The Darkness Before Dawn

Nightmare

Tenno thrashed around on his bed, his eyes clenched shut, his hair matted to his forehead from the sweat that poured from his body. His muscles glistened as his fingers clenched the bedsheets around him. "No" he muttered "no, not again."

"Tenno! Get down!" Tenno dropped to the ground, the sound of the mortar whistling over his head. "You ok Ryuu?" he screamed. "Yeah! I'm ok!" Ryuu said as he emerged from the rubble. Tenno sprinted over to him and sat down heavily with his back smacking against the rubble pile. "We're fucked" Tenno said as he checked his weapon and Ryuu smiled. "We're not fucked, we're just not dead yet." Tenno smiled at his boot camp buddy, the unshakable Ryuu who seemed to find the fun in everything. Ryuu was trying to tell him something before a cloud of pink and red mist exploded out the side of his head. His blue-green eyes dimmed and he slumped forward, a death rattle escaping his throat. Tenno grabbed him and shook the body "Ryuu? RYUU?! Don't you fucking leave me here! You fucking ass! RYUU?!!" Something hit him on the back of the head and he lost consciousness.

He awoke to find himself hanging from his wrists from the ceiling with his toes barely scraping the floor. The room was thick with fresh and stale cigarette smoke, blue white clouds hanging in the air. "Master Sergeant Tenno Hatake, serial number 261857, Kirigakure ANBU. Specialist in close quarters combat and unarmed assassination. Am I correct?" A male figure approached from the smoke, blowing a cloud of it from his mouth. Tenno groaned and said nothing. The man frowned and put his cigarette out on Tenno's arm. He screamed but refused to say a word.

The man nodded to another man who stepped forward and lashed him with a coil of razor wire. He felt the skin on his back be cut open and blood to start trickling out of the wounds. "Master Sergeant Tenno Hatake, serial number 261587, Kiri ANBU. Yes?" he asked again. Tenno clenched his teeth and glared at the man. "Still won't talk? Again" as the razor wire struck Tenno's back again. He screamed and arched his back trying to get away from the wire. "We can do this indefinitely Sgt Hatake, but I suggest you tell us what we want to know." "Fuck you!" Tenno spat out, blood mixing with his saliva as he spat in the man's face. He glared and wiped the mixture from his face, "you'll regret that" he said.

The torture continued for weeks as the torturers tried every method they knew to extract information from him. His back was covered in tiny cuts that they rubbed salt into, they pulled out all of his fingernails, electrocuted his testicles with a jerry rigged car battery, broke all the bones in his hands and wrists, and he still said nothing. He was sitting in his dark cell, patiently waiting for death when someone approached his door.

"You've done well. You're a lot stronger than I gave you credit for" a woman's voice spoke. "Who...who are you?" His dry parched throat managed to gasp out. "If you swear loyalty to me I can get you out" she said. "Why...would I do th-that?" "Because you don't have any other choice aside from death." Tenno thought about it, death would be comforting especially after Ryuu's death and the torture... "What is your name?" Tenno whispered. "You can call me Mother. Are we agreed?" "Yes."

He gripped the knife in his right hand as he slowed his breathing and heart rate. He sprinted quickly to his next cover and watched his target. She was a young woman with short blonde hair and violet eyes who sat calmly by the side of the koi pond in her family's garden. Mother had been explicit when she ordered the woman's death. "She must be found by her family" she insisted during the briefing.

Tenno approached cautiously, silently, the woman still humming to herself as she fed the koi. He was so close to her he could smell the scent of the roses she used in her shampoo. His left hand reached out and grabbed her head while his right sliced her neck from ear to ear, using enough force to almost behead her. He pushed her limp body into the pond and watched the clear water turn to opaque red and the fish poking their mouths through the water's surface in their hunt for food.

He left as silently as he came, using the shadows to hide himself, until he reached the safe house. Mother looked at him expectantly as he walked in. Tenno stripped naked as he walked to the bathroom to shower, Mother following him. She stripped and joined him under the hot water and kissed his scarred back. "Success?" "Yeah. She's done." he sighed as the water ran down his back and her hands roamed his body. "As long as you're safe I'm happy" she said. He chuckled "I thought you were only happy when we had a successful hit." "My priorities have changed" she said quietly.

Screaming, Tenno bolted upright in his bed with his hands clutching his head. He looked around and sighed in relief, it was only a nightmare he thought as he tried to catch his breath. He got out of bed and stripped it and himself, throwing the damp bedding and boxers into a pile in the corner, before putting in fresh sheets and taking an ice cold shower.

He shivered under the brutal cold and stifled his sobs. His hands clutched his shoulders as names, faces and events flashed before his eyes; names, faces and events he had tried so hard to block out and erase from his memories. Ryuu, how long has it been? 10 years? Maybe more? I wonder where I would be if you hadn't died... He turned off the water, stepped out and dried himself off. His lips and nipples were a purple-blue color and his teeth chattered with the cold. His skin was pale and dotted with goosebumps and he shivered each time the water from his hair dripped onto his skin.

He returned to bed and lay on the fresh sheets with his hands tucked under his pillow. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander, this time the horrific images of his past were interwoven with images of his Mistresses. He frowned in his sleep as the images continued to taunt him, portraying death, destruction and sex. He forcibly opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling. Dawn was breaking, he noted, so he got up and began to dress and headed downstairs to the kitchen to begin making breakfast for the women.