Ok, wow! Roz looks on in disbelief [ You have 11 new messages] All reviews!! Thanks guys!! And I will keep my promise, therefore here is the chapter that you've all been waiting for.
It includes OBI-TOTURE!!! Well, it's not heavy, just a beating.....
Enjoy!
****Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand
- The Windmills Of Your Mind
****Obi-Wan stopped stacking the shelves for a minute, his ears straining. (I thought I heard something). He spun around trying to surprise his attacker. (Nothing!) He glanced around the storeroom from side to side but nothing moved. (I could have sworn that I heard something!). As he watched he heard it again. It was like a scratching sound, a sort of twitching in the shelves. He relaxed slightly, it sounded only like a rodent or something. (Good one 456. All you need is a rat and it scares the shit out of you). He laughed hysterically and turned back to his box. As soon as he bent down something shoved him hard in the back and he went sprawling on the floor. As he hit the concrete floor his chin slammed into the floor first, shattering some of his teeth. As he sat up slowly, his head was spinning and his mouth was full of liquid. (What the hell? What happened?) he looked up slowly lest his head decide to fall off.
The guards sneered at the boy lying dazed on the ground. He was the youngest one there, therefore the funnest to pick on.
"Hey slave~! What are you doing on the ground, shouldn't you be working?"
"Yeah, slave scum!" The guards laughed, being led on by their friends.
Obi-Wan just stared up at them, the idea of fear not even crossing his mind – he was too stunned with what had just happened. He tried to speak and almost choked on the blood sloshing around in his mouth. With difficulty he spat it out onto the floor. The guards just looked on and snickered.
"Look at the mess you've made slave!"
"Stupid slave! Clean it up! Clean it up NOW!"
Obi-Wan couldn't hear them, his ears were ringing. The faces were not focusing properly in his sight. His mind was whirling, he dimly thought, (The knock onto the floor must've been pretty hard). The guards couldn't believe the 'insolence' that the boy was showing.
"Lick it up asshole!"
"If you don't, then we're going to have to make you do it" one of them growled and raised his eyebrows at his comrades. They laughed cruelly and crowded in around the confused boy.
Obi-Wan was suddenly overcome with a sense of panic as the boots came closer and he started thrashing around. They closed in around him, creating a black, impenetratable wall. Obi-Wan felt claustrophobic, having just come out of his punishment. In a detached way he heard someone shrieking and realized with a shock that it was him but before he could stop himself a hand clamped down over his mouth and a voice whispered cruelly, "Now, you're going to clean up the mess dipshit and not say a word".
Before he realized what he was doing he had sunk what was left of his teeth into the man's hand and was rewarding with a yelp of pain and a punch that snapped his head back and left him even more dazed.
"You little shit!" The man snarled sucking on his bleeding fingers, "You're going to pay for that! Gag him! That way the overseers won't know what's happening." The other guards grinned amongst themselves, and one of the roughly grabbed Obi-Wan by the hair and stuffed a rag into his mouth and then bound it in place by wrapping another rag around his head.
Obi-Wan's waning composure snapped and he forced himself off the ground. For one glorious second he could see the door, outlined by the light then his legs were kicked out from underneath him and someone was holding him down. He felt the first couple of blows and tried to cry out but all that came out was a gurgled croak. They knew about his previous beating and went for his tender spots.
Obi-Wan didn't realize that such pain could exist. He gasped but pretty soon his vision was fading, yellow spots were dancing in front of him and the world slowly lost it's colour until it consisted of only gray, white and red. Dimly he realized that the red was from his own blood that was running down his face, into his eyes.
He was suffocating, he couldn't breathe. Something was wrong with his nose, there was liquid in it and he there was no way he could breathe through his mouth. The whole time that the beating was going on he could faintly hear the men laughing at his jerks and spasms.
"Look at this! If I hit just here……..look! See how much anguish that causes him!!"
"Stupid slave, if I was the overseer I'd cut his bloody hand off just for biting mine. Call it corporal punishment!"
"Hahahaha! You know we should do this more often! It's not like they're going to notice one less slave!"
With one last gasp, Obi-Wan's vision faded from grey to a dark brown to black and the boy lay still. The guards stopped; it was no fun flogging a dead horse.
"You think he's dead?"
"Who really cares?"
"Oh well, he has a bigger mess to lick up now, slave scum."
And with that the guards laughingly ungagged the boy and left him lying in his own pool of blood.
****For a second, Qui-Gon's heart actually stopped beating and he temporarily stopped breathing.
"Obi-Wan?" He didn't dare speak the word any louder for fear that reality might shatter. When the boy didn't say anything he asked again, "Obi-Wan? Is that you?" The thing gave a sigh and closed it's eyes. As it's form went limp Qui-Gon became almost frantic, "Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan!!" No answer. Qui-Gon cursed, got a cloth and anxiously started to clean the slaves face. As it's features became more distinguished, his heart began sinking.
For a start, 'it' was a 'he'. He was about 7 years older then his padawan and it obviously wasn't Obi-Wan. He tried to hide his disappointment but he couldn't help feeling despair after being so close to achieving his goal, he had almost touched the glow of hope.
The boy stirred beneath his hands and muttered, "Don't." There was a pause then, "Please……..stop……I…..sorry! Please! Sorry!! Stop!! Please!! PLEASE!! STOP!!!" then the boy started convulsing, throwing his arms out and knocking over the basin of water that Qui-Gon hand been tending the boy with. It clattered onto the ground spilling it's liquid contents over the floor. Qui-Gon was shocked by the sudden turn of events and his mind mentally shut down as his eyes stared at the pool of red water slowly tracing it's way across the medical ward floor. Then just as quickly as his mind had left, it rushed back into him and he cursed as he tried to hold the boy down to stop him from hurting himself.
"Calm down! Shhh, shhhh. It's going to be ok. Nothing is going to hurt you. Calm down, rest. Shhhh", Qui-Gon made soothing noises while holding the stricken boy down. He opened his eyes and Qui-Gon gasped. They were the same as Obi-Wans. (Blue and green and grey with flecks of blue), except these ones were wide in distress and glazed, opened but unseeing, the user still locked in a nightmare. Suddenly, the boy's body arched and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, only showing the whites, then it was over. He was still once more.
Qui-Gon quickly ran his hands over the body to check if the spasms had caused anymore damage and sighed in relief when his force-search turned up negative. The boys' breathing was shallow and ragged, his heartbeat faint and erratic but was there never the less. He placed his hands on the boys head and sent a force-command of sleep, while calming down his mind. He watched closely as the tension left the boy's muscles and his face went from a terrified expression to one of deep sleep.
He swept his eye over the boy once again, and when he didn't move, the big Jedi was satisfied that everything was under control. He stood up from the stool he had been sitting on and bent down to pick up the basin. As he bent down he realized that the front of his tunic was soaked and as he scooped up the basin he glanced down at his shirt. To no surprise it was covered in a rosy colored liquid, the basin had hit him on the front of his tunic on its journey to the floor.
He went over to the tap and refilled the basin. As the basin filled he looked at himself in the mirror. Grey eyes looked back at him, straight hair tied back, proud chin and firm face. The only thing that marred the image in front of him was the worry lines around his eyes, the sag of his cheeks, the bags under his eyes. The eyes themselves were bloodshot and watery. Crows feet lined the corners of his eyes and the face itself was pale and pinched. The image in front of him looked like a wreck. Qui-Gon, the interminable, cold, ice, impassive-faced, precisely dressed master looked like he had been hit by a speeder.
(Maybe I could start a fashion trend – the 'I-need-coffee-badly-and-sleep-and-chill-pills-look') Qui-Gon thought wryly. He started as the cold water poured over the edge of the basin and onto his bare hand. (What have I been doing? Concentrate!! A man needs your help……..even if it isn't Obi-Wan.) His eye caught the reflection of the body lying on the bed behind him and he sighed in disappointment, his hopes had been dashed.
He went back to the boy and carefully undressed him, peeling back the material where it had been embedded into the flesh. The pain would've been great and although the boy was deeply unconscious he whimpered several times and shuddered constantly. Qui-Gon was cleaning the wounds of the beating when he noticed the scar tissue. It was old and criss-crossed the boys back in several places. It looked layered and some of the cuts had raised when healing. Qui-Gon pursed his lips and his eyes became grim. The boy had been thrashed badly several times. He traced a cut with a finger that ran from the boy's right hand shoulder, across his back down onto his left hip. The cut had been deep he could tell. It would have been a close thing to cutting nerves in his invertebrate. If that had've happened then the boy would either be a paraplegic, quadriplegic or dead.
"Unbelievable, people that can do this are animals. How can they do this?!?" he muttered vehemently while cleaning. With all the dirt out of the cuts he smeared healing bacta on them, and covered them with clean, white bandages. He went back over to the sink and was washing his hands when he stopped and stared at the boy.
He looked remarkably like Obi-Wan. It obviously wasn't him, wrong age, wrong hair colour, wrong build but the wrongness was slight. If Qui-Gon didn't know Obi-Wan it could be possible to accidentally think this slave to be him. Being all trussed up in bandages didn't help – he had seen Obi-Wan so many times in the healing ward covered in bandages that it just added to the illusion. The slave had darker hair, was taller, his face contours were different – his eyes closer together, nose flatter, and ears poked out slightly but if seen far away there was no doubt in Qui-Gon's mind that he would mistake this boy to be his Obi-Wan. The sight of this slave, looking so much like Obi-Wan, sleeping peacefully in his ship made his heart constrict. (Why did I have to burdened with you? Why couldn't I get Obi-Wan?) Even as he thought these thoughts Qui-Gon knew that he was being selfish and inconsiderate. If he hadn't have bought him, he would have certainly died.
Qui-Gon exhaled exasperatedly and started cleaning up.
****Ok, now was that worth waiting for? No? Didn't think so, i'm not really all that bloodthirsty (actually i am, i just can't write it!).
Well, i'm off. I'll see you guys in a week! There might be a delay because this was the last chapter that i had done up so i'll have to write quickly huh?
Don't forget to keep on reviewing!
Oh, and guess what! I passed my LotR story. This officially is the most reviews i've ever recieved!
THANKYOU EVERYONE!