Never let me go

14: The good he seeks

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Wollstonecraft

Year 850 - Stohess district

Her breath came out in little puffs of white smoke, writhing in the air before her eyes until it dissipated, faded. She flexed the muscles in her left cheek and was rewarded with hot, searing pain. She raised her hand to it, and her cool skin against the swollen apple of her cheek felt soothing. But there was an unmistakeable tremor in her arm. Whenever someone asked, she would tell them that she was fine, that they should worry about themselves. It is a lie though, she is not fine. Another breath, another white stream of smoke rising. She flexed her toes inside her boots, and only the sensation of her icy toes against the balls of her feet let her know that they were moving, bending. She could not feel them anymore. The darkness felt as if it threatened to lean into her, pushing back the light from the lamp they had brought.

"I wonder how deep underground we are. I could probably scream at the top of my lungs, and no one at the surface would hear me. All that dark soil around us just outside these walls would just swallow the sound of my voice. Once we leave, this place will become a tomb... We could bury her down here forever, and no one would ever know."

"Should you not be upstairs for the meeting, captain?" Her words bounced against the naked walls, jumping back and forth and lending a ghostly quality to her voice.

"As if I'd want to listen to those fat pigs squealing? Tch, politics. We will know what happened soon enough." His voice produced a dull, stale sound down here. As if he was speaking through a sheet of cloth, no echo.

Iris looked towards her feet, and could see her chest rise and fall with every breath. It is natural to breathe, fast or slow, deep or shallow. Yet only two of the three people present in this musty, dark dungeon still drew breath. The lamp light flickered, making the shadows dance across the walls. There was no wind to rile the flame that she could tell. Yet the fire stirred, the flame rose up tall and hungry one moment, and shrunk back fading the next. The massive black shadow behind the object in the center of the room shuffled, grew longer against the wall, and drew back, darkening in its retreat.

"Come, this place is depressing." Levi turned, his footsteps echoing as he made for the door. She followed silently behind him, still keeping her eyes cast down towards the floor. Her joints produced dry, creaking sounds as she moved. Hot air rushed in through the door as the captain swung it open, and a range of different smells wafted down towards them. Iris thought she recognized the appetizing scent of barley stew, and her stomach growled.

"I did not realise how stale the air was down there," she murmured as she climbed the steps leading up to the bottom floor.

"The bitch is going to have to come out if she wants to file a complaint."

Iris had been letting her eyes follow a crack in the wall to her right during their ascent. It looked deep, she thought. Perhaps one day, if the ground decided to quake like some said it did at times, this entire structure would crumble and collapse in on itself on the account of this one crack. Long and jagged, it reminded her of a weeping wound.

"Did you just... was that a joke?" She stared uncomprehendingly at the remaining three steps in front of her. She could not remember that she had stopped moving. The captain did not deem it necessary to answer her, but he waited silently at the top of the stairs for her to find her wits again and get moving.

They waited inside the small, empty mess hall inside the base the MP's held in the district. Though the smell of their supper still lingered, no food was offered to the soldiers from the survey corps. Sullen looks, whispers and snarky remarks behind their backs was all they supped on that evening. Iris stared at the table in front of her, following the lines in the wood as if hoping to find some clarity there. But what she was really doing was trying to think of anything but Annie down there in the cellar. Quiet, still... but not dead.