The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter forty-four

  The last and perhaps worst part of my emotional rollercoaster was my yearning for Cyrus.

  The starvation, dehydration, and betrayal wouldn’t come close to the comfort that came to me when I was in his arms. I found myself missing his familiar lips, and the way they tenderly pressed against my own. His hands that fit perfectly over the curves that lead to my hips. The familiar silkiness of his ever lengthening hair running through my fingers. His laugh. His crater-like dimples that appeared when he smiled. The scars on his hands from cutting down trees.

  I just missed him. All of him.

  I had never realized how much I was accustomed to Cyrus’s presence until those remaining hours in my blank room when I had nothing but time to think about him, and all his small yet beautiful features. It felt almost like my heart was physically hurting being away from him for so long, and all I wanted was to see his watery blue eyes again.

  I ached to know if he was okay. To know if he was even alive.

  I was beginning to see the torture that was devised for me by HQ.

  Cyrus, my brother, lack of food and water, lack of hygiene. It all added up.

  And it was sick. All of it. It was a way to get under my skin and make my insides squirm, and the optimal result being my insanity.

  As much as it threatened, I refused to go mad. I would tough this out, or so help me god.

  My anger towards my brother had begun to subside, when I realized that I pitied him more than I wanted to kill him. It wasn’t his fault that he had been brainwashed. Heck, I would be the same way if it weren’t for Cyrus.

  Cyrus.

  The thought of him brought all my conflicted feelings back around when suddenly, my hell of a brother comes to the door.

  Hey, I said that my anger was subsiding, not that it had completely diminished.

  “Phase one is complete. You are to move on to phase two.” he said.

  Like that was supposed to mean something to me.

  “And that means what?...” I wondered aloud.

  “Just be quiet and follow me.” he rudely instructed.

  I did as he asked, shortly after I was cuffed and a taser was jammed in between my shoulder blades, threatening me to move forward. I did so slowly, following my brother’s lead through murky and musty hallways.

  Something told me that we were underground, and the rock and dirt walls confirmed my suspicions.

  But a more dominant something told me that phase two couldn’t be any better than phase one. Thanks to the HQ hellions, my last days were going to suck, to put it lightly.