Looking For The Light (Book 2)

Looking For The Light Chapter 6 - Yuri

            Yuri Utkin had no idea how much time had passed.  He knew he had been held captive for roughly fifteen years, but Mischa had told him that.  Basic, yet complex concepts like time, and spoken language were taken from him, along with his mind.  Now he was taking them back.  He would never get his fifteen years back, he might never get all of his sanity back, but Yuri would give no man – or woman, the satisfaction of having all of him.

            He couldn’t remember if they took his mind all at once, or slowly over the first ten years, but he’d been used as a tool for torture.  His captor, Solange Marchand, and her men pushed him, beat him, and punished him until he broke.  Yuri took two lives when he was reborn as the psionic monster they created.  He took another, a doctor, two days later.  Then a third guard that got too close to him.  Solange took advantage of how easily Yuri could, and would kill.  She used him to intimidate guards that were reluctant to take a stand against Mischa, or to scare guards that had gone soft.  Yuri could not remember how many guards he murdered.  Only one death hung in his mind.

            Five years ago, or so – Mischa could tell him better, Solange decided that a baby would make her happy.  Since the man she truly wanted would not sire anything but rage toward her, her second choice was Mischa, still handsome and athletic in his middle age.  However, even in the face of such despair, Mischa was stubbornly faithful to his wife, Malena.  He paid dearly for his refusal.  Solange came to Yuri, whispering orders in his ear, using a voice she must have thought was attractive.  The kill order came, and he obeyed.  Malena Sima died of an aneurysm in the kitchen of her Winterthur home while cooking dinner.  She fell to the ground in front of her daughter, Valentina, just fourteen years of age.  The sausage burnt on the stove, as Valentina cried out at the loss of her mother.  Solange had already take the girl’s father away, and now she took her mother.

            Solange was not finished.  Yuri was in shock, laying in the narrow bed of his cell, wearing a stained white tee shirt, and black scrub pants that were their uniform.  He hadn’t bathed in a long time, and somehow fostered a colony of lice.  Yuri didn’t eat, and spent most of his time either sleeping, or just staring up at the ceiling.  He was growing thin, and sickly.  For Solange, that wouldn’t do.  He was taken from his cell, and brought to the medical bay.  Doctors treated him for a minor infection he’d suffered from.  The doctors shaved his head, dirty curls falling to the floor – once an enviable auburn shade, and killed the lice away.  Yuri was fed a calorie rich paste, as if he were the baby she so desired.  Her team could make him look well again, but until they treated his mind, he still just sat and stared, his light grey eyes empty and distant. 

But Solange didn’t care about his mind.  She only needed his body to function.  After a month of his “therapy” – that’s what the doctors would call it, Yuri was invited up to the house.  Even with his fragmented mind, Yuri could remember pieces of the night.  Two guards came for him a short time after Mischa returned from the evening meal.  They approached him cautiously, helping him into a clean tee shirt and pants.  He was barefoot, but they didn’t seem to care.  They talked on either side of him, as if he were not there.

“I feel guilty.  This isn’t fair.” One said.

“Orders.  Just orders.  You know what she’ll do if we don’t.” Two warned.  Two was afraid of Yuri.

“There’s a better way, though.  She could just, you know… Ask the doctor to get it, and then… You know like a donor?” One offered.  He looked at Yuri with pity.  One was ashamed of what he was doing.

“Stop.  Just stop.  There are only two ways.  Miss Marchand’s way, or death.  Do you want to die?” Two was guilty, but self-preservation was taking control.  He was a smart man.  Well, perhaps not entirely, as he did find himself working for Solange Marchand.