Swamped

Your life went to ruin years ago.

You were a courier, delivering messages between a number of merchants. They had a whole network of couriers like you, youths who had never learned to read.

It had apparently never occurred to them that one of you might pick up the skill on the job. You couldn't quite understand the full context of the messages, but the overall pattern to them was disturbingly clear.

Not that you did anything, not at first. You were smart enough to realize what they'd do to you if they found out, so you kept your mouth shut and kept working.

But you couldn't keep that up over time. Each message was a reminder of what you were involved in, what you couldn't stand to be involved in any more. Yet, you had no way to fight it.

No way, except to run away from it all. And the only place beyond the merchants' reach was this stupid swamp.

The worst of it is, you're the first prisoner taken since the last rain. The other cells are empty, leaving you no one to talk to except your captors. And you've got no inclination to strike up a conversation with them, not least because they're trying to get information out of you.

As if you know anything in the first place. The only thing you know that they don't is that you had orders to take the new recruit prisoner. You've got no idea why this rookie soldier is of any importance to the Marshguards, or even how your commanding officer knew there was an incoming recruit at all.

You don't especially care about the reasons, either. Inquisitive types don't generally last long in the Marshguards, seeing as nearly everyone there has secrets they don't want dug up.

This is probably why they've barely bothered to question you. They know it won't do them any good, so why waste time? You'll just rot in here until after the next rain.

You tried yelling for a while, just to make a general nuisance of yourself. But you soon found that just made your throat tired; they didn't give you any more attention for it, not even to try to shut you up.

So what are you going to do with yourself while you wait for another cursory interrogation where you don't tell them anything?