*peeks out from behind table and waves awkwardly* Heh heh, hey guys
*hoarde of people start yelling chasing me* I'm sorry! I DIDN'T MEAN TO MAKE YOU WAIT THIS LOOONGGG!
Seriously though, I sincerely apologise for how long I was away. There's a whole load of drama that I don't need to talk about (this chapter has enough of that already). Thank you to all of my new followers and my patient OGs.
InnocentIthinknot, I said I would post this Chapter by the 27th but I never said what month.
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Eragon awoke to a massive pounding in his right temple. He wanted to lay in bed and sleep it off but at the same time, could have definitely gone for an aspirin. With slurred words, he called out to his father. After several failed attempts, he decided that he'd just shoot him a text. In an effort to push himself up, he turned his body to face his nightstand. Or, at least he tried to. Only then did Eragon realize just how hard his "pillow" was.
The full force of everything that happened earlier hit him like a freight train. His eyes shot open, furiously drinking in everything around him. Other than the headache, he'd only sustained a few bruises. What really concerned him, however, was the thick rope strung around his limbs, securely binding him to a metal chair. And if that wasn't bad enough, said chair was bolted to the floor. Against a steel pillar.
Eragon frantically struggled against his bonds. He tried over, and over and over again but at last, he gave up. Although he hated to say it, he didn't want to waste anymore energy on a lost cause. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
'If I want to break out of here,' he thought, 'I need to be calm and see what I can use around me.'
Eragon opened his eyes and meticulously took in every detail of his surroundings. The room he was in couldn't really be described as a room. For starters, it was the size of a football field and seemed as if a fire had broken out in there at some point. Plus, the walls and many steel support beams were all different heights. The tallest wall was nearly four and a half storeys high while the shortest was roughly three. Cracks snaked across every inch of the scorched concrete high above. The walls' skyward edges have long since turned to ridges due to the numerous missing chunks.
Sheets of rusted galvanize were haphazardly bolted one on top the other to create some semblance of a roof. While some places sagged dangerously low, others were open to the waning sunlight above. Eragon could only be thankful that the section above his head seemed sturdy enough...for now.
The floor itself was a layer of concrete. It was broken in many places and permanently stained brown in others. You wouldn't have to be an expert to know that these blemishes marked years of pain and sorrow. Though there were wooden crates in piles all over, the empty ones seemed to be arranged in a kind of barrier. He got a bad feeling in his stomach thinking about whatever was hidden behind them.
He craned his neck to get a better view out of the nearest hole in the roof, searching for anything that could help locate his position but saw only sky. Faintly, Eragon could smell something earthy and herbal. Whatever it was though, seemed to be coming from within the 'room'. The air was too dry and warm to be near the North. He could only hope he wasn't near the border. If that happened… no, he couldn't afford to think like that.
The sound of metal dragging against metal brought him out of his thoughts and filled him with a sense of dread. An iron door opened from somewhere out of his line of vision.
His captors had arrived.
The door slid shut. And then he heard nothing. Now he was even more confused. Wasn't there supposed to be someone coming to do the whole threatening interrogation thing? Just when he thought that it was a false alarm, strong yet slender fingers grabbed a fistfull of his hair and dragged his head backwards, slamming it against the pillar. Eragon let out a hiss of pain. Just as soon as the hand appeared, it was gone. He turned around to look at his assailant but was met with empty space. And then the hand was there again, fingers digging into his cheeks and forcing him to look up into the face of its owner.
Thin lips curled into a feral smile. Red tattoos in some forgotten runic language stretched over his almost unearthly pale skin. Vivid scarlet hair cascaded over his shoulders. But the most unnerving thing about him was the glint of madness in his eyes that not even the maroon-lense shades could mask. There was something about this man that could only be described as animal. When he spoke, it was in a layered voice as if many souls were all trapped inside that one body.
"Ah yesss, Bromsson" the creature purred "I wondered when I would finally get to...meet...you."
Now Eragon had pieced together that this whole operation must be in a bid to get back at his father for revenge on some legal case lost against him. A man prominent in his field made many enemies, no matter what profession he had. Eragon put a mask of contempt and defiance on his face to hide the fear he felt underneath.
"I get that you're flattered to meet me and all but I can't really say the same about you. Would you be so kind as to tell me your name so I'll know whose ass I'm kicking later?"
Instead of looking offended as expected, the man smirked menacingly.
"While I admire your boldness, child, you would do well to remember who's in charge here."
"Certainly isn't you," Eragon quipped. "Whoever is in charge of a scheme like this would never reveal themselves to a child lest the plan were to go awry and end up exposing them."
The man actually seemed impressed by Eragon's deduction.
"Then I'm sure you've already used that big brain of yours to figure out that we have some unfinished business with your father. What you don't know is the nature of this business."
As was the trend of the hour, Eragon was confused again. Tentatively, he asked "doesn't it have something to do with a legal case?"
Again, the man smiled. But it was the smile of a predator playing with its food before finally sinking its fangs into the prey's battered flesh. Fingers still digging into Eragon's cheek, he leant down closer to look him in the eyes.
"Oh, I didn't think you'd be left in the dark this long. You should know Bromsson, every man does things he regrets. Even your father has sunk to levels worthy of Helgrind."
Eragon just blankly stared at the man. His father? Brom Shur'tugal? Ha! When an elf got drunk, he'd only think to consider it. What could this random freak know about his father, Mr. 'I'd-marry-the-rules-if-I-could'?
"If you think I'm going to believe a word of your blasphemy, you're just as stupid as you look. My father is far better a man than you could ever dream to be. He would never do anything to bring dishonour upon his family, much less to have committed crimes guilty of the scum of the earth, swines like you!" Eragon spat at him.
The smile dropped from the man's face and was replaced by a snarl. His previously empty left hand now held a dagger pressed against Eragon's throat and drawing a fine line of blood.
"I never claimed to be a good man. You better hope your son of a bitch father delivers his end of the bargain or else I'm going to make you beg for death. I'll cherish the sounds of your screams as you plead and cry for mercy I shall never give and for a father who will never save you. Oh, you can only hope Shur'tugal, and I, Durza, will be the one to tear that hope away from you."
In that situation, any other person would be scared out of their mind. Eragon only felt an indescribable rage. The young Shur'tugal had never felt this way before and would never usually consider such an action but now, he would gladly murder the man in front of him. Durza had crossed the line. He insulted the man who had given Eragon everything in his life, who took care of him and loved him so much that he never felt the absence of his mother. Sure they may have their differences at times, but Eragon loved him more than anyone else in the whole world.
Durza glared at him silently but Eragon received the message nonetheless. Although he wanted to kick and scream foul curses at the man before him, he'd already spoken out of turn one too many times in their short conversation to get away without more pain.
Before leaving though, Durza gave him a final message that made the young Shur'tugal scream his throat raw for the first time of many. He whispered into Eragon's ear, "And when I'm done making your life a living hell, I'll see to it personally that your father joins you there."
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