Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

“That’s the first question you’ve answered truthfully.”

“No one’s perfect.”

The interrogator was deep in thought. Jack considered spitting on him, but doubted he could muster enough saliva.

“I have determined after rigorous experimentation that we are in a deadlock. An impasse. You cannot be broken by pain alone, and for that, I commend you.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“I suspect that you have already resigned yourself to death. Perhaps you consider yourself dead already, and your body nothing but an empty shell.”

“Maybe I just like the pain.”

The interrogator let out a queer laugh. “Possible but unlikely. You’ve shown no signs of arousal during our sessions. I suspect that you might fold were I to mutilate you, but I find that option unsavory.”

“Don’t have the balls to cut me up?”

“I have employed mutilation before, but only in dire circumstances. I find such tactics dishonorable and morally reprehensible. They are not to be considered lightly.”

“I see. And this shit is just business as usual?”

“Essentially. Pain is fleeting and impermanent. With time, the memory fades and the mind heals. Not so with mutilation. It renders parts of the subject forever unusable, and the possibility of total psychological collapse is always close at hand. It’s a point of no return, beyond which atonement becomes unreachable.”

“Nice to know you have limits.”

“All life has limits, Nefrem. Even you.” The interrogator said things like that often, and they always took Jack by surprise. Whatever these Nefrem were, the interrogator held them in high regard. They were legendary, and Jack held the same status by association.

“So, what now?”

The interrogator considered. “If you give me what I want, I will release you. To the outside or death, whichever is your preference.”

“What do you want?”

“Information.”

“I don’t have any.” Jack spaced his words deliberately, like speaking to an unruly child.

“But I know you do. Your species is guarding a secret, and I will uncover it by any means necessary. If you will not assist me, then one of the others will.”

Jack’s mind raced, but he tried not to let it show. What others? Could the rest of his team have been captured? No, he told himself, he was being played. He retreated from the thought, and stuck to his guns.

“Tell me what I wish to know, Nefrem. Tell me where your battle fleet has gone, and when it will return.”

“I am not a Nefrem,” Jack said, “I’m a free man.”

“Then we are done,” the interrogator said. He stood and walked from the room, saying, “Farewell. You will not see me again.”

The bastard left Jack alone in silence, and for some reason he would never fully understand, he began to weep. His body quaked. Tears ran down his nose and dropped to the floor below, where they formed a shallow puddle. He cried until the darkness once again came to take him away.

The next time Jack opened his eyes, he was on the floor of a different room, wearing rags too threadbare to hang himself with. The place was stark and empty, with flat, smooth walls in perfectly inert grey. The only noticeable details were a hole in the floor for waste, a small dish attached to one wall that was constantly full of water, and a deep slot beside it just wide enough to fit a hand inside.

This was Jack’s new world.

Stuff came out of the slot every now and again that turned out to be food. It was a curious smelling pile of lukewarm chunks that may have been meat, vegetable or neither. It came in different colors, but always tasted the same.

His first attempts at eating ended in vomiting, but it wasn’t a problem with the food. Jack had been fed intravenously for so long that his stomach wasn’t yet up to the task, but he kept at it, and by the fourth meal he kept some down. Things improved from there.

He suspected the food was dispensed on a timed interval, but he had no way to know for sure. Regardless, he used bits of each meal to mark the walls so he could have at least an idea of how much time had passed.

Otherwise, there was a perplexing sameness to his days. No one ever came to check on him, and he never heard anything outside. The cell was his own personal purgatory, and after scouring every last millimeter of it, he decided there could be no escape. He couldn’t even figure out how they got him in.

His body was a damn wreck. The time spent hanging from the ceiling had taken its toll, leaving him weak, emaciated, and covered from head to toe in deep, discolored bruises. His shoulders were especially sore from holding his weight, and it took some time before he could raise his arms without severe discomfort. A strong breeze could have blown him over, and restoring his health became a top priority.

Each ‘day’, he woke up, exercised as much as he could, then rested and ate. After his meal, he exercised to his limit again, then broke for his second meal, and returned for one last exercise session, this time only stopping when he collapsed. He was always so exhausted by then that sleep came easily.

The interrogator’s torture had altered Jack’s relationship with pain, and he found himself working straight through exhaustion and muscle fatigue, right up to the point when he literally couldn’t move anymore. As time passed, that point stretched further and further out, until he could work himself virtually non-stop.

In truth, he wasn’t just used to the pain; he craved it. Trapped in that grey box, it was the only thing he had left, and he never let it far out of his grasp. It was the last thing grounding him to reality.

His life went on like this through one-hundred and thirty seven meals, each day the same as the one before it, and then it changed. He passed out as usual in a pool of his own sweat, but when he awoke, he wasn’t alone.

The other man was huddled in a ball against the wall, shivering even though the room was stuffy and warm. He was dressed in rags like Jack’s, and was both badly bruised and malnutritioned. His gaunt physique reminded Jack of old pictures showing Jewish prisoners in German concentration camps.

The man had his knees drawn up and his head buried in them. He was sobbing, and Jack couldn’t get a look at his face.

Jack was so surprised, he didn’t know what to do. He felt like his space had been invaded and he had a powerful urge to attack, followed quickly by a sense of self-disgust that left him confused, and ultimately silent.

So Jack went about his daily business and tried to pretend nothing had changed. He stretched until he felt good and limber, then dropped to the floor and did push-ups. After working up a good sweat, he stood, spread his feet and lowered himself into a horse stance, then stood there until his quads felt like they might catch fire.

Meanwhile, the other man sat on his side of the room. He never looked up or pulled his face away from his knees. He did nothing but sob for hours on end.

Then lunch time came. The slot in the wall produced a pile of multi-colored food chunks, which Jack attacked voraciously. He stuffed his cheeks full like a chipmunk, and was piling more food in when he stopped himself. He decided to be more than just an animal in a cage.

He grabbed a handful of food-bits and carried them over to the other prisoner. “Hey,” he said. It didn’t come out easily. He hadn’t spoken in so long he could hardly remember how.

The other man didn’t respond.

“Hey, you should eat,” Jack said. His words were hurried and sloppy. He sounded like a caveman. “Gotta keep yer strength up.”

The other man finally looked up with yellow discolored eyes, and a face just as gaunt and wasted as his body.