Chapter 30
I was on autopilot for the next class. Thankfully Gadriel had kept it simple in his Defence lesson with some light obstacle work and a quick jog.
But even in my dazed state, I could feel his gaze flickering toward me throughout the lesson. I think he wanted to talk to me when we finished, but I grabbed my stuff, rambling on about meeting Mrs. Fleur and headed quickly to her class.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not with how I felt right now. And this wasn’t a ‘ spill your emotions and feel better’ kind of feeling. Nothing could stop the ache trying to consume me right now.
And I couldn’t rid myself of the thoughts of Zrael.
It had been a battle just getting through class.
Every second seemed longer, every breath like it was catching in my throat.
And as much as I tried to push the memories down, they now seemed to be overflowing in me; wanting to pour out and drag every painful thought and emotion with them.
I had tried to keep busy and not think of him too much. But reality has a cruel way of hitting you. It waits for just the right moment to strike and break you down when you least expect it.
I make it to the music room and look around the class. Mrs. Fleur wasn't here.
I had hoped she would at least be on time for this, but I should have known better with her track record.
I just needed to make it clear to her that I wouldn't be singing and leave just as quickly as I came.
Right now I needed my own space and to be able to bury myself in my blanket and allow what was trying to break out of me to just flow naturally. I couldn’t fight it any longer.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady the tremor working its way down my body and look around the dimly lit room. It looked much bigger now that it was completely empty. The lights were off and the rays from the sun now gone as dusk quickly covered the skies.
I sit down on a chair near the window, my body sagging down a little further as the weight of the emotions I had been holding back slowly begin to seep through.
A cold chill from an open window at the back of the room fills the air as my eyes slowly close, a memory instantly hitting me; his gravelly pained voice, my name on his lips, and then…
silence. An unending and infinite silence that will haunt my dreams with an agony so painful and destructive, it pierces my soul to its depths.
It's followed by screams so unearthly and pain-ridden that it's hard to believe they’re my own.
I’m pulled back through my memories and to him .
We had met in the Facility, I say ‘met’ but we never really saw each other.
I was placed in the cell next to his with large old cement blocks separating us and a huge metal door holding us each prisoner.
It was after my first week and first ‘test’ in the Facility and after all the tears and screams had left my throat and eyes raw, that I had finally fallen silent in my cell.
That's when I first heard him. A low hum that slowly rang out from the cement bricks behind me.
I limply sit against the cold grey wall after their first little ‘test’, my body bleeding and aching all over. Suddenly I hear a noise behind me, a low voice humming on the other side of the thick cement wall. It rings out around me in my cell as I sit listening to it.
With no contact or communication of any kind–other than the twisted guards here–it was strange to hear a voice other than my own around me.
But that's all I hear. There's no voice, no words, just a low melancholy humming that fades after a while.
A few days later and after another ‘test,’ I hear it again.
And then again the day after that. It becomes consistent and I realise whoever it is would hum their sad melodies when I would return from another ‘test’.
It was almost as if they were trying to help me in some way.
To soothe some of the pain I felt with their gentle humming.
It started out as a light hum but over time, it slowly grew into a low soothing song.
When the first words flowed from his mouth, I felt my breath catch in my lungs, my heart pick up pace and something small pull from the depths of tender emotions I thought I had very little of left.
I didn’t even realise I was singing along with him until he had stopped. The voice that then called out to me was nothing like the beautiful melodious one from when he sang. It was low and coarse and so fractured. And almost sounded like he was in pain trying to even speak.
“Ho…w? No…o not h…ere…” His words were rough and his voice so broken, it was hard to make out what he was saying.
What did he mean? Was he telling me not to sing?
It wasn’t something I had intended on doing either. I don’t even like singing, especially in front of others.
Or did he mean he wouldn’t sing for me again?
A small ache works its way into my chest with the thought. His voice and light melancholy hums had been the only reprieve from this nightmare, from the months of torture, pain and silence.
It was the only comfort in this dark and cold room that made me feel like I wasn’t alone. That even with a wall between us, I had someone here to come back to.
“I…it won’t happen again.” I call to him, “I won’t sing again, so please…” I didn’t even know him, not even his name and yet I felt almost desperate to not lose this small contact with him. “I won’t–”
“No…N..oo!” He shouts, his voice like gravel as he raises it, sounding more pained than before as it cracks on the broken vowels. “Don..t st…op sing…ing. Beau…ti…ful.”
Beautiful? He thought it was beautiful?
Was he joking?
I don’t think I had ever been complimented on my voice before. Even when I had to sing in music class in the academy, my voice was low and feeble and I’d always fumble the song's words. The rest of the class would laugh or whisper to each other. I hated every second of it.
“Z…rael…” He murmurs after a moment of silence.
“What?” I lean closer to the wall, trying to hear him better.
“My n…ame is Zrael.”
‘Zrael’ I mumble as I look toward the cold grey wall before leaning closer toward it. At least I knew his name.
“I’m Micai.”
I hear a small intake of breath and a slight shift in movement beyond the wall. And I realise I have my ear pressed against it. I guess being starved of any proper human contact or conversation for months will do that to a person.
I hear the rattling of keys and heavy footsteps at my door; it was probably the guards coming for another ‘testing’ session. They were becoming more and more frequent lately, each time pushing me that bit further.
They had also started bringing in strange looking beasts for me to fight, trying to push me harder and almost to the brink of death. But I was learning, and becoming faster and stronger.
But just as quickly as I grew, they halted it; shackling me with their metal cuffs and throwing me in here to heal at a snail's pace. They only ever allowed me to recover so much before another ‘test’ would take place. Never giving me enough time to properly heal and fight at my best.
But each ‘session’ would take more and more from me mentally. And I wonder just how long it will be until what's left finally shatters…
I’m pulled from my thoughts as the guard opens my door and calls me to move.
I pull myself up and make my way toward them when suddenly I hear banging from the wall next to me. Zrael.
He shouts as high as his broken voice will allow him, “No! L..eave her! T…ake me!”
The guard pushes me out and past Zrael’s door, ignoring the yelling as he continues to bang on his walls and shout as loud as his broken voice will take him.
Zrael’s voice slowly fades in the distance as I head down the dark corridor and toward one of the testing rooms, wondering what they have in store for me this time.
* * *
I wake up in my cell after another one of their ‘tests’. In the last session I had broken too many bones to stand without pain cutting through me, and had lost enough blood on my cell’s floor to fill a bucket.
They didn’t care too much for prisoner hygiene here, throwing only a dirty bucket of water in to clean up the drying blood and an old rag for me to ‘tidy up’.
Healing was a slow process with their shackles on me, and I wasn’t quite sure how long I had been unconscious for or when they had placed me back in here.
But if meals thrown on the floor were anything to go by, then three days had already passed while I was unconscious. The small buns they gave us had grown even harder, and green mould was starting to form. Not that they had ever really been ‘fresh’ to begin with.
I pull myself over toward the wall and to where I would hear Zrael best. It had become our little spot.
But there had been no humming since I woke up, and no songs.
It had taken me a while before I realised he wasn’t in his room. And then a day passed with no return, and then another and I quickly began to panic.
They usually don't hold us for testing for more than a day. What if they moved him somewhere else?
What if they had gotten annoyed with all his yelling and had decided to punish him?
What if one of their ‘tests’ were too much for him?
What if he's…gone.
Panic begins to spread through me, an ache building in my chest with the thought of losing him. My thoughts race to all the ‘what if’s’. Worry and fear were taking hold of me like a tightening vise.
Maybe it was because we shared a similar fate or a similar type of pain, but there was a connection formed between us; a bond that had slowly grown with each hummed note, each lyrical word and each gravelly broken sentence.
To me he had become a balm to my battered soul, and a small glimmer of light in this otherwise dark nightmare of a prison.
A shuffling noise rings out in the empty hall outside, then a couple of grunts and a heavy bang against the wall in Zrael’s cell. It's followed by the sadistic laughter of a couple of the guards before they head back down the corridor.