CHAPTER XV: MORE OF THE PAST
Jacky is entering a large hall somewhere in the palace, together with David, who was still wearing a robe. In the hall, a large chandelier shone brightly in the middle of the hall. Under the chandelier were several people, most of them Jacky barely recognized.
"Jacky! Welcome back!" suddenly a boy around his age jumped and hugged Jacky.
"Jien," Jacky muttered, recognizing Jien's behavior to jump and hug people as a greeting.
"Welcome back," another boy said calmly, stretching his hand to Jacky.
"Benjamin," Jacky, recognizing Benjamin's face as he shook his hand.
Just then, Calv appeared.
"I'm sure you can't forget who she is," Calv said before bringing a woman in her early forties out from the crowd of people.
"Mother!" Jacky cried happily when he saw her.
"Jacky," she muttered, opening her arms to Jacky as he gave her a warm hug.
"Mother, I missed you so much."
"Hush, my child. I missed you as well," she whispered softly but sweetly to Jacky.
Hugging his mother closely, Jacky couldn't help but snivel as tears started to form in his eyes.
"And there's someone else who wants to see you, Jacky," Sophia said, standing near the two, "He missed you very much over the years."
Sniveling while wiping off a tear from his right eye, Jacky answered, "Who is it?"
Sophia smiled, "I'm sure you've missed him just as much."
Then, Sophia stood aside together with the people behind her as they revealed a man in his late forties. Jacky's eyes opened widely and his jaws dropped when he saw the man.
"F-Father?"
The man just smiled while looking at him.
"Father!" Jacky cried before running towards the man.
The man opened his arms and hugged Jacky.
"It has been so many years," the man whispered before a tear rolled from under his eye, "I thought I might not have been able to see you again."
Sniveling softly, Jacky was quiet. Tears were rolling from both of his eyes.
~~~~~~~~~
FLASHBACK: JACKY'S PAST - PART 2
Jacky has left Esthar again on another mission. Calv have found out from the secret information, brought back by Jacky from the Galbadian, that they were producing a secret and powerful weapon. Calv appealed to Sorceress Adel to send Jacky to Deling City to stop the production. Strangely, she agreed quite willingly. However in reality, Jacky was heading for the Desert Prison, which was located closest to Deling City. Being the only one to have read the secret information, Calv lied about the secret weapon.
In Deling City, security has been tighten. Soldiers were guarding every corner in the city. However, their security was still imperfect. Jacky was still able to sneak through their security without being noticed. Arriving at the car lot, Jacky hears one of the Galbadian jeeps roaring its engine. Inside the jeep was a blue-uniformed soldier, sitting at the driver's seat and there was a red-uniformed soldier, entering the jeep and sitting on the passenger's seat.
"Why do you always have to make us late to get back to our post?" the blue soldier said.
"Oh, there's still half an hour before our shifts," the red soldier answered.
"Have you forgotten how far the Desert Prison is from here?" the blue soldier questioned.
"Oh, just hit the petal! Is not like there's traffic!" the red soldier responded.
"Then, what about the monsters we might encounter?"
"They're easy enough. Let's just go!"
At that, the jeep started moving. Overhearing their conversation, Jacky rushed to jump into the back of the jeep. Luckily for him, the roar of the jeeps engine was too noisy for the two soldiers in front to hear Jacky. As Jacky hid himself in the rags at the back of the jeep, it continued moving on, going off the tarred road of Deling City and onto the dirt road of the plain, heading for the Desert Prison.
*********
It didn't take long before Jacky was a few distances from the Desert Prison. Peeping from under the rags, Jacky finally got to see the Desert Prison for the first time. It looked like three slightly leaning towers connected to each other by bridges from one tower to the other. The stranger thing about the towers was that they looked like giant drills. Suddenly, the jeep stopped and the red soldier at the passenger's seat started up a radio transmission.
"Jeep 31, reporting to Desert Tower. Do you read me?"
Then, there was a return answer, "Yes, this is the Desert Tower. We read you. We're coming down."
"This is the part I hate," the blue soldier at the passenger seat said.
"Just hold your breath," the other soldier responded.
At that, both of them gulped breaths of air and held them. Jacky was confused by that when he heard echoes of moving gears. Jacky looked towards the Desert Prison where the echoes came from. Jacky was surprised when he saw the drill parts of the towers slowly spinning round and round, going faster and faster and causing a wide, rough sandstorm as they did. Jacky gasped a quick breath of air and held it as he hid himself under the rag from the spray of sand.
Though it was only for a short while, it seemed like minutes to Jacky as he slowly grew his urge to take another breath of air. Suddenly, the jerk of the jeep moving shook Jacky off balance, causing him to fall onto the steel bottom of the jeep. Luckily, the jeep's engine was still too noisy for the two soldiers to hear Jacky's crash. Getting back up, Jacky looked from under the rags at where the towers were. He was shocked again when he didn't see them.
"Where's the prison?" he thought.
Just then, as the jeep continued on a short distance, Jacky saw the towers again, only that they were shorter and weren't towers. They were like normal buildings now!
"What the.?"
Just then, a ramp door slowly opened and laid down in front of the jeep. The jeep slowly got up the ramp and into the building as the ramp door slowly lifted and closed. Inside, the blue soldier drove the jeep and parked it at the end of a line of parked jeeps. Killing the jeep's engine, the two soldiers got off the jeep.
"Now then, let's get going," the red soldier exclaimed before the two left the room.
There was silence for a short while before Jacky took a peep through the rags. Seeing no one else in the room, he tossed the rags aside and jumped off the jeep. He ran to the room's only door and took a tiny peep through the side of it. The door led to a narrow corridor, which led to another room. The room was wide and circular, like a room under a dorm would. Lined up against the walls of the room were a lot of machines, which had countless bright, colorful buttons and switches and some monitors here and there. Unfortunately, there was a soldier in the room. This soldier was wearing a red uniform and was operating some of the machines, pushing buttons and flipping switches. Just then, Jacky's and the soldier's attentions were taken when a voice from somewhere called out.
"Hey, don't forget to bring us back up!"
"Oh, sorry, I forgot again!" the soldier in the room shouted back before he pushed a button.
As if responding to the button, the whole place started trembling strongly as Jacky held onto the wall for support. As he held himself against the wall, Jacky could feel in his body that the whole place was going up, just like how one feels when in an elevator going up a few floors of a building. The trembling lasted for a short while before it finally stopped. Regaining his balance, Jacky peeped through the door again. The solider didn't seem to have been disturbed by the strong tremor just now as he was still pushing buttons and flipping switches.
Just then, the voice from before called out again, "Hey, I think you had better check the transport cable thingy!"
The soldier sighed tiresomely as he answered, "It's the Prison Cell Transport Cable! And why do you think so?"
"We need to bring one of the cells to the top, where the Head Warden's waiting, but it isn't responding."
The soldier sighed again before leaving the room, "Why aren't you guys good at mechanics?"
"Bring a cell to the top?" Jacky thought, surprised, "Oh, yeah. Uncle Calv told me about it already."
Before Jacky left Esthar, Calv had explained to him that the Desert Prison wasn't like any other prison. The prison cells were transportable and can be brought to the top of the prison tower, to the torture room of the tower.
With no one else in the room, Jacky walked quietly into the room. In the room, there were two more doors. One seemed to lead outside onto a catwalk and another, where the soldier exited through, led deeper into the prison. Jacky constantly looked at the doors to see if anyone might come in suddenly. Certain that no one would, he checked out the monitors on the machines. Jacky took a while to see all of the monitors, but none of them seemed to be surveillance of the prison cells. Now he had no choice but to search for Vies himself in the three towers. He then exited the room through the same door the soldier did, entering into another circular room but this room had no machinery. In the middle of room was a wide, empty and fenced space. Through it, Jacky could see more than a dozen floors of cells along with some soldiers patrolling the floor. Just then, he heard a voice.
"There's nothing wrong with the Prison Cell Transport Cable! Are you sure you operated the machine correctly?"
It was the soldier from before. His voice seemed to be coming through a voice transmitter from somewhere in the room.
"Of course, I'm not dumb!" the other soldier answered.
Hearing the voices clearly now, Jacky turned to see a steel door in the room. He went to lean against the door to try and eavesdrop on the conversation.
"Which cell does the Head want?" the transmitted voice cracked.
"Cell 76. The cell with the black kid," the earlier voice that Jacky heard answered.
"Vies?" Jacky thought.
"Enter the cell number into the machine and press the red button," the transmitted voice sounded again.
"Why?" the normal voice asked.
"Just do it!"
"Ok, ok, fine."
There was a short silence when Jacky heard a loud siren, followed by noisy gears operating.
"Hey, the machine's working!" the normal voice exclaimed.
"Ah, you wasted my time!" the transmitted voice cracked again.
"Sorry for the mistake."
"Vies is going to the torture room!?" Jacky thought.
"Don't make the same mistake again," suddenly Jacky heard another voice behind the room.
This voice was a calm but hoarse as well.
"I apologize for my mistake, Head Warden."
"Just make sure it doesn't happen again."
Just then, Jacky could hear gears moving a lot noisier now. He looked over the fence through the empty space in the tower. He was surprised. What wasn't there before was a large steel container. The container came higher and higher, closer and closer to where Jacky was and at last, stopped right in front of him. Gears continued to operate before stopping as the container connected itself onto the side of the wall, into the room where the Head Warden was.
*********
Trying to take a nap, Vies is laying on the uncomfortable wooden bed. However, he couldn't even let his mind to rest because of his hunger. The gastric in his stomach was restless. It was unbearable, especially for a child. He has grown skinnier than when he came to the prison. The wardens of the prison had agreed that he was too young and weak to be torture with the electric wall, so they thought of not giving him food or water for four days in a row. However, at the end of the four days, they will give him some. They didn't want Vies to die without telling them who he was working for. However, the food given to Vies wasn't actually delicious, it was more like a plate of slurpy yellow gunk. Vies can't even tell what were the ingredients for it. Nonetheless, it was still food and it wouldn't do Vies any good to be picky about his food.
It has been three days since Vies last ate. He can't even tell which was more torturing, not eating for four days or eating their gunk. Just then, suddenly his cell shook hard, throwing Vies off the bed and onto the steel floor. Vies landed painfully on the floor as the gastric in his stomach really kicked in. Hugging his stomach, trying to calm the pain, Vies could feel the whole cell moving. He has experienced this before. The Head Warden constantly checks on Vies every three days of his torture, trying to force some information out of him.
After a while, still laying on the floor, hugging his stomach, his cell suddenly stopped with a jerk, tossing Vies off the floor by an inch and then back down. The noisy gears constantly disturbed Vies. Because of his hunger, the noise seemed to echo in his ears a lot noisier than it really was. Just then, the door to his cell slid opened and a man, wearing the usual brown warden's uniform, walked in.
"Get up! The Head Warden wants you!"
Vies smiled, laughing a little to himself. Although he had been terribly weaken by hunger, he still kept his calmness and confidence.
"Shut up, why else would I be brought up here?"
The warden was surprised with disgust.
"Man, who trained you? Even after all that we've done, you're still so confident," the warden whispered to himself, "The person who trained you must be a powerful fellow."
Vies laughed softly, "You have no idea."
Vies slowly lifted himself off the floor. Standing upright, it was easy to tell that he was struggling to stay standing. He slowly walked pass the warden into the room. In the room, he could see another man, standing next to the electric wall. The man was also wearing the same brown uniform and looked identical with the other warden. The only difference between the two was that this one had a moustache. Vies was forced onto a chair by the warden behind him. Since he was weak, the Head Warden thought that it wasn't necessary to bind him to the chair during the negotiation.
"Have you finally decided to cooperate with us and tell us what you know?" the Head Warden asked.
"Yes, I'll tell you what I know," Vies answered weakly, his head facing down.
The warden was surprised by his answer after just seeing his confidence as the Head Warden was feeling a little excited by the success achieved finally.
"Then say it," the Head Warden said softly as if kindly.
Vies looked up at the Head Warden, "There's a black coffee stain under your nose. Oh wait, that's your moustache. Sorry."
Both the Head Warden and the warden were dumbfounded. They had just been toyed by a 9-year-old. Out of anger, the Head Warden slapped Vies hard, throwing him off the chair. Weakly laying on the floor, Vies could feel the gastric working again in his stomach. The Head Warden walked over and squatted next to the boy.
"You're driving my patience, kid. And I don't think you would like to continue on."
Despite the pain, Vies laughed softly, "What if I said I will?"
Angered even more, the Head Warden stood up and kicked the child's stomach. Vies flew across the floor. When he stopped rolling, the pain in his stomach really tortured him. The Head Warden just stood still, breathing hard. Anger was still visible in his eyes. Just then, he turned towards the door.
"Let's leave him alone for a while. I need to take a breather."
"But sir, what about.?"
"Don't worry, he's too weak to go anywhere," the Head Warden answered before exiting the room.
The warden then followed suit, leaving the boy to his suffering.
*********
Overhearing what the Head Warden said, Jacky immediately moved aside, to the corner between the door and the wall. The door then slid opened as a moustache man walked out. A moment later, another man followed him. Both of them wore brown uniform and both of them didn't notice Jacky. Knowing that no one else was in the room, except Vies, Jacky quickly entered the room where he saw Vies laying on the floor, hugging his stomach.
"Vies!" Jacky cried, rushing over to him.
"J-Jacky?" Vies muttered in surprise, "W-What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to save you," Jacky answered, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, sort of." Vies answered weakly.
"Let me help you up," Jacky said.
Jacky slowly lifted Vies up to his feet. Putting his arm around Jacky's shoulder, Jacky slowly carried Vies to the door.
Just then, a man appeared at the door. It was the warden.
"I think I better stay, just in case," he whispered to himself before he saw the two, "Hey! Who are you? What are you doing?"
Jacky was shocked. He never expected that to happen.
"Trying to escape, eh? Well, that won't be easy!" the warden said as he pulled out his baton.
"Oh, yeah?" suddenly a calm and familiar voice from behind Jacky and Vies said before a blast sent the warden flying out of the room.
Surprised, Jacky and Vies turned around to see a dark, tall shadow looming over them. The shadow slowly took form of a human. It was Sorceress Adel!
"You're still young and naïve," the sorceress said calmly, "I wouldn't want you to end your life here."
Just then, a light surrounded the three before they disappeared.
Jacky is entering a large hall somewhere in the palace, together with David, who was still wearing a robe. In the hall, a large chandelier shone brightly in the middle of the hall. Under the chandelier were several people, most of them Jacky barely recognized.
"Jacky! Welcome back!" suddenly a boy around his age jumped and hugged Jacky.
"Jien," Jacky muttered, recognizing Jien's behavior to jump and hug people as a greeting.
"Welcome back," another boy said calmly, stretching his hand to Jacky.
"Benjamin," Jacky, recognizing Benjamin's face as he shook his hand.
Just then, Calv appeared.
"I'm sure you can't forget who she is," Calv said before bringing a woman in her early forties out from the crowd of people.
"Mother!" Jacky cried happily when he saw her.
"Jacky," she muttered, opening her arms to Jacky as he gave her a warm hug.
"Mother, I missed you so much."
"Hush, my child. I missed you as well," she whispered softly but sweetly to Jacky.
Hugging his mother closely, Jacky couldn't help but snivel as tears started to form in his eyes.
"And there's someone else who wants to see you, Jacky," Sophia said, standing near the two, "He missed you very much over the years."
Sniveling while wiping off a tear from his right eye, Jacky answered, "Who is it?"
Sophia smiled, "I'm sure you've missed him just as much."
Then, Sophia stood aside together with the people behind her as they revealed a man in his late forties. Jacky's eyes opened widely and his jaws dropped when he saw the man.
"F-Father?"
The man just smiled while looking at him.
"Father!" Jacky cried before running towards the man.
The man opened his arms and hugged Jacky.
"It has been so many years," the man whispered before a tear rolled from under his eye, "I thought I might not have been able to see you again."
Sniveling softly, Jacky was quiet. Tears were rolling from both of his eyes.
~~~~~~~~~
FLASHBACK: JACKY'S PAST - PART 2
Jacky has left Esthar again on another mission. Calv have found out from the secret information, brought back by Jacky from the Galbadian, that they were producing a secret and powerful weapon. Calv appealed to Sorceress Adel to send Jacky to Deling City to stop the production. Strangely, she agreed quite willingly. However in reality, Jacky was heading for the Desert Prison, which was located closest to Deling City. Being the only one to have read the secret information, Calv lied about the secret weapon.
In Deling City, security has been tighten. Soldiers were guarding every corner in the city. However, their security was still imperfect. Jacky was still able to sneak through their security without being noticed. Arriving at the car lot, Jacky hears one of the Galbadian jeeps roaring its engine. Inside the jeep was a blue-uniformed soldier, sitting at the driver's seat and there was a red-uniformed soldier, entering the jeep and sitting on the passenger's seat.
"Why do you always have to make us late to get back to our post?" the blue soldier said.
"Oh, there's still half an hour before our shifts," the red soldier answered.
"Have you forgotten how far the Desert Prison is from here?" the blue soldier questioned.
"Oh, just hit the petal! Is not like there's traffic!" the red soldier responded.
"Then, what about the monsters we might encounter?"
"They're easy enough. Let's just go!"
At that, the jeep started moving. Overhearing their conversation, Jacky rushed to jump into the back of the jeep. Luckily for him, the roar of the jeeps engine was too noisy for the two soldiers in front to hear Jacky. As Jacky hid himself in the rags at the back of the jeep, it continued moving on, going off the tarred road of Deling City and onto the dirt road of the plain, heading for the Desert Prison.
*********
It didn't take long before Jacky was a few distances from the Desert Prison. Peeping from under the rags, Jacky finally got to see the Desert Prison for the first time. It looked like three slightly leaning towers connected to each other by bridges from one tower to the other. The stranger thing about the towers was that they looked like giant drills. Suddenly, the jeep stopped and the red soldier at the passenger's seat started up a radio transmission.
"Jeep 31, reporting to Desert Tower. Do you read me?"
Then, there was a return answer, "Yes, this is the Desert Tower. We read you. We're coming down."
"This is the part I hate," the blue soldier at the passenger seat said.
"Just hold your breath," the other soldier responded.
At that, both of them gulped breaths of air and held them. Jacky was confused by that when he heard echoes of moving gears. Jacky looked towards the Desert Prison where the echoes came from. Jacky was surprised when he saw the drill parts of the towers slowly spinning round and round, going faster and faster and causing a wide, rough sandstorm as they did. Jacky gasped a quick breath of air and held it as he hid himself under the rag from the spray of sand.
Though it was only for a short while, it seemed like minutes to Jacky as he slowly grew his urge to take another breath of air. Suddenly, the jerk of the jeep moving shook Jacky off balance, causing him to fall onto the steel bottom of the jeep. Luckily, the jeep's engine was still too noisy for the two soldiers to hear Jacky's crash. Getting back up, Jacky looked from under the rags at where the towers were. He was shocked again when he didn't see them.
"Where's the prison?" he thought.
Just then, as the jeep continued on a short distance, Jacky saw the towers again, only that they were shorter and weren't towers. They were like normal buildings now!
"What the.?"
Just then, a ramp door slowly opened and laid down in front of the jeep. The jeep slowly got up the ramp and into the building as the ramp door slowly lifted and closed. Inside, the blue soldier drove the jeep and parked it at the end of a line of parked jeeps. Killing the jeep's engine, the two soldiers got off the jeep.
"Now then, let's get going," the red soldier exclaimed before the two left the room.
There was silence for a short while before Jacky took a peep through the rags. Seeing no one else in the room, he tossed the rags aside and jumped off the jeep. He ran to the room's only door and took a tiny peep through the side of it. The door led to a narrow corridor, which led to another room. The room was wide and circular, like a room under a dorm would. Lined up against the walls of the room were a lot of machines, which had countless bright, colorful buttons and switches and some monitors here and there. Unfortunately, there was a soldier in the room. This soldier was wearing a red uniform and was operating some of the machines, pushing buttons and flipping switches. Just then, Jacky's and the soldier's attentions were taken when a voice from somewhere called out.
"Hey, don't forget to bring us back up!"
"Oh, sorry, I forgot again!" the soldier in the room shouted back before he pushed a button.
As if responding to the button, the whole place started trembling strongly as Jacky held onto the wall for support. As he held himself against the wall, Jacky could feel in his body that the whole place was going up, just like how one feels when in an elevator going up a few floors of a building. The trembling lasted for a short while before it finally stopped. Regaining his balance, Jacky peeped through the door again. The solider didn't seem to have been disturbed by the strong tremor just now as he was still pushing buttons and flipping switches.
Just then, the voice from before called out again, "Hey, I think you had better check the transport cable thingy!"
The soldier sighed tiresomely as he answered, "It's the Prison Cell Transport Cable! And why do you think so?"
"We need to bring one of the cells to the top, where the Head Warden's waiting, but it isn't responding."
The soldier sighed again before leaving the room, "Why aren't you guys good at mechanics?"
"Bring a cell to the top?" Jacky thought, surprised, "Oh, yeah. Uncle Calv told me about it already."
Before Jacky left Esthar, Calv had explained to him that the Desert Prison wasn't like any other prison. The prison cells were transportable and can be brought to the top of the prison tower, to the torture room of the tower.
With no one else in the room, Jacky walked quietly into the room. In the room, there were two more doors. One seemed to lead outside onto a catwalk and another, where the soldier exited through, led deeper into the prison. Jacky constantly looked at the doors to see if anyone might come in suddenly. Certain that no one would, he checked out the monitors on the machines. Jacky took a while to see all of the monitors, but none of them seemed to be surveillance of the prison cells. Now he had no choice but to search for Vies himself in the three towers. He then exited the room through the same door the soldier did, entering into another circular room but this room had no machinery. In the middle of room was a wide, empty and fenced space. Through it, Jacky could see more than a dozen floors of cells along with some soldiers patrolling the floor. Just then, he heard a voice.
"There's nothing wrong with the Prison Cell Transport Cable! Are you sure you operated the machine correctly?"
It was the soldier from before. His voice seemed to be coming through a voice transmitter from somewhere in the room.
"Of course, I'm not dumb!" the other soldier answered.
Hearing the voices clearly now, Jacky turned to see a steel door in the room. He went to lean against the door to try and eavesdrop on the conversation.
"Which cell does the Head want?" the transmitted voice cracked.
"Cell 76. The cell with the black kid," the earlier voice that Jacky heard answered.
"Vies?" Jacky thought.
"Enter the cell number into the machine and press the red button," the transmitted voice sounded again.
"Why?" the normal voice asked.
"Just do it!"
"Ok, ok, fine."
There was a short silence when Jacky heard a loud siren, followed by noisy gears operating.
"Hey, the machine's working!" the normal voice exclaimed.
"Ah, you wasted my time!" the transmitted voice cracked again.
"Sorry for the mistake."
"Vies is going to the torture room!?" Jacky thought.
"Don't make the same mistake again," suddenly Jacky heard another voice behind the room.
This voice was a calm but hoarse as well.
"I apologize for my mistake, Head Warden."
"Just make sure it doesn't happen again."
Just then, Jacky could hear gears moving a lot noisier now. He looked over the fence through the empty space in the tower. He was surprised. What wasn't there before was a large steel container. The container came higher and higher, closer and closer to where Jacky was and at last, stopped right in front of him. Gears continued to operate before stopping as the container connected itself onto the side of the wall, into the room where the Head Warden was.
*********
Trying to take a nap, Vies is laying on the uncomfortable wooden bed. However, he couldn't even let his mind to rest because of his hunger. The gastric in his stomach was restless. It was unbearable, especially for a child. He has grown skinnier than when he came to the prison. The wardens of the prison had agreed that he was too young and weak to be torture with the electric wall, so they thought of not giving him food or water for four days in a row. However, at the end of the four days, they will give him some. They didn't want Vies to die without telling them who he was working for. However, the food given to Vies wasn't actually delicious, it was more like a plate of slurpy yellow gunk. Vies can't even tell what were the ingredients for it. Nonetheless, it was still food and it wouldn't do Vies any good to be picky about his food.
It has been three days since Vies last ate. He can't even tell which was more torturing, not eating for four days or eating their gunk. Just then, suddenly his cell shook hard, throwing Vies off the bed and onto the steel floor. Vies landed painfully on the floor as the gastric in his stomach really kicked in. Hugging his stomach, trying to calm the pain, Vies could feel the whole cell moving. He has experienced this before. The Head Warden constantly checks on Vies every three days of his torture, trying to force some information out of him.
After a while, still laying on the floor, hugging his stomach, his cell suddenly stopped with a jerk, tossing Vies off the floor by an inch and then back down. The noisy gears constantly disturbed Vies. Because of his hunger, the noise seemed to echo in his ears a lot noisier than it really was. Just then, the door to his cell slid opened and a man, wearing the usual brown warden's uniform, walked in.
"Get up! The Head Warden wants you!"
Vies smiled, laughing a little to himself. Although he had been terribly weaken by hunger, he still kept his calmness and confidence.
"Shut up, why else would I be brought up here?"
The warden was surprised with disgust.
"Man, who trained you? Even after all that we've done, you're still so confident," the warden whispered to himself, "The person who trained you must be a powerful fellow."
Vies laughed softly, "You have no idea."
Vies slowly lifted himself off the floor. Standing upright, it was easy to tell that he was struggling to stay standing. He slowly walked pass the warden into the room. In the room, he could see another man, standing next to the electric wall. The man was also wearing the same brown uniform and looked identical with the other warden. The only difference between the two was that this one had a moustache. Vies was forced onto a chair by the warden behind him. Since he was weak, the Head Warden thought that it wasn't necessary to bind him to the chair during the negotiation.
"Have you finally decided to cooperate with us and tell us what you know?" the Head Warden asked.
"Yes, I'll tell you what I know," Vies answered weakly, his head facing down.
The warden was surprised by his answer after just seeing his confidence as the Head Warden was feeling a little excited by the success achieved finally.
"Then say it," the Head Warden said softly as if kindly.
Vies looked up at the Head Warden, "There's a black coffee stain under your nose. Oh wait, that's your moustache. Sorry."
Both the Head Warden and the warden were dumbfounded. They had just been toyed by a 9-year-old. Out of anger, the Head Warden slapped Vies hard, throwing him off the chair. Weakly laying on the floor, Vies could feel the gastric working again in his stomach. The Head Warden walked over and squatted next to the boy.
"You're driving my patience, kid. And I don't think you would like to continue on."
Despite the pain, Vies laughed softly, "What if I said I will?"
Angered even more, the Head Warden stood up and kicked the child's stomach. Vies flew across the floor. When he stopped rolling, the pain in his stomach really tortured him. The Head Warden just stood still, breathing hard. Anger was still visible in his eyes. Just then, he turned towards the door.
"Let's leave him alone for a while. I need to take a breather."
"But sir, what about.?"
"Don't worry, he's too weak to go anywhere," the Head Warden answered before exiting the room.
The warden then followed suit, leaving the boy to his suffering.
*********
Overhearing what the Head Warden said, Jacky immediately moved aside, to the corner between the door and the wall. The door then slid opened as a moustache man walked out. A moment later, another man followed him. Both of them wore brown uniform and both of them didn't notice Jacky. Knowing that no one else was in the room, except Vies, Jacky quickly entered the room where he saw Vies laying on the floor, hugging his stomach.
"Vies!" Jacky cried, rushing over to him.
"J-Jacky?" Vies muttered in surprise, "W-What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to save you," Jacky answered, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, sort of." Vies answered weakly.
"Let me help you up," Jacky said.
Jacky slowly lifted Vies up to his feet. Putting his arm around Jacky's shoulder, Jacky slowly carried Vies to the door.
Just then, a man appeared at the door. It was the warden.
"I think I better stay, just in case," he whispered to himself before he saw the two, "Hey! Who are you? What are you doing?"
Jacky was shocked. He never expected that to happen.
"Trying to escape, eh? Well, that won't be easy!" the warden said as he pulled out his baton.
"Oh, yeah?" suddenly a calm and familiar voice from behind Jacky and Vies said before a blast sent the warden flying out of the room.
Surprised, Jacky and Vies turned around to see a dark, tall shadow looming over them. The shadow slowly took form of a human. It was Sorceress Adel!
"You're still young and naïve," the sorceress said calmly, "I wouldn't want you to end your life here."
Just then, a light surrounded the three before they disappeared.