War on Heiwa Book 2: At the Core of the World

At the Core of the World Chapter 5: Interrogation

"What do you mean he's missing?" I asked in surprise.

"Come on!" Daisuke grabbed a hold of my wrist and began dragging me down the endless twists and turns in the hallway. When we reached Fukuro's room, Attakai, among a load of other soldiers, were outside, chatting with each other in loud voices. Once Attakai spotted us, he waved for us to approach him. We obeyed his gesture, and I instantly felt my stomach tremble. Did Fukuro tell Attakai about us? He said nothing, but pointed inside the room, and after pushing past the horde of soldiers. We saw what he was pointing at. A note sitting on the table.

"From Fukuro?" Daisuke asked.

I picked up the note and nodded, then began reading the note out loud.

 "These recent events have awakened an emotional rock from within me. It was long ago that I lost my son to dragons, and it was long ago that I had forgiven and forgotten, expelling any thoughts of vengeance from my torn heart. It wasn't until a wise friend of mine made me realize waiting around is wrong. My friend and I planned to journey together, but I am in fear of endangering him because of my personal grudges. I am out to retrieve the treasure, rescue Hanako, and fill the hole in my heart that was once the love of my son. This is a mission only for one man, so do not bring your soldiers to look for me. I hope to be back, but I fear this is the end of my time on this world. - Fukuro."

After finishing it, the room was silent. Even the soldiers outside had stopped talking and were looking at me with disgusted eyes.

"You're that friend, aren't you?" Attakai asked, his voice and facial expression grim. "You... My daughter, and my best soldier are gone... All because of you..."

"Wait, you're not seriously pinning the dragon attack on Takuma, are you?" Daisuke asked, stepping in between Attakai and me.

"Well, you've seen first-hand at what other kinds of trouble he's caused."

"He was nearly killed trying to save Hanako!" Daisuke yelled, clenching his fists tightly.

Attakai only stared at Daisuke, then his eyes shifted towards me. "I'm sorry for this, Takuma, but you leave me no choice." He waved his hands and two soldiers entered the room and each grabbed me by the soldier. "You'll be locked up until we can figure out what's going on."

"You've got to be joking! Locking him up won't help anything!"

"We need to interrogate him of Fukuro's whereabouts, and if he's really an ally of the humans."

"Interrogate... You're going to torture him?"

"If it comes to it, yes. He's a suspected spy of the enemy."

"You can't-"

"Daisuke." I broke in, knowing that arguing wouldn't bring any sense into Attakai. "It's fine."

"Takuma..." He said, his voice almost a whisper. "It's fine? This is not..." But, he stepped out of the soldier's way. He looked at me with pained eyes, and a sense of shame washed over me, and I could barely look back at him.

The soldiers tugged me down hallway after hallway until we reached a row of spiraling stairs. We began the descent into darkness, for there was nothing to light our path and I was close to tripping and falling a couple of times. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we reached an open room that looked like a cave. The walls of the cave jutted out for the box-shaped cells. There was only a single candle lit in the middle of the room, ready to die out. The soldiers escorted me to the first cage on the left and threw me in there, locking the cage, and then left back up the stairs. I could see across the room from the holes in the bars, but could see no one else in the cells. I examined my cell and there was only a long wooden board lifted from the ground by two chains, hooked onto the ends of the board to the wall. Honestly, I'd rather sleep on the ground. I sighed and plopped myself down on the board, deciding to use this so-called bed as a chair.