Enter Apathy

Broken Birds (8.)

A splash of intense cold water jolts Lilliana awake. Struggling to sit up, she feels her wounds ache as searing pain explodes through her skin and bones. She lets out a deep groan, cradles the wounds on her stomach, and looks around. A dirty cot resides on the floor beside her. Her head pounds as she looks around to find the source of what soaked her.

Kalaraja stands above her, holding an empty bucket and bandages. He tosses the bandages at her.

"Clean yourself up. I have questions for you," he commands in his Scandinavian accent.

Lilliana grimaces, tears open the bandages, and moves over to sit on the cot, rather than the concrete floor. She struggles to wrap a bandage around her torso. She winces as pain shoots through her nerves in waves. Her eyes flit angrily toward him, what kind of game is he playing? He's supposed to cause her pain, which he did, and kill her, which he hasn't. She grabs another bandage and carefully wraps it around her calf, where he branded her. A red, puffy, gooey "K" sticks out from her skin. As she settles to sit comfortably and endure his questioning, she chews the inside of her lip.

"You can't be too comfortable," Kalaraja prompts her. He pulls a chair over from the other side of the room and places it in front of her, then takes a seat.

She shakes her head.

"So why haven't you complained?" He questions, tilting his head. His eyes bore through her, full of curiosity.

"Because the deal was, if you kill Kroj for me, I let you cause me pain and kill me. Easy peasy. I can't complain much about upholding my end. There's only one thing I don't understand," she shifts her branded leg and grunts, noticing how impossible it is to get comfortable or at least even content, with a pulsating wound there.

"Such as?"

Lilliana purses her lips and tautly says, "Why you haven't killed me yet. You tortured me, so why haven't you finished the job?"

"That's a good question," he praises her. A pause lingers as he thinks of his answer.

Finally he says, "I want to know why you don't care, whether it's genuine or an act. You seem almost as apathetic as I am. Which is next to impossible. I thought that I was alone, until I met you." His steely eyes meet hers.

He continues, "So we're gonna run a few hypotheticals, to see how you truly react. To see if you don't care."

Lilliana rolls her eyes and blurts, "I'm not a fucking science project for you to study."

Kalaraja laughs, an amused look upon his face, "You are, until I decide to kill or torture you again." 

Neither says a word for a few moments until Lilliana breaks the silence.

"What are the hypotheticals?"

Kalaraja grins and softly replies, "I'm so glad you asked. The first one-" he swiftly spins the chair around so he can lean his arms of the back of the chair and straddle it -"Is pretty easy going. Each one after that will be more grave, more... tense."

She glares at him and awaits his next words. What does he think he's gonna learn from her answers? Her answers can't be that different from anybody else's. Could they?

"First: You see a young boy kicking a dog. What do you do?" He inquires with eyebrows raised.

Lilliana answers without hesitation, "I mind my business. Even if I stop him from doin' it, that won't prevent him from being an asshole in the future."