmares, Orlen found himself bound to a chair, the same one Wier had been tied to. He felt the heat of the iron approaching his face, the smell of burning flesh overpowering his senses. He awoke drenched in sweat, gasping for air.
One night, as Orlen stumbled through the halls of his estate, he saw Wier standing at the end of the corridor. His ghostly form was pale and twisted, blood dripping from his hollow eyes like crimson tears. His lips curved into a twisted smile.
“Did you think I’d forget?” Wier’s voice was cold, devoid of mercy.
Orlen fell to his knees, sobbing. “Please, I was desperate! I had no choice!”
Wier drifted closer, his presence suffocating. The air grew heavy, and Orlen’s breath came in short, panicked gasps. “You had a choice,” Wier hissed. “You chose to betray me.”
As Wier’s cold, ghostly fingers brushed against Orlen’s face, Orlen screamed. His vision blurred, and when he opened his eyes, blood trickled from them—a reflection of Wier’s own cursed fate.
Orlen’s descent into madness was swift. He withdrew from public life, locking himself inside his estate, where the walls echoed with Wier’s accusations. Servants fled, frightened by the sight of their master clawing at his eyes and begging for forgiveness from a ghost only he could see.
But Wier was not done.
The final act of vengeance came on a stormy night. Lightning illuminated the sky as Wier appeared one last time, standing over Orlen’s bed. Orlen, weak and trembling, stared up at the ghost with tear-streaked cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Orlen whispered. “Please, end this.”
Wier knelt beside him, his bloody eyes sockets inches away. “I will end this,” he said. “But not for you.”
With those words, Wier placed his hand over Orlen’s eyes. The nobleman let out a final, bloodcurdling scream as his mind snapped like a brittle twig.
When the servants found him the next morning, Orlen was dead, his eyes wide open and bleeding.
Wier’s vengeance was complete, but his spirit did not find peace. He wandered the world, drawn to those who carried the weight of betrayal and guilt. They, too, would see his weeping eyes and feel the suffocating grip of their own remorse.
For Wier, vengeance was eternal.