The Cellblock

Avii rushed down sterile halls, passing by figures in white gowns bearing ruby emblems atop their bonnets. Flared skirts twirled as their bodies followed his flight, hands reaching after him as he darted past.

“Sir, slow down!” They cried after him. “No runnin’ in the ward! Sir!”

But Avii could care less, the half-burnt cigarette still hanging from his lips as he rounded the final corner to her room. Reaching an oil- and dust-caked hand forward, he pressed the door open before forcing his way into the space. His eyes darted across the half a dozen figures present before locking on his wife.

“Kani!” Avii yelled frantically as he charged to the bed. “Kani, Iza got ‘ere as soon as’uh could! Izzit time?!”

“Avii,” Kani growled between laboured breaths. “Avii, you made it.”

“As sooniz Ol’ Man Grunnit tol’ me, I was on thuh next carriage up! I didn’ think I’d make it!”

It was then that a pair of hands took hold of Avii’s dirty shoulders, ripping him away from the sterile bed. They argued that he should clean up before the birthing, but even he knew there wasn’t time for that. So, not wanting to be bound, he threw his shoulders to cast off anyone who would take him from his wife and the birth of his first child. And as he did, feeling the weakening grips of the orderlies who struggled against his strength, he watched Kani clench down on the sheets before she screamed loud enough to rattle the windows.

“Thah’s it, Kani,” The midwife spoke up as she adjusted herself before the woman. “Thuh babe’s comin’. I can see it. Now push!”

“Kani!”

“Avii!” She screamed, stretching a hand out for him.

“Sir! Sir!” The figures called out, pulling him back. “You need to calm down. Let us at least clean you before—”

“Piss off,” Avii swore and, with a mighty swing of his arms, threw the figures from him with ease. “Kani!”

“Avii!”

He rushed back to her side, ash from his cigarette falling to her palm in the seconds before he took hold. Kani’s grip was strong, her knuckles growing white as she grabbed firm enough to shift the bones in Avii’s hand. But he didn’t falter. Instead he gripped harder, matching her strength with his own.

“Keep pushin’, Kani…” The midwife insisted as the labouring woman screamed louder. “Push!”

“Avii!” Kani screamed between quick, shallow breaths.

“Give’r ‘ell babe!” Avii yelled out, looking back down at their hands. “Give’r Kani!”

Her hands were pristine and pure. His were caked in filth. But they were together, and nothing would ever tear them apart.

Kani screamed louder as the attendant continued to direct her until eventually the cacophony of cries was joined by the fresh screams of a newborn girl. Screams that were higher pitched than a young Avii had ever heard. And the moment he was finally allowed to hold her in his arms, he felt his heart drop. She was his little girl. She was his Jeanine. And she was beautiful.

—ooo—

It was the agonizing screams of a child in torment that finally woke Avii. As he gasped, now freed from the dream, he looked around for the ghost of his daughter. But she was not with him, nor had she been for some time. What he now heard was a different child’s screams. These cries were far away, finding their way to his ears from beyond the iron bars that allowed the smell of death to waft into his cell freely. The cries were pained, full of anguish, before a cracking sound silenced them in an instant.

The quiet that followed haunted him as he lay there, barely holding onto consciousness. But Avii knew he couldn’t fall back to sleep. Not now. Because, without even knowing where he was, he knew what that silence meant. So, preparing for his upcoming punishment, his hands reached out to better understand his new reality in the moments before his eyes caught up.

What he found was a familiar holding cell. Its walls were marked with scratches made by desperate souls carving their fingers bloody as they did everything they could to escape. The stone floors were set a foot deeper than the guards’ paths beyond, just enough to allow the prisoner’s piss and shit and blood to pool and soak their wounds every time they sat or slept. He could tell by the grime on the floor that the cell had been used recently. But when the last soul had departed, he didn’t know.

As his eyes finally adjusted, they revealed what he knew to be true. That he had once again been captured by the Koviks and thrust into one of their special camps. But since he was alone in a cage, and not stacked five high in a tent, it wasn’t a prison camp where he would be forced to labour until the day he died. And because he was not already racked and bound, it became clear that neither was this an interrogation camp where they would torture him raw until they bled him of every drop of information he had. No. The limited freedom to move about his cell, with a heavy cage door and a single barred window for false hope, meant only one thing. The camp he found himself in was an experimentation camp. The worst of them all. One where he would be poked and prodded and pushed to the limits of sanity. Camps the likes of which were run by the Butcher himself.

With a racing heart, Avii shifted wildly. Chains rattled as he stood, their horrid grip tightening around his ankle as he attempted to move. Wincing, he glanced down, eying the sharpened iris that had begun to close around his flesh. The device was new to him and unlike the shackles of decades prior. So, testing its purpose, he moved another step forward. Watching the way it clamped around his ankle, the more taut his chain grew and slackened when he remained closer to his wall, he realized its purpose.

Avii had been given just enough room to move to the window, but not enough to easily see out. A room without a view for the bird dreaming of flight. With another step, he realized he could not reach the bars that marked the cellblock beyond. This meant that if they ever brought him food, he would have to prostrate himself in his own filth and use the full reach of his body to pull over whatever mouldy slop they decided he deserved.

With a defeated sigh, he rested his back to the wall and stared across at the frantic scratches of those who came before him. One thing was clear to him in that instant. In the twenty years since his escape, the treatment of those in the Butcher’s abattoir appeared to have only gotten worse. To dangle the ability to look outside behind forced agony would be torture for those ill-suited to the abuse. Luckily for Avii, it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to know the extent of his incarceration.

Reaching for the bars, Avii lifted himself to see the world beyond. He felt the sharpened iris clamp down, cutting half an inch into his leg in all directions, spilling blood to the floor. But he ignored the pain, instead allowing the horror of his new reality to sink in.

Beneath his cell, some thirty feet above the ground, he could see an unusual courtyard stretching out before him. There, armoured guards stood their ground, watching as slaves toiled away before an open pit of bodies. Closest to his cell window, he watched as a pair of wolflike demihumans carried in their grasp the limp body of a child. A wolfboy, no older than Avii was when Jeanine had been born. His ears were clipped, body bruised and bloodied with a horrid grimace slit into his throat. With a heave, the pair threw his corpse into the pit, watching as he landed atop the other demihumans that filled it.

Avii’s heart dropped as he watched a squadron of armoured soldiers come up behind the slaves. Raising their weapons, they released crossbow bolts that sank into the hearts and heads of the weary workers who tumbled back into the pit. Then, with a wave of their armoured hands, a low grumble became audible as the mound of corpses began to rise and sink. The ground quaked, and Avii could feel it rattling his bones through the bars he held to.

In the distance, a settling pond began to bubble as fountains of thick crimson liquid spewed forth. That was when Avii realized the purpose of the pit. That what he saw was not merely a mass grave for demihumans, but instead one for recycling. Their bodies, tortured and broken, served no purpose anymore and were thus ground down to become the very potions that extended the life of other tortured souls.

A pit settled in his stomach as he dropped from the bars and grabbed at his core. The image of the wolfboy, a mere child executed moments before, bit at his mind. Then he thought of the other slaves that had simply been doing their jobs and the dozens of other corpses that rested at the bottom of the pit. He wondered how many lifeless bodies were piled in when the processing began. How many were still alive in those final moments?

In all his years, he had never seen such a horrific display. While torment and pain had been the majority of his life, the cruelty he had just experienced sickened him until he could no longer hold it in. Falling to his knees, he heaved what little remained in his stomach. It ached his body to do so, but he had no choice. Even attempting to hold it in felt wrong. Felt like he was turning a blind eye to the torment he had witnessed.

“Mule?” A voice grumbled between his retching. “Mule is that you?”

The gruff but weary voice was that of Ostave. Avii could not see him from deep within his cell, but he could hear the pain in his voice. He was obviously injured, both physically and mentally. After all, Avii knew that sound well. And if he could hear it, the guards could too.

“Yes,” Avii replied simply, wiping the bile from his lips as he looked around the space. “But quiet. For these walls have ears.”

“What does that mean?” Vivat whimpered from elsewhere in their pen. “Mule, do you know where we are? One minute we were in the wilderness and the next, this horrid place.”

At this, Avii remained quiet. If there was one thing he remembered about his time under the Butcher’s blade, it was that they liked the ones who talked. In his experience, they were usually the first to be broken. Meanwhile, those who were quiet were left to suffer in silence with the hopes of their comrades’ cries being what tore them apart.

“Mule?” Vivat continued, and Avii listened to the sounds of chains rattling before a pained cry. “Mule! What is this place? Do you know what is going on?”

“Priestess Vivat, pull yourself together,” Ostave ordered her. “Breathe. If he says quiet, then we must be.”

It was then that a door opened and closed. Boots clicked as they marched at a slow pace down the length of the cells. A metal door creaked as it was pried open, and before long the wet sound of a tortured body falling limp was heard. Chains rattled as someone was locked into place. Then a gasp.

“No!” Vivat cried out. “No! It can’t be!”

Footsteps continued to slowly march deeper into the cellblock. Avii knew these steps. They were the steps of a master. Of a butcher, examining the beasts of his slaughterhouse.

“You son of a bitch!” Ostave yelled out, his angered voice roaring loud enough to make Avii forget the sound of the grinder outside. “You bastard!”

But the steps continued, unfazed as they eventually made their way to Avii’s cage. And there, as he walked into view, the mule’s heart dropped. In his mind, Avii had been dreading this moment coming to pass. Secretly, he feared it since their first meeting. And, while it had been impossible for him to have been certain, he always felt something was wrong whenever he looked into the man’s cold, dead stare. The stare of a monster with no moral compass, willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goal.

And so, with himself backed up against the wall, his leg bound in a horrible shackle, Avii reached into his mouth and pulled out his tongue as far as he could muster. Then, with a resolve of a man damned to decades of slavery, he bit down with as much force as he could, severing the muscle with a single bite. Because, if Avii was to be a prisoner to him, he would rather not give him the satisfaction of doing it.

If he was to be a prisoner of Sebastian’s, he would rather suffer on his own terms.