It took five and a half months for him to die.

Five and a half months and it wasn't the starvation that took him, though it was a factor that took its toll. But it was a disease; something transmitted by the rats that took solace in the dark and the damp as the weather changed. Something that had got into his system through a cut and infected his blood. It had killed him within days.

But then he woke.

He woke, lying in a pool of his own waste, and his body was his again, muscles restored and body renewed. But it was no escape. It was no way out because there was none. He had found for him a bucket of water there that must have sat for a day at least.

Alive again, and so the cycle continued. It seemed to take less time for him to weaken now, his muscles soon wasting and stomach soon becoming starved. It was harder to fight it now, and as the months past, another two, three, he lost himself to a delirium brought on by his surroundings.

He ceased to be recognisable as himself, and a large part of him was glad at that. His hair grew and became matted and dirty, and his stubble grew to a beard, unhampered and unruly.

And he began to learn when it was night. He knew from the cold. The ice in the water and the pain it would bring. And that was the cycle of his days.