Cataclysm

1.1

"Where is he?" Leo demanded, gripping the bars tight enough to make his knuckles white.

I couldn't answer. The two soldiers dumped me in my cage and I collapsed, barely able to curl up. The rain water dripping off of my body mixed with the blood on my back and the dust on the ground, turning it into crimson stained mud. All I could see were those sixty one gashes, sixty one lines burned into my mind.

"Where is he?" Leo repeating, his voice growing louder.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut as if that alone would bring me relief.

"Where is he?" he screamed. I still didn't answer, and he paused, noticing the eleven stripes down my back. "How many did he get?" he said, softer.

I shook my head and cringed. I couldn't tell him.

"Tell me, Joel!" Leo yelled, throwing something through the bars.

The small pebble hit the back of my neck, right into my wound, and I shrieked. "Leo -" I started, my voice cracking.

"Get up and tell me!" He was hysterical, pounding his fists against the bars, and the sick feeling grew worse. "Ten lashes is nothing! You're pathetic! He could be dying and you don't even care!"

I finally managed to pull myself up to a kneeling position, keeping my head ducked. "I'm sorry," I said softly.

"Please, Joel," he begged. "Please, tell me."

"His punishment was forty," I said, wincing at his sharp inhale. Each one of my lashes burned, like they were filled with liquid fire.

"Forty?" Leo whispered.

"But ..." I rubbed my face with my hand, as if trying to hide myself. I didn't want to tell him. I couldn't.

"He got them all, didn't he?"

I nodded. "All forty."

"Why didn't they bring him back?" Leo asked. "Is he okay?"

"He's ..." I hesitated. "He passed out at the end, once they'd untied him. Then Howell took him away."

Leo staggered back, his hands grasping his heart. "No," he breathed. "Not Howell. Please, say it's not true. All my nightmares ... they can't come true. Tell me it's not true!"

"I'm sorry." I felt tears burning in my eyes again. I hated being so emotional. This place had knocked down every emotional wall I'd ever built, and every time I tried to build it back up, something else hit me and left me an emotional wreck.

"Braken ..." Leo tried to scream, but his voice cracked and trailed off.

"He'll come back alright," I whispered, narrowing my eyes and staring at the bars of the door. "I know he will. He's stronger than both of us."

"What are you talking about?" Leo snapped. "He's not strong enough. I could hear him screaming ... he's  dying, isn't he? There's something you're not telling me. He's dying and I'm never going to see him again ..."

I shifted my weight and cringed. "He's not dying. Or at least I don't think he is." He was right. There was something I wasn't telling him.

"Tell me what's going on," he said. "Please, I have to know."

"I don't want you to worry," I said, and then realized how stupid I sounded. "I mean ... sorry, I just ..." I sighed and rubbed my neck, letting out a shriek as I touched the gash. "His punishment was forty lashes, but on top of that, Howell said that every time he made noise, they had to start counting all over again."

"I can't take it," Leo muttered, pacing his cell back and forth, back and forth. "I can't live like this anymore." He turned to look at me, almost hesitantly. "So how many ...?"