The Caliphate

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The pre-dawn adhan drifts through the loudspeakers. It awakens me gradually, a lifetime of habit piercing through the murky fog which envelops me in a blanket of darkness.

Pain screams through my body as disorientation and nausea gradually cede to an overwhelming sense of terror. Today I will die. Or maybe tomorrow? Rasulullah promised many brutal ends. Immolation. Beheading. Each death more fantastical than the next. But none seems more ominous than another day of beatings.

I roll onto my side and vomit. There is nothing but stomach acid, but I retch anyways, my stomach aggravated by whatever truth serum they gave me and stench of my own blood. By some small miracle, my prayer beads still cling to my wrist. My blood has now joined Lionel's.

When I die, will it hurt? Yes. Tha