A/N: Hi everyone. Thanks fur reviews and the like. Be sure to do the same with this one please...it is kinda nice. ~ Mika
Breathing. Heavy breathing, the type caused by a constricted throat when somebody faces their phobia.
For Jakuelynn, it was the awakening into pitch black darkness that also awoke her phobia of that very same thing. She didn't know how she got there or why she was there, but she was surrounded, wrapped up, consumed in total darkness, and she was scared witless.
"D-Damas?" she choked, fighting to normalise her breathing. "Rufas? Hara'in?"
Using her hands to feel around, she discovered that she was resting on a soft, wet, earthy substance whilst her back was propped up against a hard, rough surface. Instantly, her mind flashed back to the time four years ago when she woke up chained to a hard wall, a cybernetic version of her archnemesis parading around in front of her. One Peacemaker in the gap below said archnemesis' skull had sorted her out.
This time, she was not chained.
Light, come forth. Help me to see.
The gentle glow of Light filled and surrounded her body, allowing her to see where she was and instantly dissipating the phobia Roah Praxis had conditioned her into by Dark Eco torture. Instantly, she saw that she was in a narrow, rectangular cell, a hair's breadth more than her own width. She saw her cell was one of many in a long row, separated from another by a corridor.
She also saw that there was another presence in one of the cells, someone who was beginning to stir. A groan reached the warrioress' ears from the moving presence and, returning back to her normal self, she called out the same series of names.
"Jakuelynn, is that you?"
"Hara'in!" the warrioress shouted, relieved to hear a living voice, even if it was the woman who took her son. "You okay?"
"Got a headache," the former assassin groaned. "Otherwise I'm fine. What about you and the babies?"
Jakuelynn waited until she felt movement from her twins before replying. "We're all fine..."
"Heard anything from Damas, Jak or Samos?" the older woman asked.
"Why do you care?" the younger replied harshly. "They're probably all dead, and it's your fault!"
"Hey, easy!" Hara'in snapped. "I returned your son, didn't I? Speaking of which, is he in your cell?"
"No, he's not." Dry panic suffocated Jakuelynn once again as she realised he was missing. "Rufas? Roo, honey, can you hear me? Knock on the wall if you can!"
Silence responded to her voice. Not even a knock.
"He's probably been taken to the Experimentation Room," Hara'in told her, voice trembling.
"The Experimentation Room?" Jakuelynn gasped. "They're going to pump Dark Eco into my son?"
"Pr-probably not Dark Eco!" Hara'in protested, silently glad she was not in the same cell as the warrioress. "But they're going to see what his limits are and then go beyond them, killing him."
"HE'S MY FUCKING SON!" Jakuelynn screamed, grabbing the bars of the cell and attempting to wrench them apart, her Dark side begging to take over. Despite all her strength and power, the bars didn't move. Not a single millimetre.
"Jakuelynn! JAKUELYNN! There is no point in trying! Those bars are reinforced! Nobody has ever escaped them! Please, stop, or you'll hurt yourself or your children!" Hara'in cried, seemingly to no effect. The warrioress seemed to stop, stagger back, hit the wall and then slump against it to the floor, exhausted from her fury and anger.
"Hara'in, they're going to kill Rufas!" she rasped, her voice cracking. "They're going to pump all sorts of shit into him, they're going to fucking kill him...H-he's only three, Hara'in. He's only small. He can barely handle his Dark and Light sides, let alone extra...extra Eco. He'll buckle. I need to s-save him...I need..." She took a deep and shaky breath, uttering involuntary whimpers as she released it. "H-he-he's my only little one...and the one reminder of his f-father that...that I have..."
Hara'in listened as the warrioress openly wept in the cell opposite her, her own eyes warming with tears. The desperation of the young mother to reach her son reminded the older woman of her own desperate attempts to take on assignments that were at least in the vicinity of her son, just so that she was at least given a slight chance to take him back. They were forever in vain, however. Something always went wrong, or they were in the wrong area.
When the pregnant warrioress' sobs had subsided, it was then the former Servicewoman chose to speak.
"Jakuelynn..."
"What?" the young woman snapped, voice thick with the aftermath of her unexpected breakdown.
"I think...I think it's time I told you about my son,"
"Your son?" she replied acerbically. "The one you left to his father?"
"Yes," Hara'in replied faintly. "Listen. It...I think you know him...you may do, you may not. You d-definitely knew his supposed father and know his real father."
"Hara'in, I...you're confusing me," the warrioress said, but in a softer tone.
She shook her head. "I'm sorry." She took a deep breath. "I pr-probably shouldn't tell you this, but considering we may all be dead, I feel like I must tell someone." She leant against the wall as the warrioress pressed her face against the bars of her cell, hands wrapped around them. "Hara'in is only my Service name. My real name is Sara Kahlreina. I...I used to date your brother, whom I only knew up to recently as Saldam Ar'Aigham – "
"That's what I knew him as until he revealed the truth to me!" Jakuelynn cried before realising she'd interrupted the woman. "Sorry. Carry on."
Hara'in/ Sara cleared her throat. "We broke up for a couple of years, during which time I dated someone outside the Service. It...was only meant to be a temporary break, but this...my new boyfriend was a monster. He verbally, physically, mentally and sexually abused me for such a long time, imprisoning me in the relationship. Made me too terrified to say or do anything to change it. When we married and I got pregnant, it stopped. B-but after having my son...it kicked off again, particularly when my husband found out my son wasn't his."
"Was it my brother's son?" Jakuelynn asked. "Is...was he your son's real father?"
Hara'in nodded, before realising it was pitch-black and the warrioress couldn't see it. "Yes. Yes he was. It was one night...just one night...and...I missed him, you know?"
"One night is all you need," Jakuelynn said reflectively, remembering the day Rufas was conceived, the day of her twenty-fifth birthday.
"I know..." Hara'in trailed off. "I left the resulting child with the monster of a dad. I...I don't know whether he's alive or they're both dead. I like to think h-he's still alive. But with him? With his supposed dad? You never know..."
The younger woman swallowed. "What was your son's name? You said I might know him..."
"Or you might not," the older one countered. "His name – the name I chose – was Rapace. Rapace Yuhmerevich Krazak."
