Cave of Shadows

Chapter 10- Antony’s POV

The guards led me blindfolded through countless hallways for what seemed like forever, until eventually we stopped.  I heard a door opening, and I was shoved roughly into another room.  The door closed, and one of them said, “Okay, you can remove his blindfold now.”

The room we were in was made of stone.  There were small fires burning in metal dishes on the walls, probably through the use of kerosene, that gave the room an orange glow.  There was floor for about ten feet in front of him, but after that, there was nothing but a rickety wooden bridge, the trajectory of which spanned the wrong way across the room, so that it touched neither this side of the room nor the other, but ran across it horizontally.  The area the bridge spanned was an empty, bottomless pit, and it was about 20 yards across.  On the other side was a cliff, and on that cliff, chained to the wall, I could just make out a figure that I knew had to be Rachel.

She was chained facing the wall of the room.  The chains were connected to the wall, and there wasn’t any slack, so she was forced to stand.  The only other objects on her side of the room were a table and a bed. 

One of the guards stepped forward.  “Slack!” he yelled, and from the points in the wall where the chain and wall met, more chain poured forth, allowing Rachel to slump to the ground in a heap. 

“Bridge!” the other guard yelled, and the wooden bridge in the middle of the room began to move so that it was positioned with one end on our side and one end facing the cliff.

“You have ten minutes,” one of the guards barked gruffly, and I ran across the bridge towards Rachel.  When I reached her, I picked her up and felt her pulse.  Immediately, her eyes opened, and she looked at me in disbelief.

“I thought I would never see you again,” she said quietly.  “This must be a dream.  You’re a ghost.  I’m a ghost.  There must be some kind of an explanation, because there’s no way the Ringmaster would let you see me.  Not by choice, anyway.  This must be-“

The kiss shut her up pretty quick.  However, it didn’t last very long, because I reminded myself that I only had ten minutes.  When I broke away, I looked at her seriously.

“Did they hurt you?  Are you okay?”

“When they took me away from you, they brought me here.  The guards called this place an oubliette, a prison of air.  They chained me to the wall and I slept in the bed.  Every morning, they tighten the chains, forcing me to stand completely immobilized so that they can feed me.  Then, they leave me that way until nightfall, when they feed me again.  After that, they slacken the chains and I go to sleep.  I never see their faces, though.  I only see their shadows.  They always come from behind, never in front.  I never see their faces.”

“Have any of them… hurt you?”

“The C-Men of this prison can do whatever they want to the prisoners here, you know that.  And none of them became C-Men for their compassion.  More like brutality.  So, Connor, the answer to the real question you had is yes.  They raped me.  On more than one occasion, and more often than not, more than one at a time.  You know good and well that when confronted with a threat, I fight, and so when one of them comes at me, he usually brings some friends to hold me still.  But no, other than that they have not actually physically hurt me, ever.  Technically, whatever agreement you made with the Ringmaster has not been broken.”

“And I take it that means that I have no grounds to go back on my deal with her, then?”

“Well, that depends.  What exactly was your agreement?”

“My endorsement of Colony policies in exchange for her making sure you didn’t starve to death or die of infection.”

“Well there you go, then.  She’s got you in a real snag, because now you know what she’s doing to me, and you know that technically she’s keeping up her end of the bargain and getting what she wants.  Basically, you have to continue to do everything she says, or she will kill me while you watch, which is worse than our present predicament, in her opinion, anyway.”