The War In His Mind

Chapter 15

It had been dark for hours. Salazar didn't know where he was, or what had happened. He and his fellow soldiers, Iman and Kane, had been undercover for days within Downtown Wonder City. They were engaging with the hourly drills, but something went wrong. One of O'Neil's soldiers noticed something odd- the left over ink from a tattoo on a soldier's ankle. Such expressions of personality were illegal, and lead to issues for the men.

Kane had attempted to remove the tattoo on his left ankle he got shortly before enlisting in the rebellion. Salazar remembered thinking that he did a damn good job of getting it out, and was rather impressed by the result. Yet in the right lighting conditions, the shadows in his skin could be seen. It must have happened when he wasn't paying attention. He was arrested immediately and uncovered as a spy.

Salazar and Kane didn't know the protocol in a situation like that. They tried to act in line, but their inexperience gave them away. When all of the soldier's moved to restrain Kane, Salazar and Iman stepped back to figure out what was happening. It was the end game. The last thing Salazar remembered was the blunt end of a shotgun hitting his skull.

It was eerily quiet in the room. Salazar could hear the breath and heartbeats coming from his allies. Judging by the paced, rather calm pulse of their hearts, they were still unconscious. Salazar was the only one awake.

He was restrained at the ankles, wrists, and forehead. He was flat on a cold table without a shirt. The cold metal pressed against his back, sending chills down his spine. He imagined he was in some sort of chamber.

A masculine voice came from the end of the room. It was quiet, and rather frightening. "Gentlemen...I hope you've found yourselves rather comfortable."

It was spoken in a hushed tone, yet echoed throughout the room, and felt louder than any voice Salazar had ever heard. "...You'll be here for a very long time."

A large stick with electricity circling around it created the first source of light in the room. The sound coming from it reminded Salazar of book pages ripping in half every other second. It was loud, and hurt Salazar's ears.

Salazar could see the shadow of the man holding it. He had a chiseled jaw, firm mouth, and a generally unhappy demeanor. The man sat down on a chair next to Kane. He took the stick, which Salazar thought was a torturous futuristic surgical tool, and shoved it into Kane's side. A resounding scream bounced off the walls. It lasted for several minutes as the man twisted the tool deeper into his body.

"The heat immediately cauterizes the wound," the man said. "This particular wound will not kill you...much to your dismay."

He ripped the device from the wound. Blood dripped off the edge of the tool.

"I want each of you to imagine what this might feel like...and then come back to the thought every time I ask you a question."

He stood up. The light moved towards the middle of the room as the figure looked between Salazar and Iman.

"I wonder...which one of you is the loyalest man in the rebellion? Can you tell me war stories? I grew up listening to them from many ages ago. I'm a sucker for a good story."

The figure raised his hand into the air. "Ah, I'll start..."

"...In my time, there was a great war that covered the Earth. Many of them, actually. My father was a soldier, much like you three."

He waived the stick in the air, pointing back and forth between Iman and Salazar. "He was captured in an attempt to liberate a foreign country. He was with the enemy for three months. Every day they would take a large wooden stick, set the end on fire, and insert it into his sides."

He laughed gently. "Gotta give it to the old man. He was relentless..."

"...well, almost, actually. In the third month, they got to him. He confessed everything. The location of his unit, the plans that the army had for taking down the regime...nothing was spared."

"And do you know what happened when they released him?" He walked over to Iman and held the stick over his body.

"The military executed him for treason." The stick was shoved into Iman's side, sending another deafening cry into the emptiness of the room.

The torturer's voice changed from a gentle storyteller to a pyschopath loving the thrill of pain oozing out of a wound. "Do tell me, what is your mission?"

Nothing but screams came from Iman. Salazar remembered Iman's dedication to the rebellion. It was his passion to fight for something bigger than himself. To save others. To give hope where there was none. Salazar joined the rebellion for many of the same reasons, and found it that much hard to watch his friend suffer through the torture.

Though quite, the man's whisper was more terrifying than any scream. "Very well..."

The man removed the stick. He held a remote into the air. The lights turned on, but only to the lowest level. It was still dark in the room. Salazar could clearly see his face. He was Thomas O'Neil, the monster who created the city, and the object of the rebellion's assaults.

"I want you three to learn what it means to be a traitor." O'Neil held the stick in the air like a dagger meant to sacrifice a lamb. He forcefully shoved it into Iman's chest and moved it around in a circular motion.

O'Neil's nose crinkled into a depraved smile. He pushed the dagger deeper into him until it went straight through his body. Blood pooled in Iman's open mouth. His eyes turned glossy. His body was shaking violently as O'Neil pressed harder. Blood spurted out of his mouth and onto the floor around him.

"This is what happens to men like you! You call yourselves heroes but die like sheep slaughtered for their wool. I will take your bodies and repurpose them...but not before I complete my masterpiece."

O'Neil threw the stick on the ground. "I've learned that there is no question you will answer."

"There is no swaying your mind."

He brought a large machine with a drill to Salazar's side. "There is only the masterful removal of sin from the corpse of a dead man."

It was a large chassis with a drill on the end. At the edge of the drill was a microchip, placed inside a needle.

"I used to believe that rewritting the code was the answer...it was your leader who taught me I was wrong. I will not change who you are, I must destroy everything about you. It is not enough to merely rewrite you..."

The drill gave a shrill, high pitched noise that reminded Salazar of a workshop.

"...it is the work of my hands to create masterpieces."

The last thing he remembered was the sharp tip of the needle crushing through his temple and hitting the side of his brain.