Chapter Three "The Four Questions"
1389 Words
The first question was always the same.
“What is your name?”
“Aitkin Cassini.”
The second question followed as it had every time before.
“What is your rank?”
Aitkin gritted his teeth. The same questions again and again. The same implacable tone. The same cadence. It was as if he was answering a recording.
“Lieutenant.”
He gave nothing further. He’d tried to head off the next question before; answering with the information he knew would be requested.
The result had been pain. Terrible, terrible pain.
It seemed his tormentor did not take kindly to interruptions.
Now the third question was asked as it had been so many times before.
“What is your designation?”
“Second Company, Deorum Marines.” Aitkin wanted to continue, wanted to scream and vent his frustrations. To put an end to the tedium.
He'd been trained to withstand torture. The boundaries of the information he could give drilled into him time and time again like a mantra: Name, rank, devotion. In extremes, he was encouraged to recite his Oath to lend him fortitude and remind him of his promise.
In this place the rules he’d learned, the behaviours he’d been taught to see and manipulate were not in play. His torturer held no interest in the creation of a bond. To capture information you had to build trust. Pain was a tool, a clumsy hammer used to break cracks in the psyche, but the words were the fine chisels that delicately worked those thin fractures into wide rifts through which information could flow.
The words should be placatory. They should promise a respite to the suffering. They should cajole and wheedle. They should be the angered derisions of a victorious foe and the caring whispers of a tender lover.
The words should be a winding path, carefully trodden to walk him unknowingly through the walls of his loyalty and deliver him to the welcome bliss of release from the pain.
These were not the words he had heard. These were not the tools being used.
Pain was the only weapon in their arsenal. Pain.
Pain was everything. The pain of the knife. The excruciating ministrations of the auto-surgeon. That was all he knew, broken only by the all too short reprieve of chemically induced sleep.
There was nothing else but the same four questions. There were no whispered promises, no offers of redemption. There had been no furious ranting or threats. It was wrong, all wrong and Aitkin knew it was slowly breaking him.
He knew the next question was coming. He knew he could not answer it and what it would lead to. He could feel his muscles begin to tense in apprehension. He tried to fight it, desperate to relax his straining body as he’d been taught.
Give nothing away. That was the impossible goal.
He wanted to reach for it. Wanted to be everything he knew he should and knew he wasn’t. He wanted to keep his honour.
Deep down, below the bravado, the training and the pride, Aitkin knew he couldn’t do it.
Where would the next cut be? The back of his legs? His face? His fingers? He prayed it would not be his fingers. His hands curled into fists and he hastily flattened his palms, hoping his captor had not seen the unconscious action, had not seen his dread manifesting.
Fear was a weakness; it pointed to the c****s in his armour, the places he was most vulnerable.
Her face floated into his mind as his thoughts drifted.
Itona.
She was smiling. Whenever he thought of her the same image always rose in his mind; standing over him, turning in slow motion as he reached out his hand to her. The sun rising over the planet that dominated Luna’s sky bathed her in light…
He felt movement in the air, snapping his focus back from her beauty to the terror of now. He had yet to see his captor. The bright circle of light that illuminated him stretched no further than the chair in which he was bound. Beyond it was utter blackness. He had no idea of the world outside that single, bright shaft. There was no way to tell the dimensions of the room he was kept in. No way to know if he was alone with his torturer or displayed for an audience.
No sounds filtered into his ears but those of his own breathing, his screams and the soft, monotone voice of his questioner. He could be anywhere, but he feared worst of all that he was nowhere.
His body began to tremble. He tried to fight the rising fear, but it gripped him too strongly. He felt coldness on his skin, sweat sheening his forehead.
The pain was coming.
Aitkin tried to swallow, his throat parched in the dry air. Tears welled in his eyes and he felt disgust for himself. This was not how a Deorum marine behaved. He tried to blink the tears away, but the moisture clouded his eyes. He was not good enough. Not strong enough. He should do better, try harder. He was going to fail them all.
He felt the figure move behind him. A pale hand - all he knew of his tormentor - passed slowly into his blurry vision. The fingers were long and delicate, their elongated nails extending their length, the skin deeply veined.
The hand held a dark blade. Aitkin had never seen its like before. The metal had an oily gleam, catching the light from above in multiple rainbows that would seem beautiful in any other circumstance.
He felt his legs begin to shake.
The edge was keen, more so than anything he’d ever known.
The cuts themselves carried almost no feeling. Each one delivered with such gentle precision that the skin parted without the nerves appearing to notice. The pain followed in the wake of those incisions. As the blood began to well a burning heat would start to build. It would spread from the slice in his flesh, setting his nerve endings on fire and forcing him to whimper, to cry out.
A marine should never show pain. He had to do better.
He’d tried to hold in his screams at first, in those early hours. He wanted to believe he could suffer the agony with stoicism and show his captor no fear. He had been wrong. So wrong.
After just the second round of questions, he’d bitten through his tongue, after the third he felt teeth break in his mouth from the pressure of his clenching and had spat the crumbled, bloodied splinters in a roar of misery at his own failure to endure.
Now his hands were quivering too. He was showing his fear. He wasn’t good enough.
The blade moved before his eyes, turning slowly as if selecting its next target. He watched the light glint from its surface and waited for the question to come. He realised he was holding his breath, his body taught as his feeble attempts to control the impulses failed. He knew he could not endure much more. Something deep inside him was urging him to keep going. Urging him to hold on just a little longer, but he knew he was going to fail. He knew he could not answer the fourth question and each time he didn’t the pain brought him closer to the edge. Closer to breaking.
He felt the heat of breath on his neck.
He wasn’t strong enough.
The question came, slowly, each word enunciated precisely. His answer would be the same as it had been so many times before. Silence.
“Where is Emelia Green?”
Aitkin held his mouth closed tight, his lips pressed together in defiance. This time he would not scream. He would not give them the satisfaction. He would not break.
His body began to quiver in expectation of what would come next; the kiss of the dark blade.
Aitkin bit into his lip and tasted the blood in his mouth. He thought of Itona; picturing her face, her eyes, her smile. He tried desperately to hold the image in his mind. If he could focus everything on her he might just be able to withstand the pain.
The knife cut deep, slicing through his flesh and his resolve.
Aitkin’s mind went blank.
His mouth opened.
He screamed.
- Writer
