Metal Birds

Chapter 43: Two Days of Drowning

Sidi Haneish, Egypt, October 17-19, 1940

The words were panicked. Bitter to his ears. Arthur wanted very badly to cry. But he didn't.

"How often are you going to get us screwed over like this!?" Seamus' voice felt like a million knives in his skull, and Arthur wanted to shout back that he shouldn't look at the past, but he couldn't. Seamus was right. Arthur had gotten himself and his brothers into more than one risky situation, centuries ago, during the times when vikings would rise to pillage small villages and monasteries.

Arthur, though, replied with his voice forceful like the crack of a whip.

"Me!? How is this my fault!? You're the one who came back!"

"If you could learn how to fight for yourself, I wouldn't have had to!"

Arthur glowered, clenching his jaw. The burns seared from the sand that was now plastered to his body. He wanted very badly to send his fist colliding with Seamus' jaw, but he couldn't now. Not in this state. Not with his hands kept behind his back, just behind his wings. He couldn't stand to move with his ankles kept together. The best he could do for himself was squirm to the corner and hang his head, and hope he might be able to block out Seamus' shouting by paying attention to the pounding in his head.

So instead, Arthur sat back some, his spine and shoulders going slack. His face felt hot with anger. His mind screamed. How dare Seamus start this now? They would probably be stuck here for longer if they fought.

"Stop it now! We're getting nowhere." Arthur hissed.

"You're right we're getting nowhere."

"Stop it! Bloody stop!"

And now Seamus went quiet. He stared at the wall across from them, concrete, but somehow still creaking. It was hot. Arthur's skull pounded, and he couldn't lean back against the wall completely, because he had been hit so hard.

Two blows took him to oblivion. To waking up dead terrified and dreadful and unable to move. Again. But this time it wasn't his temple that was bleeding, it was the back of his head. So it was hard to lay down.

Arthur could feel the feathers on his wings standing on end, just like the hairs on the back of his neck when someone walked by outside the tiny little office where they sat. It was too hot. He was sweating. He felt sick. Seamus sighed. Arthur could tell he wanted to smoke. He didn't ask how many blows it took to send him down. He could tell though, there had been a blow. At least one. At least enough to startle him. He could tell by the dark bruise just over his left eye.

Seamus still did not speak.

Arthur watched the shadows under the door, moving. He inwardly dared each one to come closer, to open the door so he could kick and spit and scream bloody murder. But they did not. No one came, even with the voices outside. He wondered if Ludwig was there.

Still though, no one came, and Seamus sulked as Arthur dared the shadows to fight.

oOoOo

Two days. Two days, and Arthur already knew exactly how things were going to work. Two days of Seamus anxiously blaming him, and then apologizing. Two days of bread. Two days of drowning. Two days of letting out a bitter scream when the door opened, because if Arthur was scared then whoever was there had to be scared just like him.

Two days of sweating by mid-day, wanting to roll up into a ball like the beetles that skittered across the walls, wanting to die. Two days of the sand digging into the open burns and the wound on his leg, barely cared for. Two days of his own canteen being used to douse the rag on his face while they talked to him, they asked them things, they didn't let him move his arms.