Juan Ramon Sereno: The Wise Slave

Chapter 13: The Series of Unfortunate Events

The soldiers didn’t keep their promise that they’ll release Joseph from the dungeon at dusk because the warden arrived so early and needed Joseph. Apparently, Joseph is the one who cooks breakfast, lunch, and supper for all the inmates these past days.

“What about John?” Joseph asked the warden. “You can’t just leave him alone like this.”

“Kid, I can’t give the special treatment I give to you to other prisoners,” the warden replied. “Besides, he’ll only have to stay here for a little while more.”

“But…”

“I’ll be fine, Joseph,” I told him. “Just like Mr. Warden just said, I’ll only have to be here for a little while. And besides, I’m more deserving to stay here longer because that wound on your nose will take a longer time to heal than this little bruise on my stomach.”

Joseph thought twice at this. “What if your insides got injured…”

I just laughed at what he said, which was a mistake on my part because the part he punched started to ache again. An expression of excruciating pain became etched on my face, but I just tried to hide it by smiling widely. “Hey, it can’t be worse than what’s on your nose. Don’t sweat it, so you’d better start whatever it is you need to do so we can eat early tonight.”

None of us spoke while Joseph and the warden went towards the door. Before they got out, the warden asked me, “Are you sure you’re going to be alright there?”

“Hmm, my back is aching a bit since I can’t move due to my position, but compared to what I did to Joseph, I probably deserve this,” I jokingly replied.

The warden looked at me for a moment. I don’t know if it’s just me or I saw concern from the warden’s face. But then I thought that it might be because he’s like this to all the other prisoners. After a few more moments, both of them finally went out of the dungeon and closed the door. Again, the whole place became baking hot and I was left there gasping because of what I was feeling in my abdomen. At this point, I felt the bump at the back of my head again.

At my current state, I would really feel everything around me, including my body parts that hurt the most. I just suddenly realized that a small pimple appeared on my forehead. It’s not really very itchy, truth be told, but at this kind of heat, you would really feel the urge to scratch it. I just couldn’t do it since both my hands were shackled above my head so this is gonna be a bigger problem for me. Thinking of anything else is also difficult. Every effort to resist any pain in my body only makes me grow weaker. I decided to give up for now. I just closed my eyes and prayed that I would go unconscious for a while.

The feelings for my surroundings slowly faded. My mind went back to the crime scene. I don’t really want to go back to what happened earlier, but I then noticed something wrong with the crime scene when I saw it again in my mind’s eye.

If I’m not mistaken, the sword was soaked in blood, while the bump on the soldier’s head was the fatal blow. It’s totally impossible to run a soldier through his head with a sword that size and expect his head to remain intact upon pulling it out. Besides, that soldier was too big for me to reach the back of his head and hit it with something. And now, Joseph told me that what was spread over my chest wasn’t blood, but a kind of medicine for burns. I already can’t wait to tell Joseph everything I’ve just deducted.

It’s as if someone has heard my thoughts because a few minutes after this, the warden returned to the dungeon and finally released me from my bonds. I felt as though my shoulders have hardened after my hands were shackled for a long time so it took me a long time to get used to bringing them down again. The moment I stood up, I fell flat on my face because I couldn’t feel my legs.