Peña Duro Prison, Santa Prisca – Twenty-Five Years Earlier
The howling of the guards echoed through the ancient stone corridors of Peña Duro, their footsteps like thunderclaps in the dank prison air. The boy huddled in the corner of his cell, watching his elderly cellmate's face grow ashen with dread.
"They come for you, niño," the old man whispered, his voice quavering. "The sins of your parents have found their heir."
The boy had known this day would come eventually. His mother had been a revolutionary, fighting against Santa Prisca's corrupt government with both pen and sword. His father – known in whispered circles as "King Snake" – had been a British mercenary who'd joined her cause, seduced by both her passion for justice and her fierce beauty. Their union had produced a child, but no wedding. When the government forces finally crushed the rebellion, the father fled back to England, leaving the mother to face execution and their son to inherit their punishment.
In Santa Prisca, the bloodline bore the burden of treason. The boy, barely past his eighth birthday, had been condemned to serve a life sentence in Peña Duro: the country's most notorious prison, a hellhole carved into volcanic rock where the government sent those it wished to forget.
The cell door crashed open. Four guards stood silhouetted against the meager light of the corridor, their uniforms immaculate despite the squalor surrounding them.
"The son of traitors," the lead guard sneered, his breath reeking of cheap rum. "Your father fled like a coward. Your mother died screaming his name. And now you, little prince, will pay their debt."
The boy said nothing. The lessons of survival had been beaten into him during his three years in Peña Duro's general population. Speak only when necessary. Show no fear even when terrified. Observe everything. The other prisoners, fellow revolutionaries who had once followed his parents had protected him as best they could, teaching him to read from smuggled books, instructing him in rudimentary combat, keeping the worst predators at bay.
But that protection had limits, especially against the guards.
"The warden has special plans for you," another guard cackled, hefting a metal-tipped baton. "Your education begins tonight."
The boy allowed himself to be taken without resistance, knowing that struggle would only bring more pain. As they dragged him through the prison's twisted corridors, inmates watched from their cells with expressions ranging from pity to grim understanding. Some made the sign of the cross. Others whispered prayers to Santa Prisca's dark gods. A few nodded respect to the child being led to whatever fate awaited.
They descended, moving past the lowest levels Eduardo had ever seen, into corridors hewn from raw stone, moisture seeping through ancient cracks. The air grew colder, heavier with strange mineral scents that burned his nostrils. The guards' electric lanterns cast grotesque shadows against walls marked with symbols older than the prison itself, older perhaps than civilization on the island.
Finally, they reached a vast circular chamber that seemed to predate the prison by centuries. Torches supplemented modern floodlights, creating disorienting shadows across the rough floor. At the chamber's center stood a group of men – some in guard uniforms, others in lab coats, and one in an expensive suit that marked him clearly as the warden. Behind them loomed what appeared to be a throne carved from raw stone, and beyond it, a perfectly circular pit that descended into darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow light itself.
"The son of Dorrance," announced the warden, his voice carrying in the cavernous space. "The last of the revolution's bloodline."
Eduardo was forced to his knees before the assembled witnesses, his small frame insignificant against the ancient power of the chamber. The warden approached, holding what appeared to be a crude crown fashioned from twisted metal scraps.
"Your father was intended for this honor," the warden continued, circling Eduardo like a predator. "Edmund Dorrance – our foreign friend who thought he could reshape our nation with his British tactics and revolutionary zeal. When he fled, your mother refused to reveal his whereabouts, even under the most persuasive questioning." A cruel smile twisted his lips. "She died still believing in the revolution's cause."
The boy's fists clenched at his sides, rage momentarily overcoming fear. The warden noticed and laughed.
"Such spirit. Good. You will need it." He gestured toward the pit. "Do you know what that is, boy?"
Eduardo stared into the darkness, feeling it stare back with palpable malevolence. "No."
"The natives called it la cuna del diablo – the devil's cradle. Before the Spanish built Peña Duro, the indigenous people would throw criminals into this pit as sacrifice, believing it home to a spirit of judgment that would torment the guilty for eternity." The warden's voice took on an almost reverent quality. "Some say it reaches to the center of the earth. Others believe it connects to realms beyond human understanding. All agree that those who enter are changed by the experience – if they survive."
One of the lab-coated men stepped forward, adjusting his glasses with nervous hands. "The geological composition creates unique properties – unusual mineral concentrations, abnormal radiation patterns, indigenous flora with pharmaceutical applications." His scientific detachment couldn't quite mask his discomfort. "Subjects exposed to the environment demonstrate... enhanced adaptive responses."
The boy understood enough to recognize his fate. They intended to throw him into that darkness, to make him a test subject for whatever phenomena existed in the pit's depths.
"Please," he whispered, natural pride finally giving way to fear. "I'm just a boy."
The warden's expression hardened. "There are no children in Peña Duro. Only the strong and the dead." He nodded to the guards. "Prepare him."
What followed was a nightmare Eduardo would never fully remember in sequential order – only flashes, fragments, sensations that would haunt his dreams for decades. The sting of needles as unknown substances were injected into his small body. The vertigo as he was suspended over the pit in some kind of harness. The prayers of the prison chaplain, murmured in Latin that transformed the ceremonial quality of the moment into something ancient and terrible.
And then the descent into darkness.
The pit swallowed him whole, the light from above diminishing to a distant pinprick as he was lowered on fraying ropes. The air grew colder, thicker, harder to breathe. Sounds echoed strangely – dripping water, the scrape of something moving in the darkness, his own terrified breathing amplified and distorted.
When his feet finally touched solid ground, the boy collapsed, his small body overcome by whatever drugs they had administered. The harness was detached from above, the ropes withdrawn, leaving him alone in the absolute darkness at the bottom of the world.
He didn't know how long he lay there, drifting between consciousness and delirium as the chemicals worked through his system. Hours bled into what might have been days, his perception of time distorted by hunger, thirst, and the strange atmosphere of the pit.
It was during this half-conscious state that he first saw it, the bat-demon.
The creature emerged from a fissure in the rock wall – massive, misshapen, more shadow than substance but carrying undeniable presence. Its wings spread wider than seemed physically possible, blotting out what little ambient light existed in the pit. Its eyes glowed red in the darkness, fixed on the boy with predatory intensity.
"You are not him," the demon spoke, its voice a sound felt in bone and blood rather than heard with ears. "You are not the savior of your people."
The boy tried to respond but found his voice trapped in his throat. The demon approached, its movement a liquid glide that defied natural locomotion. Up close, its features became more distinct – the elongated jaw filled with needle-like teeth, the twisted horns protruding from its head, the leathery skin stretched over impossible musculature.
"But you could be," the demon continued, circling the boy with evaluative interest. "You have his blood, his face, his potential. And something more. Something... worthy."
A clawed hand reached out, touching the boy's forehead with surprising gentleness. The contact burned like ice, sending visions cascading through his mind – brutality and beauty, strength and sacrifice, pain transformed into power. The history of the pit, the lives it had claimed, the rare few who had emerged transformed rather than destroyed.
"Survive this place," the demon commanded. "Master the darkness that dominates others. Become more than your father ever dreamed." Its massive wings enfolded the boy, not threatening but protective, a terrible benediction. "Do this, and you will never fear anything again – not pain, not men, not even death itself."
The boy awoke with a gasp, finding himself still at the bottom of the pit but somehow changed. The drug-induced haze had cleared, leaving his senses painfully sharp. The absolute darkness no longer seemed impenetrable – he could perceive shapes, movements, dimensions that should have been invisible.
And he was not alone.
The pit, he discovered over the following days, housed others – prisoners forgotten by the world above, experimental subjects abandoned when results proved disappointing, creatures that might once have been human but had adapted to their underground existence in disturbing ways.
They came for him on the third day, drawn by the scent of fresh meat, fresh blood, fresh fear. Shambling figures emerged from hidden crevices and tunnels, communication reduced to grunts and hisses after years of isolation.
The boy ran, hid, evaded as long as he could. But eventually, cornered against a rock wall with nowhere left to retreat, he was forced to stand his ground. He fought with desperate ferocity, his small body driven beyond normal human limitations by terror and the lingering effects of whatever compounds the doctors had administered.
To his shock, he survived. More than survived – he won, driving the pit dwellers back with a violence that surprised even himself. Something had changed within him, a fundamental shift in how his body and mind responded to threat. The drugs, the environment, the demon's touch – whatever the cause, he was no longer simply a child.
In the aftermath of that first victory, as the boy huddled in a small alcove he'd claimed as shelter, he made a decision. The child condemned for his parents' revolution would die here in the pit. From this day forward, he would forge a new identity. "Bane" – a name the demon had whispered during one of his fevered dreams, a name that meant strength rising from broken things, power forged from pain.
Three weeks later, the guards returned. He fought them at first, believing they had come to kill him. But their purpose was different – they simply hoisted him back to the surface, where doctors in sterile coats examined him, took samples of his blood, measured his physical development, tested his cognitive responses.
Then, without explanation, they returned him to the pit.
This pattern would repeat with brutal irregularity over the years that followed. Sometimes they would leave him in the pit for months at a stretch. Other times, they would pull him up after just a few weeks. The periods on the surface were never long – just enough time for tests, examinations, experimental treatments. Then back into darkness.
During his time in the pit, Bane learned to navigate its treacherous geography, to hunt the blind creatures that served as food, to extract drinking water from the mineral-laden walls. He discovered hidden chambers, ancient artifacts, writings in languages long dead that nonetheless seemed intelligible to his altered perception.
And most importantly, he found books.
Deep within the pit's labyrinthine tunnels, Bane discovered a chamber that had once served as a storage area for prison records. Forgotten ledgers, maintenance manuals, and most precious of all – books left behind by prisoners who had been lowered into the pit before him. Some were revolutionary texts his mother might have read, others were philosophical treatises, scientific journals, historical accounts, even classical literature translated into Spanish.
Bane devoured them all, teaching himself by the dim phosphorescence of fungi that grew in the pit's depths. His mind, already sharp before his descent, developed an eidetic memory – perhaps another side effect of the pit's strange properties. He could recall entire passages after a single reading, building a library in his mind that no one could take from him.
On his periodic returns to the surface, the scientists noted his developing intellect with surprise and growing interest. They began providing him with more challenging cognitive tests, some designed to assess his problem-solving abilities, others meant to gauge the limits of his memory. Bane cooperated, recognizing these interactions as opportunities to gather information, to study the guards' routines, to map the facility that housed the entrance to his underground prison.
In his third year of this tortuous cycle, something unexpected happened. The prison chaplain – Father Miguel, an elderly man who had shown Eduardo kindness during his early days in Peña Duro – began visiting the pit's edge during Bane's confinement periods. At first, he simply lowered extra food and clean water. Then came books – religious texts primarily, but also literature, philosophy, and history. Finally, most precious of all, came conversation – human interaction beyond the clinical assessments of the scientists or the brutal commands of the guards.
"Why do you help me?" Bane asked one night, his voice rough from disuse as he called up to the distant figure silhouetted against the pit's opening.
"Because even in darkness, a soul can find light," Father Miguel replied, his voice echoing down the stone shaft. "Your mother believed this. Before her execution, she asked me to watch over you if I could."
"Did you know her well?" Bane asked, hunger for information about his parents overcoming his usual caution.
"I heard her confession," the priest said simply. "She was a complex woman – a revolutionary who killed, yet a believer who sought redemption. She spoke of you constantly, of her hopes that you might one day complete what she and your father began."
"What was that?"
"The liberation of Santa Prisca. Freedom from corruption and oppression." The priest was silent for a moment before adding, "She also spoke of your father – his strength, his intelligence, his vision. And his abandonment."
Bane absorbed this information, adding it to the precious little he knew of his origins. "He left us."
"He fled when the revolution failed," Father Miguel confirmed. "Your mother could have escaped with him, but she stayed to help others escape the government forces. She chose sacrifice over safety."
On his next visit, Father Miguel lowered something unexpected – a small teddy bear, worn and patched but clean.
"What is this?" Bane called up, turning the stuffed toy in his hands with confusion.
"It was yours, before Peña Duro," the priest explained. "Your mother kept it among her few possessions. The guards were going to burn her things after the execution, but I saved this. Even warriors need something to hold onto in the darkness."
Against all logic, against the harsh survival instincts the pit had instilled, Bane kept the bear. He named it Osito – "little bear" – and kept it hidden in his sleeping chamber, a talisman of a childhood he had never truly experienced, a reminder that he had once been something other than a creature of the pit.
As Bane entered adolescence, the scientists' interest in him intensified. His physical and cognitive developments had far exceeded their expectations, demonstrating adaptation beyond what they had observed in any previous subject. The periods between his extractions from the pit grew shorter, the testing more extensive.
During one such assessment, when he was fifteen, Bane asked the supervising doctor a direct question: "What is the purpose of these tests? What do you hope to learn?"
The doctor, startled by the articulate inquiry from what most of the staff had come to view as merely an exceptional specimen, answered almost reflexively: "Adaptation. The human body's capacity to evolve in response to extreme environmental pressures. You have developed physical and mental capabilities far beyond baseline, possibly due to the pit's unique properties."
"And when your study is complete?" Bane pressed. "What then?"
The doctor's expression closed. "That's not my concern. The warden determines all final dispositions."
But Bane had seen the truth in the man's eyes – there was no plan for his release or rehabilitation. He was a laboratory specimen, nothing more. If he ever left Peña Duro, it would be on his terms, not theirs.
After seven years of this brutal cycle – descending into the pit, adapting, surviving, rising for examination, then being returned to darkness – the pattern suddenly changed. Following a particularly intensive series of tests that had left him physically exhausted but mentally alert, Bane was not returned to the pit. Instead, the warden himself appeared, flanked by heavily armed guards.
"Congratulations," the warden said, studying Bane with clinical detachment. "Your results have exceeded all projections. You're being transferred to general population."
Bane stared at him, processing this unexpected development. "Why?"
"The scientists believe interaction with ordinary inmates will provide valuable data on your socialization capabilities," the warden replied with brutal honesty. "And I believe you can serve as a useful example to the more... problematic elements within my prison."
And so, after seven years of cycling between the pit's absolute darkness and the sterile examination rooms, Bane entered Peña Duro's general population. He was sixteen years old, though his physical development suggested someone much older – his body hardened by the pit's harsh conditions, his mind sharpened by solitary study and adaptation.
The transition was not easy. The regular inmates viewed him with suspicion and fear, having heard rumors of the "pit monster" for years. Whispers followed him through the corridors like shadows. Men who had killed without hesitation found themselves stepping aside when he passed, unable to meet those unnaturally pale eyes that seemed to see through flesh and bone to the weakness beneath.
Bane's cell assignment was in the north wing, traditionally the most violent section of Peña Duro. The guards who escorted him there exchanged knowing looks – fresh meat for the wolves. They had seen this play out countless times before: new inmates, especially young ones, rarely lasted their first night without being claimed by one faction or another.
"Cell 447," the lead guard announced, unlocking a rusted door. "Try not to die too quickly, pit boy. The warden wants his experiments to last at least a few months in general pop."
Bane entered without comment, surveying the cramped space that would serve as his new cage. A thin mattress on a metal frame, a toilet with no seat, a small sink stained with rust and worse. Luxury compared to the pit's bare stone, yet somehow more confining for its pretense of civilization.
The first test came during the evening meal. The cafeteria was a vast, echoing chamber divided by invisible lines more impenetrable than prison walls. Each table belonged to a different faction – the Norteños claimed the east wall, the Sureños the west, with smaller gangs and unaffiliated inmates scattered between like buffer zones in a war-torn country.
Bane took his tray and moved toward an empty table in the neutral zone. He had barely sat down when a shadow fell across his food.
"That's my seat, fish."
The speaker was massive – easily six and a half feet tall, with arms like tree trunks and a face that bore the scars of countless prison battles. Behind him stood four more men, each radiating the casual menace of those who had grown comfortable with violence.
Bane continued eating, his movements deliberate and unhurried. "I see no name carved upon it."
A ripple of tension spread through the nearby tables. Conversations died as inmates turned to watch the confrontation. The guards at the perimeter shifted slightly, anticipating violence but making no move to prevent it.
"Maybe you didn't hear me right," the big man growled, leaning closer. His breath stank of rotting teeth and cheap prison wine. "I said that's my seat. Now you can move, or I can move you. Your choice."
Bane set down his spoon with precise care and looked up, his pale eyes catching the fluorescent light in a way that made them seem to glow. "I choose to finish my meal."
The big man's face darkened with rage. He reached for Bane's tray, intending to flip it into his face – a classic intimidation tactic. But his hand never reached its target.
Bane's fingers closed around the man's wrist with the speed of a striking snake. There was a sound like dry twigs snapping, and suddenly the big man was on his knees, his face contorted in agony as Bane maintained his grip without apparent effort.
"Your name?" Bane asked conversationally, as if inquiring about the weather.
"R-Rodriguez," the man gasped, his free hand scrabbling uselessly at Bane's iron grip.
"Well, Rodriguez," Bane continued, applying slightly more pressure and eliciting a whimper, "I suggest you find another seat. This one is occupied."
He released the man's wrist, and Rodriguez scrambled backward, cradling his injured arm. His companions helped him to his feet, their earlier bravado evaporating in the face of this unexpected resistance.
"You just made a big mistake, fish," one of them muttered as they retreated. "You don't know who runs this place."
Bane resumed eating, his voice carrying clearly across the now-silent cafeteria. "Then perhaps it's time I learned."
The confrontation with Rodriguez was merely a prelude. Word of the incident spread through the prison population within hours, reaching the ears of Jorge "El Carnicero" Valdez before the evening count. Valdez had ruled the north wing for over a decade, maintaining his position through a combination of brutality and strategic alliances. A former cartel enforcer with a body count that ran into the dozens, he had personally eliminated every serious challenger to his authority.
In his cell, surrounded by his lieutenants, Valdez listened to the report with growing interest. "So the pit boy has teeth," he mused, examining his reflection in a small mirror as he trimmed his graying beard. "Rodriguez is an idiot, but he's not weak. To put him down so easily..."
"Want us to handle it, jefe?" asked Carlos, his second-in-command. "We could catch him in the showers, make an example."
Valdez shook his head. "No. This one's different. I've heard the stories – seven years in the pit, that place the old-timers call the devil's cradle. If even half of what they say is true, he's not just another fish." He set down the mirror, his decision made. "I'll handle this personally. Tomorrow, during evening meal. Public lesson."