Frozen Summer

Chapter 29

A sudden cold and wet feeling woke Konnor up. Opening his eyes the first thing he saw was a man standing in front of him with an empty bucket. He was tall, had a long black mantle that was trailing on the ground, his hands were covered by black fingerless gloves but the knuckles looked shiny and his steps sounded heavy because his boots seemed to have metal tips.. Trying to assess his surroundings, he tried to look around but he could barely move. His hands were held above his head by a chain that was connected to the ceiling, his feet were barely touching the ground. He was in what looked like a holding cell. There was barely any furniture, just a chair for his torturer and a small table. His head felt like it was gonna burst at any moment, he had to make a tremendous effort to focus on anything past this headache. He decided to close his eyes to focus on sounds, he could hear screams, cheers and cries. He got pulled out from his focus by a punch to the face from the man in the room. He opened his eyes again, the man was grinning at him and was ready to send another hit his way. Ready to take the punch, Konnor tensed his muscles in preparation but the hit never came, he then relaxed his muscle and a powerful uppercut struck him straight in the diaphragm. Followed by the hit, the man was laughing extremely loudly. The man kept on beating him from different angles, toying with him, sometimes stopping for minutes without making a sound and hitting him when he was expecting it the least. When the man decided to take a break from torturing him, he whistled and a slender woman with a long braid of blonde hair walked in. She took a stool that was behind Konnor and put it under his feet so he would have support and he could finally put his arms down. After that she went into another room and came back with a bucket of fresh water and some rags, she started cleaning the boy and made him drink water. Her name was Anya, she would take care of him and talk to him when the man would leave. She told Konnor that the man was named Suro. For hours upon hours Suro would come in the room and torture him, sometimes until he passed out due to the pain but waking him up just so he could start again. Then Anya would come to comfort him and talk with him, neither of those two had asked any questions to him yet, the more time was passing the less he felt like he would see the light of day again. He had gotten used to falling asleep with his arms over his head and regulating his breath, " I have no idea how long I've been in here, everytime I try talking and asking I get met with silence. It's definitely been more than two days of this, I don't know how much more I can take in here... ". As the hours went by only one thing was constantly there : pain. The pain of the chains diggin into his wrists, the pain of the bruises on his body but the worst was the mental pain. The constant feeling of being a failure to his one and only friend, next to this, Suro's hits were nothing.

One day, Suro took the chain off and transferred him into another room, where he was laid and strapped to a wooden table. More torture of different kinds came his way, the days were meddling together, his memory and sense of self was getting erased by the pain.

" This lil shit is still alive ? "

" Yes boss. "

" Get him up, I want to look him in the eyes. "

Barely concerned by what was happening, Konnor let Suro untie him and make him stand up without resistance. His eyes were fixed on the floor but a familiar wooden cane made him raise his chin. Lozan was standing here, grinning at him. Suddenly, everything came back to him, his hatred of this man for enslaving his friend, he was the one causing him to be so miserable right now. In a desperate attempt, he tried leaping towards Lozan only to be stopped by Suro's powerful hit to his throat.

 Konnor landed on the ground gasping for air. Lozan started walking in the room.

" Listen boy, I don't know much about you except you poisoned my lil Izi's mind with some bullshit. But I can't kill you because I feel he is fragile and would be useless to me. Instead I now have a perfect motivation for him to stay and work even harder than before. "