Star Wars: Spirit of Survival #Watty's2017

Chapter Five-Broken and Burned

Aboard the Ravage,
18 years BBY,

Spirit opened his eyes groggily. Everything was white, was he dead? He sucked in a shaky breath and made out a figure standing over him, sneering. It was Folter. Spirit shifted his eyes quickly to the floor, moaning.

At least I'm still alive, he managed to think quietly, until the pain returned. Searing pain through his muscles and in his chest. It felt like he'd been ripped apart and stitched back together again. Part of him almost wished he was dead, considering the agony he was going to be in when they pulled him off this table.

As if to make true his thoughts two of the guards stepped forward and dragged Spirit up and onto his feet. He promptly collapsed to his knees, screaming as forks of agony shot through his body. He hunched forward, panting heavily and trying to keep conscious.

"Enough," one of the guards said and dragged Spirit back up onto his feet. He opened his mouth to scream but the sound strangled itself in his throat as he was shoved forward, the guards holding his arms in painfully tight vice grips. He wanted to sink to his feet, aware of blood dripping down his back and from his nose. It hurt, it all hurt.

He struggled to breathe as they half dragged him out of the room, the pain constricting his lungs and he felt several bones in his ribcage shifting, assuming they had been broken. How they had been broken, he didn't want to know, he just wanted the pain to end.

He hung his head quietly and let them drag him down to hall, allowing his weak legs to give out halfway there, making the guards drag his limp form down to the room with the others. Spirit could've cared less the looks he got from the other people in the hall and the working slaves that they passed. He wanted a painkiller more desperately than anything at the moment, but he knew it wasn't his place to ask for one. He didn't deserve it anyway, he was their property, they could do what they wanted with him.

The guard pushed open the door and propped Spirit up a bit, sneering at him. The other guard stepped behind the injured clone and booted him in the back, causing Spirit to gasp and fall forward onto his hands and knees, collapsing to the floor a moment later.

"We'll be back for you tomorrow," the guard yelled and slammed the door shut. Spirit looked up quietly at the other's, most of whom regarded him with silent looks of horror. He hung his head a bit and tried to pick himself up. The older Twi'lek man who had spoken to him the other day got up and walked over there, pulling Spirit's arm over his shoulder's and helped the young clone trooper into the corner, setting Spirit down on the cot before sitting beside him.

"You survived, y-you've g-got tough s-skin, kid," the Twi'lek man said softly, picking up the cleanest rag he could find and wiping the blood off Spirit's face. The injured clone hissed lowly in pain and pulled away, his dull eyes falling to the floor so as not to let anyone see his pain. On Kamino they taught you that pain was subjective and even if you felt it, you didn't let anyone see it. Pain was like surrender, and surrendering was bad behavior.

"I-It's okay, I'm t-tryin' to help," the Twi'lek man drawled and reached over to touch Spirit's face with the rag again. Spirit gritted his teeth but he didn't pull away this time. There was something oddly comforting about the word help. No one had ever been kind enough to help him as a slave because they all knew he was just another lost cause. But hearing someone say that they wanted to help him, he didn't know how to respond other than to allow them to help him.

He tried to sit still and keep quiet as the Twi'lek man wiped the blood off his face, back, chest, and arms, doing his best to wrap up whatever cuts and incisions were still bleeding with pieces of what appeared to be an old shirt. He hung his head a little as the Twi'lek grabbed a thin blanket from one of the other's wrapping it around Spirit's shivering form. Spirit chanced looking up at the man a little bit.