*** It's been a couple days since I wrote this, and I'm still not sure if I really like it. I kept the English names in this fic (when you do finally get to them), because I think the tale can work on more than one level. More than just Digimon. Technically, it's an offshoot of "For Jyou's Sake," a little side-plot that might have made it into the tale had I thought of it sooner. I don't know... I think it's a good piece of art, but I really don't think I ~like~ it. I get scared of myself when I write like this. ***
I could hear the dry crack of the whip as it met with soft, tender skin for what seemed like the millionth time that day. With every snap that resounded in my ears, another part of me slowly died. Those creatures were hurting him again, beating him, and for two reasons. They wanted to break him, to make him scream out for mercy that they'd never give. The other reason they lashed the whip against his already bleeding back was in order to break me.
It was my fault that they were hurting him in the first place.
All because I hadn't been physically strong. Within the mines, they had us moving rocks -- boulders, by the size of them -- with our bare hands. But we're just children, I wanted to cry out to them. We never did anything to deserve this punishment! It had been days since we'd eaten, and my throat cried out for water. We were weak, slowly worn down by the constant work and the chill, sleepless nights.
When the exhaustion had driven me to my knees, he'd been there to pick me up from beneath my arms and hiss in my ear, "You've got to keep going, otherwise they'll hurt you again."
I crawled to my feet, chest hitching as I tried to draw a breath past my racing heart. Our eyes met, and his expression bore a combination of terror, determination, and above all, anger -- a fierce blaze within his dark eyes. It was that very fire that our captors sought to snuff out. When I stumbled again, they swarmed us like a horde of insects.
Now, he was shackled, his arms yanked high above his head where he dangled, the only thing holding him up being the trembling muscles within his shoulders. They'd stripped him of his clothes, save for his shorts, and had tossed his glasses aside where they skittered like a giant roach across the mildewy stone floor.
As for me, I was permitted to gather his clothes and to hold his scratched glasses. One of our captors, a flunky guard dressed in flowing black, placed a craggy hand on my shoulder with one hand, and lifted my chin with a bony finger of the opposite hand. I couldn't turn away. I was forced to watch.
"Count," the guard snarled at me as the lash struck its mark -- the middle of my friend's back.
To his credit, he didn't cry out -- only grunted slightly, his face twisting in pain.
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, and the guard grabbed my cheeks with his hand and squeezed with such fierceness, I thought my jaw would break.
"Count," he repeated.
I somehow managed to crack open my lips and squeak out, "One."
Again, my friend was whipped with a force hard enough to break the skin. Again, he only hissed in breath through his teeth, a single tear escaping down his cheek.
"T-two," I whispered.
My captor grabbed me harder, and I moaned with pain and fear. "Louder."
"Two," I repeated, hearing my voice crack as I tried to raise it.
The whip fell against its mark, again and again and again. Each time the lash hit with its sickening snap, I counted the subsequent numbers. Panic rose in my chest, and with each fall, my voice rose to a higher decibel until I was crying out in such a high-pitched tone, I could have been mistaken for a girl.
*CRACK*
"Three."
*CRACK*
"Four!"
*CRACK*
"Five!"
*CRACK*
"SIX!"
*CRACK*
"SEVEN!"
I was practically hysterical, but my friend... he was strangely calm throughout it all. He'd never been one to keep his cool easily, but as he was beaten, he was silent save for the sharp intake of breath with every strike. Blood streamed down his wrists from where the shackles cut into his arms. His back was a mess of bloody, weeping gashes, and I could see more crimson blood flowing thickly down his legs and pooling beneath his bare feet against the floor.
After what seemed like an eternity, they let him down, unlocking the shackles with a rusty creak and just letting him drop to the ground in a limp, bloody mass.
"NO!" I screamed, squirming from the guard's iron grip. After a second or two of struggling, he let me go, and I ran to my friend's side, picking him up gingerly and pulling him into my lap. I didn't care about the blood, which smeared my clothing and my hands as they curled around his slick, heaving back.
"Return them to their cell," one of our captors hissed to another. I was shoved roughly to my feet, and I hooked my hands beneath my friend's arms, the way he'd done for me, in order to help him to his feet. He was shivering all over, but he somehow found the strength to walk.
Led back to our cell, we were thrown inside its blackened depths. I fell in a tumble, my companion's clothes and glasses scattering across the damp, hard ground. As the door gave a rusty slam, locking us in, I dragged myself on hands and knees to where he lay, curled in a ball.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I repeated over and over, rapidly, the panic I usually kept so well under control threatening to overtake me in a fit of hysterics.
He made no sound, only wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head against my stomach. Once safe in my arms, he allowed himself to cry, weeping from the agony and the sheer humiliation of his ordeal. The wounds on his back had started to close, yet as his chest heaved with sobs, some of the scabs reopened to let fresh blood trickle down his bare flesh in thin streams.
His tears broke what was left of my thin resolve, and although I tried with all my might to hold it back for his sake, I burst out crying myself. I leaned over, hid my face against his tangled, dark hair, and the two of us wept together.
Yet tears never last forever, even in the worst of circumstances, and eventually they tapered off on their own -- we were both already dehydrated, and neither of us could spare the moisture in our bodies. He finally climbed from my lap, shaking uncontrollably from the cold and the shock, and the two of us hunted down his clothing and his glasses in the dark of the cell.
Once he'd dressed himself again, he lay down beside me and let his head fall into my lap, curling up on his stomach -- obviously because his back was still in searing agony from the whipping. I combed my fingers through his hair, gently pulling any knots free with my fingers.
"I'm sorry," I whispered again.
"Don't be," he returned, just as softly.
"But it was my fault they hurt you."
"No. They'd have found any excuse to beat either of us."
Silence. For much too long. I almost thought he might have fallen asleep, but I could see the glimmer of an open eye through the darkness.
"You were brave."
His chest shook in the faintest of laughs. "I didn't feel like it. Not at all."
"But you didn't scream." I sighed, ashamed then. "I did."
"If they try to hurt you," he whispered, "don't scream again. Bite your damn tongue off if you have to, but don't cry out. That's what they want to hear. Never be broken."
"That's easier said than done."
"Promise me."
"But --"
"Promise me."
"I -- Okay. I promise. I won't cry out. They will never break me."
He let out a quiet sigh of relief, relaxing his body against mine. His head felt warm, comforting in my lap.
"We should sleep, Izzy," he whispered.
"Yes, Joe. We should."
In the black and the cold, I shifted my body so I lay on my back, leaving him to sleep on his stomach, our arms twined around each other. The day had taken so much out of me, and I knew that we would need our strength for tomorrow. It had been too long since we were separated from our friends, and neither of us knew when we'd be freed -- or when we'd have to escape on our own. A plan would come to me. It had to.
We needed each other. We gave each other the strength we needed to get by. Otherwise, neither of us would survive the nightmare.