Eliuteria

Chapter 7

I made the mistake of inhaling as I stepped through the door of the bagrai and promptly dry-heaved when the stench filled my nose. The man sitting behind a desk, laughed as I choked on the smell.

"You'll get used to it 'fore the day's over," he said.

My head snapped up, and as my eyes landed on him and my lips parted in surprise. He was human.

He wasn't much taller than me, but thin and gaunt like he hadn't ever been properly nourished. I could see scalp through this thinning, gray hair despite the fact that I didn't think he was more than a couple of decades older than me.

Briefly, my eyes flit around the room checking for the guards I expected to see, but there was only us. No Morri in the building. He was in charge. He was loyal to them.

In my mind, that made him every bit as awful as the Morri who ruled over us, worse perhaps. He had turned his back on his own kind. He jailed his own people for crimes that weren't worthy of such punishment.

My father would have said he wasn't to blame for his actions. He always told me desperate people do desperate things, especially when it concerns people they love. I didn't know who was starving at home or what leverage they held over him. I didn't care. There were occasions where my father and I went days without food. He would have never sold out his own kind to the Morri for food. He would have—he did find another way. He stayed true to his beliefs because he loved me.

"Grab and apron and mask," the man ordered and gestured to a bin against the wall.

I did as he suggested and fished out a clean, rubber apron that would be a little large but hopefully keep me clean and mask that covered my nose and mouth that looked surprisingly clean. Once appropriately attired, he lead me down to cells and barked out my orders before heading back up the steps and closing the door behind him.

My eyes squinted, adjusting to the darkness until the cells came into view before me. Each small cell housed one prisoner, but it was still crowed. The cells were small, not giving the people in them the space to lay down—not that they would want to. I didn't think a full-grown man would be able to stand up straight in them either. And there were so many... rows stretching down the hall into the darkness beyond where my light could reach.

How many were there in the cells? Dozens that I could see.

Prisoners went to battle. I always thought the number of humans dying in the battles meant it had to be relatively empty here. I was wrong.

My mind went to my father. He was kept here for a month before I saw him march into the stadium with his head held high and refuse to fight. He refused to give into their game and allow his death to bring entertainment.

I had seen him here, shortly after they took him from me, but I hadn't known. I hadn't seen the cells. I hadn't seen all of it.

I looked to man near me. He was weak and looked like he had not had a proper meal in ages, but he wasn't much older than my father would have been. His expression was pained though his eyes were closed, and he was leaned against the wall in a way that made me sure he was asleep.

I blinked back tears.

Was this how my father looked?

Wiping my eyes of the errant tears that spilled over, I made my way to a small supply closet. There was no way that I could help all of, or even most of the people there. But I could help a few.

I grabbed the skeleton key and unlocked the gate of the first cell. The man has a chain secured to his ankle and a for a moment I worried that he had done something awful. His eyes opened but he didn't so much as twitch for the gate, and I realized that even if he was dangerous at some point, he wasn't anymore. Even if he tried to escape, in the condition he was he wouldn't make it up the stairs.