The sound was so familiar to him now that Prometheus was certain he could time the day on that sound alone. Chains forged by Hephaestus, ample suffering to be inflicted upon him for what he'd done to his friend. For what he'd done. An intellect that could fool the king of the gods and all of his followers could still conceive of a world beyond this rock, beyond this mountain, where things were happening. Mankind flourished. They evolved, and grew stronger. All of the gods now had their favorites, and they took their comfort and ease with Prometheus' creations. He knew it because he had seen it once, long ago. Yet the one who had created this race, sheltered and protected them, stood bound to the rock of Zeus' ego. Stood. If you could call it that. There was a single spike, large enough for its purposes, jammed into his chest. The final nail that would hold him fast if the chains somehow catastrophically failed. Over this business was an assortment of the aforementioned chains, binding him nearly motionless to stone.
That was the world that existed when his intellect failed him. When pain maddened him, and he became something else.
Just a rock. And agony.
For a moment all was quiet. Night, now, a time of rest before the great eagle returned. That was the monster that bedeviled his every waking moment. On some days Prometheus cried out for death, a death that would not come. On some days he struggled mightily. Thrashing about even drove the eagle away, occasionally. Not always. Cursing the gods, cursing Zeus. Praying for their deaths instead of his own. Some days it was all Prometheus could do to summon any feeling at all. Staring blankly while his intestines were spilled before his eyes. Not even that gruesome scene could break him. Days were counted and maintained in an orderly fashion. Short of the hope which was offered to him by numbers, by orderly process that his mind still had at its beck and call, nothing could dull the pain. Day. Day one thousand, five hundred and twenty nine. Out of thirty-six thousand, five hundred and nine days total. Calculation, measurement, these were cruel mistresses whose precise and defined sums told him that he had thirty-four thousand, nine hundred and eighty days of this yet to endure.
In other words, the worst was yet to come.
At times it was a comfort. At other times... did he even know what he was saying, any longer? Did it matter? Hypnos' gentle embrace still found him at times. Unconsciousness was a blessing rarely bestowed upon one so punished as Prometheus. Hope or not, pain or not, Prometheus dared not pray for dreams. Those were a thing that had not come to him in some time. Perhaps because of who he was, perhaps because of where he was, but too much placid peaceful time was not a part of his sentence. Zeus above did not know the day when Prometheus would be freed, but Prometheus did. Before the slaughtering of the bulls, before all of it, Prometheus had known. To save manking, a thousand years of suffering. It was not so terrible, was it? Blackness surrounded him. Sound ceased to be. Somewhere the eagle was crying, but those cries fell on deaf ears. For now Prometheus was alone in his own mind, favored by sleep to rest and bring forth new resolve. As the days grew longer and his madness strengthened, Prometheus had no doubt he was going to need that resolve.
No doubt whatsoever.
Realization struck much as the eagle might, made him stare in surprise at what was ocurring around him. Blackness and then he stood, free of those chains. Free of the spike through his chest which caused him to suffer so. Red disgusting marks remained to mar his flesh. And perhaps in some way he would always see himself as such. Long ago the mystical nature of dreams, their separation from reality, had become clear to him. Visions conjured by his own mind ruled here, not the god of dreams who only made what Prometheus' mind would command come to life. So why here, why now, was the ground covered in them? Marks. Solitary marks. Morpheus' will was not at work here, merely his magic. This was Prometheus' mind playing tricks on itself, speaking in arcane riddles that he had to solve.
Was it a dream?
A nightmare?
Was he asleep?
Had the thousand years passed so quickly?
Too many voices in his mind, each of them clamoring over and around one another to reach him. There, a bloodthirsty Prometheus who walked with a menace in his steps. Swords clutched in either fist even as blood ran from the wound upon his chest. There another Prometheus, this one broken and weeping, cursing those who were created and those who condemned as he wept bitterly. Never again would a sane word or sentiment pass his lips. More. All of them moving, all of them splintered as he was splintered. Conflicted? Did this mean it was working, that Zeus' goal of breaking his psyche had been achieved?
Would Morpheus even know, if he were asked?
But here Morpheus was omnipresent. He had already been asked, as soon as Prometheus thought the question.
More of him, duplicates of him, all of them seeming to walk with purpose but in truth going nowhere at all.
There were chains even in a dream, but those chains would not make themselves so visible or so clear as the chains which bound his wrists.