The air in the cell number 619 was cold and damp as the former Commander of Krimzon Guard stepped inside.
He was a tall man with a long brown hair tied up into dreadlocks and gray tattoos covering almost every inch of his crooked nose, flat forehead and high cheekbones. As a shield for his already battle-scarred skin the ex-Commander was wearing the remainings of a brutally damaged red armor, a blue tunic and pants both covered in cuts and dry blood, and right in his hand he was carrying a helmet which looked like it had been beyond repair for the past ten years. All in all, the man looked just like he was called - Torn.
After switching the light on and closing the heavy door behind, Torn turned to take a look at the cell, icy blue orbs scanning the area. His cold sapphire eyes floated around in the small space, from the windowless brick walls up to the leaky roof and down to the cracked concrete floor, taking notes of every little detail along the way.
Finally the ex-Commander´s sharp eyes came to rest onto the last corner of the room, which the light couldn´t properly reach. His usually freezing glare seemed to melt into the most softest and kindest one as he spotted the tiny bed located there and the even tinier figure curled up onto it.
"Sleeping again, huh?", thought the man and ever so slowly started walking towards the bed. Every time Torn took a step closer to the poorly lit corner, he got a new glimpse of either stained bedsheets, shred clothes, scarred skin or unruly hair - and by every step and every glimpse he grew more and more restless. When Torn merely a second later reached the end of the bed, he just simply stopped and stared at the mixture of pain and purity laid before him.
Down there, right in front of him, was sprawled beneath gray blankets a young man about the age of seventeen, obviously sleeping. He had a long blond hair with green stripes, hard muscles bulking up from all the right places and, although it couldn´t have been told from his sleeping face, Torn knew that the kid had the most beautiful blue eyes he - or anyone at that matter - had ever seen before. This, however, was overshadowed by the youth´s almost sickly pale skin caused by the lack of sunlight, bones sticking out from his spine and ribcage, wounds both old and new covering just about every centimeter of his thin body and that poor excuse of a clothing barely protecting him from the coldness of the cell room.
"Damn... those guys just won´t stop beating him up, won´t they?"
While standing there and watching the sleeping essence of his young friend, a strong but unreadable feeling washed through the ex-Commander´s mind and immadiately three options of what that feeling could be appeared before his soul´s eyes, each of them more or less likely than the two others.
Was it shock?
No, he didn´t actually feel like being shocked - the tattooed man had grown used to this kind of treatment towards the prisoners while still serving as a KG Commander and was definitely not surprised about the outcome of this particular case either, no matter how harsh it was.
What about guilt, then?
The second option took the ex-Commander a bit longer to think about. Did he feel guilty for this kid? Certainly, since Torn knew himself to be one of the many reasons why the Guards had been concentrading on beating the shit out of the younger man during these years of his imprisonment. Not that the older of the two had meant to cause the younger one any more trouble than he already had, no, but sometimes Paron Praxis had made it awfully clear for both of them that smuggling food for the experiment subjects, treating their injuries and generally showing any signs of compassion towards them were hardly acceptable behavior on what came to the Baron´s own servants. Torn just simply wasn´t very good at following orders anymore, especially when they included tormenting those in the lower positions. And far too often the only innocent one had happened to be there to suffer the consequences. In fact, now that he thought about it, the ex-Commander wasn´t sure at all how he possibly could ever make it up for the youth.
That was when Torn finally came down to the third and last option:
Attraction.
This, however, was something that he was going to need to think and probably even discuss about later. You see, before Torn had even a change to wrap his mind around the question forming inside his head, he found himself being pulled back to reality by a sudden movement from his friend´s direction.
"Good, he´s finally waking up", thought the ex-Commander and quickly moved from the end of the bed to the left side of it, kneeling beside the younger man and grasping his bony shoulders, carefully shaking him.
"That´s right", Torn chuckled, "better concentrade on the task at hand." After all, there was a reason why the tattooed man had came to meet his young friend in this particular evening...
"It´s time to wake up, Jak."
A gasp, a moan, and finally those gorgeous ocean blue eyes were looking up to the icy orbs of his own.
"... T-Torn? What are you doing here?"
"I´m here to take you home, kid."
This kid, Jak, stared at him with a puzzled expression, confusion reflecting from his youthful features.
"Home? You mean you´re taking me back to Sandover? Back to my home?"
"What´s Sandover? Oh well, maybe I should ask him about it later..."
"No, of course not your home, you little fool. My home."
"Really? You´re taking me to your home?"
"Yeah. But it can become your home, too."
"Your home... can be my home?"
"Sure thing. So what do you say, are we going?"
"I want to go home with you!"