This is the first thing I've written for ages. It's good to be back! Huge thank you to dreamcatchr88 for beta-ing this!
I was inspired to write this by Season 4 of 24, where torture has been used in almost every episode, and has been deemed acceptable simply because it was the "good guys" who were doing it.
I was also influenced by the dance piece Swansong by Christopher Bruce (and if you've ever seen it, you'll know just how much of an influence it was when you read this!). Bruce was influenced by the novel A Man by Oriana Fallaci, which I havent read myself, but the title was too perfect for this fic to pass up!
A Man
A question. No response. Punch. The question again, louder this time. Silence. Kick, shove. A different question. He grits his teeth to stop himself from crying out. Slap. The first question again. Still no answer. Slap, kick, punch. He is dragged roughly from his chair by his interrogators. They make him stand in front of it. Defiantly, he stares straight ahead of him, his gaze passing the two men and seeming to go through even the wall of the cell. They start to give him commands; "Sit down…stand up…stand on the chair…kneel on the floor." Confused, he does what they say. They laugh at his child-like obedience. The older man kicks him hard in the stomach, making him curl into a little ball on the floor. He brings his arms up over his head protectively. The younger man grabs his wrist and twists one of his arms behind his back until he feels like it will break. He is pulled to his feet and pushed back onto the chair. The questions begin again, and they are coming so fast now that he does not know what to do. They strike his face again and again, all the time shouting questions and accusations. Suddenly he jumps to his feet and frantically replies. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" he pleads. They laugh again and push him back down. The chair rocks dangerously backwards and forwards as they push him harder and harder. In the middle of the sickening motion, he catches a glance of the tiny window, high up in one wall of the cell. There is a shaft of sunlight coming from it, painting a gold path on the floor of the cell, a diagonal path leading from the window to his chair. From his chair to the window. Eventually, his interrogators leave, frustrated that he is not going to answer them. The door, in the wall opposite the window, slams behind them heavily.
He slumps forward in his chair, his body coming to rest on his thighs. His hands move up to his aching head, his arms crossing over each other and holding his head down, like great wings. Slowly, he lets out a long, low scream full of pain and frustration. He rests in this position for a while, recovering from the previous torture. At length he straightens up, his spine uncurling slowly and becoming completely straight, giving him a feeling of having more space than he actually does. He looks around the cell. It is tiny, dark, suffocating. It is empty, save for the chair, yet there is a rhythmic dripping sound coming from somewhere. There is also a metallic scraping sound coming from somewhere outside the cell. Another prisoner, perhaps, or maybe it is the interrogators readying another weapon to use against him. His eye is caught again by the small window. He cannot see anything through it, except for the light. He wonders what he would see outside, if he could reach the window to look out of it. He considers moving his chair underneath it and standing on it to see out, but he is afraid the interrogators might hear him moving and come back. Besides, he realises, even standing on the chair he would not be high enough to reach the window. He stares at the window longingly, but his hands grip the sides of the chair tightly, as if he is holding on to it for his life. He turns his head away from the light, gazing forwards at the wall of the cell. His mouth is dry. He swallows, and notices the loudness of the action in his own ears. He looks up at the window again, wondering how there could possibly be people out there going about their day to day lives while he is trapped in here, knowing what is coming and yet unable to avoid it. It seems insane that people do not know what happens behind the closed door of an interrogation room, that people believe they know everything there is to know about the world around them and yet are ignorant to his cries of pain. What seems even more insane is that, until he was brought here, he was one of them. He knows now that no amount of experience or knowledge could have prepared him for this, feels that no person knows what it is to be trapped until they have been locked in this very cell. He hears footsteps approaching the door, heavy and determined. They beat an even rhythm; it seems as though they reach the door at the exact moment they intended to, not even a second early or late. He stares wildly at the window, as if it will suddenly open a gaping hole in the wall and allow him to escape. Reluctantly he pulls his gaze away, steeling himself for the next round and determined not to give in to their demands.
A question. No response. Punch. The question again, louder this time. Silence. Kick, shove. A different question. He grits his teeth to stop himself from crying out. Slap. The first question again. Still no answer. Slap, kick, punch. They are back. Again, he is pulled from the chair by the older man – he has heard the younger one call him Jack. He does not yet know the younger man's name. He does not really think it matters. They may be different people, have different families and home lives, but here they serve one purpose: to make him talk. Jack drags him over to the wall of the cell. He is pushed up against the wall. Looking up, he notices that he is directly below the window. Jack holds him by the throat with one hand, and hits him with the other. His hand draws back smeared with blood from where he has hit so hard that the skin of the lower lip has split, spilling blood down his chin and onto his t-shirt. As if instructed to do so, the younger man hands Jack a tissue. Jack removes his other hand to wipe away the blood, letting him gasp in stale air for a moment.
"Thanks, Vaughn," Jack says gruffly, folding the dirty tissue and putting it in his pocket. Vaughn. That is his name. He wonders briefly why Jack calls Vaughn by his surname, while the younger man uses no such formalities. It does not matter. They are not people to him; they are, at this moment in time, his enemies. Vaughn steps in then, yanking him away from the wall. He lurches forward with the unexpected force, stumbling against Vaughn on his weary legs. Vaughn pushes him backwards into Jack. They continue this for what seems like forever. They push him back and forth, and each time they stop him, they ask him a question. He refuses to answer and he is shoved away again. He starts to feel sick. A couple of times, he is pushed so roughly that he falls before he reaches the other man. His head strikes the cold floor and everything in his vision begins to swim and shimmer with black spots. They do not let him rest. They lift him up, carefully cradling him, and place him gently back on the chair. Then it begins again. He is pulled from the chair and thrown around the small cell. If it were not for the new bruises he could feel forming, he would have thought he was only remembering what they had done earlier. But he knows that this is real. And he knows that if they would only let him rest for a moment, he would tell them anything they wanted to know, just to make the pain stop. But they are too carried away to heed his weakening cries, getting too much enjoyment from playing with him, and so they do not stop until he is too weak even to cry out.
They leave him in a crumpled heap on the floor. He pulls his knees into his chest and wraps his bruised arms around himself. Eventually, he crawls over to the chair and pulls himself up so that he can sit on it again. He looks round at the window. Still staring up at the light, he stands and faces it. He reaches up with one aching arm, and then the other. His arms fall to his sides limply. He looks back at the chair. He is afraid to stray any further from it than he already has. Turning once again to the window, he takes a few shaky steps along the shaft of light. Then he turns back to the chair, torn between the relative freedom of the window's refreshing light, and the familiarity of the hard metal chair. He has been sitting there for days. He knows every inch of it, and whenever the interrogators take him from it, his only thought is to reach it again, to sit back down and collapse in its security. Now he has had the courage to leave it by himself, to stand and move towards the window without the fear of what the interrogators will do to him if they return and find him moving around so freely. That fear no longer haunts him as much. What is there that they can do to him that they have not already done? He takes a few more steps, moving closer and closer to the window. He continues walking, turning back every few steps to look at the chair. Soon, he finds himself directly underneath the window. He reaches up again, trying desperately to reach it. It is useless. This room was not designed for escape. There is only one way to leave it; through the door. He moves back to the chair, and a little wave of relief washes over him as he sits back down. With one lingering glance at the window, he turns back to face the wall. He hears the footsteps approaching again.
A question. No response. Punch. The question again, louder this time. Silence. Kick, shove. A different question. He grits his teeth to stop himself from crying out. Slap. The first question again. Still no answer. Slap, kick, punch. This time, they have brought a small metal trolley with them. On it, there is an array of needles filled with different coloured liquids. They pick them up slowly, one by one, explaining what each liquid will do to him. They share the explanations seamlessly. It is as if this whole process has been rigorously rehearsed. The torrent of questions comes again, and like before, he refuses to answer. Jack brings a needle full of a dark red liquid close to his face. He does not remember what function this particular liquid performs, but he does not imagine that there is any great difference between them all. They are designed to cause pain. He cries quietly, silent tears streaking his dirty face. Vaughn laughs and calls him pathetic. Suddenly, powered by intense fear, he leaps from the chair and escapes to the other side of the cell. Nowhere further to run, he presses himself against the wall as the two men approach him. Jack has put the needle back on the tray. They hit him again and again, angry at his attempt to escape them. They tell him he is worthless and evil. Desperately, he tries to get back to the chair, but Vaughn sees what he is doing and holds it just out of his reach. He becomes limp and passive in Jack's arms, letting the two men do what they want to him. He has no strength left to fight them or to hold them off. His eyes slip closed, and each thump blends into the next, an unending flood of pain. When he becomes entirely unresponsive, they carry him back to the chair and place him on it. He does not move. Vaughn prods him, trying to get a reaction. There is none. Vaughn looks at Jack, slightly horrified. Silently, unnoticed, he stands and walks to the window. When he reaches it, he looks back once and smiles. It is over. Silently, he leaves, as the two men stand by the chair.