Chapter 11 #2
One second they were wrapped in shadow and each other, the next they were pinned like insects under the brutal, unforgiving beam of a heavy-duty flashlight. They sprang apart as if scalded, scrambling back from each other across the dirt.
Samuel’s heart felt like it had stopped entirely. He looked up, squinting against the blinding glare, his vision swimming with after-images.
Standing at the edge of the clearing, the flashlight held like a weapon, was the Director.
∞∞∞
The room was the one they called the Reflection Chamber. It was small, windowless, and smelled of old varnish. A single, bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a pitiless, unforgiving light that turned every shadow into a deep well and every pale expanse of skin into a glaring canvas.
Samuel knelt on the rough, splintered wood of the floor. The cold bit into his bare knees. He wore only his thin cotton boxers, the fabric feeling absurdly flimsy, a pathetic scrap of modesty that offered no shield.
His torso was exposed, pale and trembling, each rib visible with every shuddering breath he tried to control. He kept his head bowed, his gaze locked on the grain of the wood between his hands, which were pressed flat against his thighs.
Across from him, a few feet away, knelt Elias. Shirtless. In his boxers. His head was not bowed. It was held at a defiant angle, his chin tilted up.
The Director stood behind Elias. He was still in his crisp shirt and tie, as if he’d been interrupted in his office.
“Do you repent for your sins?”
The Director’s voice was calm, measured, and utterly cold.
Samuel’s entire body began to shake, a violent, uncontrollable tremor that made his teeth chatter. He couldn’t look away from the boy across from him. His eyes were wide, saucers of pure terror. He stared, pleading, into Elias’s face.
Don’t.
He tried to scream it with his eyes.
Please, just say it. Say you’re sorry. Say anything. Don’t make it worse.
He gave a tiny, frantic shake of his head.
Elias’s gaze met his. For a second, the fury in them softened. He looked at Samuel, really looked, seeing the terror, the begging. A sad, gentle smile touched his swollen, split lip. Then, he winked.
Before Samuel could process it, Elias turned his head, looking up at the Director’s face above him. He gathered the moisture in his mouth, and with a sound of pure contempt, he spat. A small, wet glob landed on the Director’s cheek.
“Fuck you,” Elias snarled, his voice raw but clear, “and your God!”
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence. The Director didn’t flinch. He didn’t wipe his face. His expression, previously a mask of cold judgment, seemed to crumple in on itself, twisting into something ancient and ravenous; pure, unadulterated rage.
His hand shot out. A wet, meaty crack reverberated off the wooden walls as it connected with Elias’s cheek. He was thrown sideways, his body hitting the floorboards with a sickening thud, limp as a ragdoll.
A sound tore from Samuel’s throat; a high, ragged scream that didn’t sound human. Tears, hot and immediate, spilled over his cheeks, blurring the horror. He tried to lunge forward, but his muscles were locked in frozen panic.
He watched, helpless, as two other counselors moved in. They hauled Elias’s limp form up, holding him bent over a wooden bench that had been dragged into the center of the room. One of them produced a leather strap, thick and worn.
The first lash cut through the air like a whistle, then landed across Elias’s bare back with a sound like a butcher cleaving meat.
Samuel screamed again. And again.
Each impact jolted Elias’s body. He didn’t cry out. He didn’t make a sound. His head hung down, his wild hair obscuring his face. Red welts, angry and brutal, began to bloom in parallel lines across his skin.
Then, hands closed like vices around Samuel’s own arms, digging into his biceps. He was hauled to his feet, his knees scraping on the wood. The world tilted.
“No! NO! ELIAS!” he shrieked.
He began to struggle in earnest, a wild, flailing animal.
He kicked out, his bare foot connecting with a counselor’s shin, earning him a grunt and a fiercer grip.
He twisted, he bucked, tears and streams blurring his vision.
But his eyes never left Elias’s form slumped and motionless over the bench.
They dragged him backward toward the heavy wooden door of the chamber. He fought every inch, his screams becoming hoarse, wordless pleas. The thwack-thwack-thwack of the strap was a metronome in his ears.
Then the door swung shut with a solid, final thud.
∞∞∞
The cold was not an absence of heat. It was a presence. A solid, damp thing that had seeped up through the concrete floor and into his bones, replacing his marrow with a slow, crystalline ache.
Samuel knelt in the exact center of the cube, a point he’d determined by touch in the absolute dark.
A meter and a half. Two meters tall. He knew the dimensions now as intimately as he knew the contours of his own skull.
He had measured them with his body, with the span of his arms, with the scrabbling reach of his fingertips against the unyielding, rough-hewn slabs.
He was still in his underwear. The cotton offered no barrier against the chill of the floor. He didn’t know how long he had been here. It could have been hours. It could have been a month. The concept of time had lost meaning. There was only Before the Door Closed, and Now.
And Now was eternal.
His back was a canvas of fire. The lashes, administered before he was thrown in here, still burned. But the pain was a distant signal, a broadcast from a country whose language he no longer spoke.
His knees, pressed hard against the gritty concrete, had gone from sharp agony to a dull, wet numbness. He knew they were bleeding. He paid it no mind. The pain was a clock ticking in another room.
His lips moved. They were cracked, swollen from biting down on screams. A sound emerged, a dry, papery whisper that scraped the walls of his throat raw with each syllable.
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…”
The words were not a prayer anymore. They were a ward against the silence that pressed in on his eardrums until they rang with a high-pitched phantom tone. If he stopped the words, the silence would get in. It would fill his mouth, his lungs, his mind. It would become him. So he didn’t.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”
A metallic shriek tore through the cube.
Light stabbed his eyes.
Samuel flinched, his whole body convulsing in a single, violent spasm. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the afterimage was burned onto his retinas.
He didn’t stop the scripture. His whisper became a frantic, speeding murmur against the assault.
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spi…”
A figure filled the doorway, blocking some of the light, making it into a jagged halo. Heavy shoes sounded on the concrete.
Samuel’s words faltered. His throat sealed shut. He kept his head bowed, his eyes screwed tight, his body trembling. The presence loomed over him. He could smell him: starch, soap, and underneath, something sour, like old sweat.
A hand landed on his bare shoulder.