“You’ve got one minute.”

The Dunmer props his feet on the now empty chair, using the Redguard’s corpse as a seat cushion. The hole where her eye used to be, and where the fork was now, dribbles blood onto the cold cement. The Imperial glances over at his fellow captive, the Nord, struggling in his seat. He isn’t sure if he’s trying to escape, or just trying to break the rhythm of that hollow drip. A creak of the chair, a smack of the lips, anything to deflect the sound of their dead partner’s tears, keeping time like an hourglass.

“Thirty seconds.”

The Dunmer’s lips crease into a smile. With every drip, his fingers play the fork’s better half, letting it tumble slowly down the web of his fingers.

“Ten seconds.”

Whatever cool was left in those skinny little veins, the Nord is starting to lose it. He begs the Dunmer first and the Divines second, please oh please grant me mercy, but the sky above is a bottomless dark, and it leaves more questions than answers. Having spent his life in this walled city, he’s never seen it, the sky. He thinks it might be green.

“Time’s up.”

The Nord shuts his eyes. But the knife finds his partner.

The Imperial falls to the floor. He can feel his body going deaf to the world, the same way he came in. There’s no life flashing before him, nor is it something he cares to see. All he wants is a glimpse of the future, a sign this bargain meant something – some trace evidence the girl will be okay.

“Last chance, fetchers. Where are you hiding it?”

“There,” he says, as the blood pours down the drain.