Chapter 9

Under the Veil

Cold.

I'm waiting for you.

Everything was so cold.

Hey, Ludwig, you comin' or not?

Lethargy. He felt like he was pushing his way through a field of cotton. His chest ached. Dots of light. Whooshing in his ears. Ringing.

Get up.

His head swam, and for a delirious moment, he could swear that Gilbert was calling out for him.

Come on!

Why? Was he late for something? And why was it was so cold? Merciless and absolutely numbing. Couldn't feel his feet. His hands were stiff. What had he gotten himself into? Where was Gilbert when Ludwig really needed him? Gilbert had always had excuses about why he could never be there. Why he went out, instead of staying home.

Gilbert was never there when Ludwig needed him.

He missed those mornings when Gilbert had actually been around. Few and far between. Must have been here now; Ludwig could hear him.

Wanted to answer him.

His fingers twitched, in a subconscious effort to seek Gilbert out, but nothing within him could really seem to come around.

Took him a long time to find his voice to mutter, weakly, "Gilbert... I can't wake up."

Couldn't. He couldn't seem to open his eyes, no matter how hard he tried. He had never felt more exhausted in his entire life. Every muscle ached with a dull throb, and he didn't have the strength even to shiver. Just twitches, every so often, random jerks of limbs without him controlling it. It hurt to breathe. Hurt to think.

Hurt.

This might have been what dying felt like. At least Gilbert had come, for once, to see him across that river. He wasn't alone. He could feel it.

Reaching up with great effort, still well in the depths of sleep, Ludwig ran his fingers through his hair, wincing as the pain blazed up. His head threatened to split open at any moment, and even the slightest movement was agonizing. Could barely feel his fingers. His hand fell still beside his head, too weak to go back down any farther. He was going to vomit.

See? I told you that we would be together...

What had he done to feel this way? Gilbert was to blame, no doubt. He was probably just hung over. Maybe Gilbert had snuck him one of those pills when he hadn't been looking. God knew he'd tried that before. Successful this time, maybe. Felt so out of it. Dizzy, despite laying completely inert.

Someone was whispering. Was it Gilbert?

Forever.

The tantalizing smell of coffee was suddenly upon him, warm and comforting and familiar. He turned his head wearily, as a heavy movement shifted the covers beside him, and then a familiar voice crooned, near his ear, 'You're sleeping in? What's the world coming to?'

With more effort than he'd ever needed in his life, Ludwig somehow managed to open his eyes.

Exhaustion crept up, even after that small effort, and when Ludwig somehow rolled his head over to the side, there Gilbert sat, watching over him with an unusually serene expression. Oh, Gilbert. What a beautiful sight he was, despite it all. Missed him so much when he was gone. So much. Wished Gilbert would have stayed by his side every second of every day.

Gilbert stared down at him, and Ludwig couldn't really seem to get enough of the sight of him, even though Gilbert seemed strangely pale and vague, like they were separated by a mist. Far away somehow, even though he was sitting right there. Gilbert was smiling, eyes calm and stance loose. In a good mood. Ludwig loved it when Gilbert was calm. When he wasn't drunk. When he was a (somewhat) good guy.

Smiling weakly, despite the hammering pain behind his forehead, Ludwig raised his arm, and reached out.

"What have you done to me?" he murmured, huskily. "I never drink this much."

'Well,' Gilbert murmured, resting a hand upon Ludwig's face and stroking his cheek gently, 'Good parties require sacrifice, don't they?'

"I don't party," he retorted, weakly, and Gilbert just snorted.

'Yeah. Yeah, I know.'

A squirm, as Ludwig tried to get closer to Gilbert without making his head hurt more than it already was.

"Lay down with me."

'Sorry, Ludwig. I can't. I gotta go."

Go? Gilbert always had to go. Always gone, somewhere.

He leaned into the warmth of Gilbert's hand (oh, god, it felt so good after so long), too tired to be mad and closing his eyes in exhaustion, but the cold the air around him was becoming increasingly unbearable.

You shouldn't drink so much, Gilbert.

'Ludwig. I love you. Always did.'

The words were garbled and so soft that he could barely hear them, and he clung desperately to the hand next to him, for any kind of warmth. Never had he known such cold.

"Did you turn the heat off, Gilbert?" he asked, furrowing his brow as the pain burned white, "It's so cold."

Gilbert didn't respond, a heavy silence hanging above, and Ludwig could feel himself drifting further into agony as the gentle hand moved from his face and ran through his hair, soothingly. The ache in his body was ever intensifying, and he felt a wave of light-headedness come over him.

Beyond the dizziness, a sense of unease. Anxiety. Something was out of order, something was wrong, something was off, and Gilbert suddenly spoke gently to him again, close to his ear, but it sounded strange this time, and Ludwig couldn't understand.

Pain, roaring up. This headache was more than anything he had ever experienced, and even the soft voice beside of him was causing him pain.

Felt like he was dying, he could swear it, and with every second that passed he could feel himself slipping down the side of the cliff. Could barely breathe. Felt like his lungs were full of glass. He wasn't sure if he was going to vomit, pass out, cry, or all three. Felt so bad, so bad, hadn't ever felt this bad in his entire life, not like this—

"Gilbert, please, can you get me some medicine?" he pleaded, in a high-pitched whine that sounded more like a wounded dog, and there was a short silence before that soft voice answered, and even through his haze Ludwig could hear the strange, accented notes.

"Not to move, eh? Ah, you have...fever?"

Could barely even understand it, the accent was so thick. That voice didn't belong to Gilbert.

Unease tuned into outright terror.

It scared him half to death, that damn voice, and in a panic Ludwig opened his eyes and tried to bolt upright. But the movement was too fast for his broken body, and his vision turned completely black as his head swam with fire, and he stopped short as the wooziness took him down. The whooshing in his ears came back, and then suddenly he was laying back down again without him controlling it. Fuckin' passed out, at just trying to sit up.

That was terrifying.

There would be no desperado run right now, not now, couldn't even sit up, could he, could barely see at all, and Ludwig could only rest his head back and see the stars across his vision, groaning his pain, and suddenly gloved hands cupped his face.

"I study more the German, yeah? Understand?"

Barely.

That voice.

He stayed silent, too afraid and too pained to answer. Felt nauseous. So dizzy. Trembling, from cold and exhaustion. His face was damp from a cold-sweat. The hands were suddenly gone from his face, and a cool towel dabbed at his forehead.

That voice...

Ludwig tried again to open his eyes, although he was afraid of what he might see, and this time his vision cleared enough for him to make out his surroundings, blurry and faint though it was. Took a minute for his brain to react. The room he was in was unfamiliar, painted a dark shade of dreary burgundy that lively Gilbert would have never allowed in his home. The window was covered with thick curtains; cream. No sunlight streamed through. He could see his breath in the air. Inside? The blankets were a bland cream too, and he looked over to his other side, and the large figure that was hovering above him slowly came into focus.

It was not Gilbert.

"Feeling...okay?"

It was not Alfred.

"I was, ah, how you say...worry?"

It was not Roderich.

"You are very sick."

Someone else.

Stranger.

Ludwig tilted his head upward, caught under a pair of pale grey eyes that did not seem the least concerned, despite their owner's declaration, and immediately shuddered. He knew those eyes. Where from?

The panic kept on mounting, but he couldn't move. Trapped.

The man above was smiling eagerly, broad and tall, and then gentle hands were running down his face again; the gloves on his hands were soft, and warm. Ludwig tried to pull back from the unwelcome touch, and regretted it immediately. A sudden coughing fit, coming from nowhere, overtook him. He couldn't breathe.

The man above reached down, and started to thump his back, gently.

"Is okay! I get more...medicine? Yeah?"

His whole body shook with the force of rattling coughs. Pain. Agony. No air.

And the whole time, the gentle hands stayed upon him.

Finally, after long, painful minutes, the fit subsided, and the hands were on his face, one lifting his chin and the other putting something towards his mouth. A pill, under his tongue, and somehow he managed to swallow it. Felt like the hardest thing he had ever done. He was so sore. Resting his head back on the pillow, on the verge of slipping away, he found his voice after a struggle, and looked upwards.

"Where am I?" he asked, and the man brushed his hair out of his eyes with almost loving attentiveness. How was that somehow so scary, then?

A hesitation, as if the man were struggling to understand the words and then form a reply. Then, a barely comprehensible answer.

"Home."

Home? Felt like he hadn't been home in years; Gilbert had been gone. Not home without Gilbert.

Gilbert.

"What's wrong with me?" he heard himself whining, against the ache and the thickness of his throat, "What happened?"

A short silence, another hesitation, another slow attempt to understand.

"You remember, ah—" a sudden frustrated curse in another language "—nothing?"

What should he remember? So many voices were swimming in his ears. So many thoughts. Couldn't focus.

Where was Gilbert? Something wasn't right.

Whispers.

Head was killing him, and Gilbert wasn't here like he should have been. Always gone.

Goodbye, brother.

A burst of blinding pain.

A screech in his mind, a light coming on, and he squinted his eyes as a terrible flood of memories came rushing back with enough force to make his chest hurt, and he remembered everything. Everything. The fog cleared, and he could see. The Stasi office in the distance, being so tired as Gilbert cried and pleaded, a horrible sense of hopelessness, the car ride to the border, the foolhardy jump, the trek through the snow, how he had been so mercilessly cold, his legs numb as he tried to find help, the great dead tree he had fallen before, the gnawing regret of a past life as he had drifted into darkness.

Ivan. That name. That man.

It was Ivan.

He'd been caught. He'd found someone in the forest, alright, but not the person he had wanted. Caught. Trapped, lost, helpless. Hopeless. He felt the nausea wash over him, above the exhaustion, and closed his eyes in despair as he tried hard not to burst into tears right there under Ivan's hand. Oh. He would rather have died out there in the snow than to be recaptured.

Ivan's fingers ran gently over his hair.

Couldn't escape. Couldn't ever escape.

"Don't touch me," Ludwig moaned, voice barely above a whisper, unable to move, and he hated the feeling of helplessness.

He couldn't move.

No choice but to sit there and let Ivan do whatever the hell he would.

The Russian lingering above him didn't respond, maybe not even understanding what Ludwig had said to him, continuing to run his hands through Ludwig's hair, as though he had never touched another human being before. Ludwig knew that it was probably only curiosity derived from him being a West German who had found himself somewhere he should not be, after this whole ordeal, but it was beyond disturbing nonetheless.

Somehow, Ivan's gentle motions were more alarming than blows. A Red General like that, a man with such power, such rank, sitting here and all but petting some man he had randomly kidnapped, for lack of better word.

Terrifying.

Ludwig began to shiver, as the bitter cold settled in even through the blanket. His forehead was covered with a cold sweat again, so soon after Ivan had wiped it dry. His lungs felt like they were full of water. They crackled whenever he took a breath. Sickness. He had contracted some kind of illness out there in the snow, he realized, as the delirium of fever controlled his disjointed mind. Why he felt so awful. And those damn fingers in his hair made him want to cry all the more, from sheer frustration. He couldn't stop them. Couldn't get rid of them. Couldn't shake them.

Go away.

Just wanted Ivan to go away.

"Please leave me alone," he whimpered, and Ivan finally fell back into a chair that resided at the side of the bed. Leaning back, Ivan smiled over at him, and nodded, pulling a book from the end table onto his lap.

Didn't leave the room, like Ludwig had meant, but at least he wasn't touching him anymore.

"Okay. You to sleep, now. I to study more, da?"

"Fine," he conceded, too exhausted to argue, and closed his eyes. Falling asleep had never been so easy, as the Russian's smooth voice rose softly above the silence as he studied aloud.

When he was better, if he ever got better, perhaps he could try to escape again. If not, he would find means to end it all himself, before the Russian could.

With Gilbert's face in his mind, he went out.

Whispering.

Time passed.

Days. Weeks. Ludwig passed every waking second in a great blur, and the only instances he remembered were when his fever mercifully broke and he came into the realm of consciousness. He was always cold.

Always cold. But never alone.

He could not recall ever seeing any sunlight coming in through the windows, but no matter what time of day he awoke to, he was never alone.

If he was strong enough, and lucid enough, sometimes Ludwig would lift his head, and see that Toris was there, leaning in the corner and staring off into space with a blank expression, daydreaming no doubt. Sometimes there was a woman who would lean over him and tend to his fever with motherly gentleness. Other times there was a young man, a kid, curious and prying.

No matter who was there, always Ivan sat off to the side of the bed, staring at him, book in hand. Even in the dead of night, he would open his eyes and find that he was being watched.

Did Ivan not sleep?

Whenever Ludwig was awake, Ivan would set the book down upon the end table and come over, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching out to run his fingers through Ludwig's hair in what he might have thought was a soothing manner. Hardly. Every time, Ludwig just shuddered.

He could hear Ivan talking to him, but he did not have the strength to understand nor speak back, and only turned away from that awful gaze, and fell back into delirium.

He lost track of the day, of the month, of where he was and why, his unfocused mind unable to ponder even the simplest of quandaries. He had never been this sick in his life, and such disorientation was new to him. Felt strange. Vulnerable as could be. Sometimes, he wondered if he would even pull through this, for the way he felt. Illness overtook even the strongest, the youngest. Young people got sick and died, too.

But even as his muddled thoughts and dreams took him into the depths of lunacy, those gloved hands continued to touch obsessively at his hair and face, no matter the time of day. It was intrusive, and unnerving. Frightening.

For it all, though, each time he came to he seemed to improve, just a bit.

One day, he woke up, and felt his lungs free of liquid. He could breathe again. Soon after, the coughing fits stopped. More days passed before he began to feel the first moments of real clarity.

Hours, dragging by.

One day, couldn't say how long it had been, Ludwig woke up, and felt lucid. Alert, if only barely. Clarity. He opened his eyes, and really saw his surroundings. He didn't know what time of day it was, but the dim light hinted that it was either daybreak or dusk. Both were equally cold around here, it seemed. As he expected, Ivan was hanging over him, pale eyes lidded thoughtfully as he sat on the edge of the bed and flipped through a book. They sat in silence for a moment, and Ludwig could only wait for Ivan to notice that he was awake.

It didn't take long.

Glancing over, just to check, Ivan happened to catch his gaze, and then broke into a smile.

"Awake?"

Ludwig closed his eyes and braced himself, knowing Ivan would be upon him in a second. He was, as usual, those huge hands running over his hair as always. And, as always, Ludwig could only shudder, helpless to do much about it.

"Feel better, yeah?" came the soft voice from above, and Ludwig nodded, weakly.

Already, he felt like going back to sleep. Such small movements took such effort.

Ivan moved suddenly, reaching down, and with ease he lifted Ludwig's head up off the pillow.

"Drink," he ordered, and there was suddenly a cool glass pressed against his lips. He obeyed, assuming it was water, but as soon as the liquid hit the back of his throat, the burn told him otherwise. It was bitter, but Ivan put his hand over his mouth so that he would not spit it out. "Drink."

He did. It was warm vodka, he knew, and the terrible taste of it made him want to retch. Sick as he was, the last thing he wanted was alcohol. It was with effort that he finally put it all back, not having much of a choice in the matter, and Ivan lowered him back down, gingerly.

"Vodka helps when you are sick. Makes you stronger, yeah?" He laughed, a strange, high-pitched sound, almost a damn chirp, that was more unnerving than his speech, and leaned in. "My German is better, huh? I studied."

It was better, much better.

Made him wonder...

"How long was I out?" Ludwig moaned, and his voice was cracked and hoarse from disuse, throat scratchy and sore.

Ivan's hand ran up and down his cheek, absently.

Always touching. Some people were just like that, yeah, but it was an utterly horrifying situation all the same. Stuck in bed, trapped in a strange land, held prisoner against his will, with this man, this strange, frightening man. This man, with the power to have the world beneath his feet, who hovered over him constantly, always touching him without consent. A soldier, a good ten or fifteen years older than he was, acting so bizarrely around him. Made his stomach twist.

It was almost as if...

Well. Didn't even want to think about that.

Ivan smiled down at him, and whispered, thoughtfully, "Oh, it must be...four weeks." He allowed Ludwig only a split second to digest this information, and then he had leaned back in, murmuring, again, "My German is better, right? I studied while you sleep."

It was a simple question; a harmless search for approval. So how was he still so damn frightening, even when smiling? He stared down at Ludwig with alarming intensity, and Ludwig could only nod, once, heart racing with more than just fever. Ivan paused for a moment, as though appraising his honesty, and his brows raised in apparent satisfaction.

What would have happened, Ludwig wondered, if he had replied in the negative? If he had denied the compliment Ivan sought?

He could only imagine.

As an afterthought, Ludwig added, "It's...very good."

For once, his politeness worked in his favor.

Ivan's whirling eyes calmed, a little, his face softened, and Ivan pulled himself to his feet. "Sleep," he whispered, as he backed to the door. "I have to get back to work. Now that you are, ah, awake, I think you can be alone, no?"

By awake, Ivan had no doubt meant conscious, but didn't know the word to say so.

Ludwig nodded, even though, truthfully, he did not want to be alone. Not here. Didn't even know where the hell he was. Didn't want to be alone, but didn't want to be with Ivan, either. Not when he was barely hovering over the edge of consciousness, tottering on the fine line of delirium, not when everything here was so different, and the air was cold and stale and the room was too dark, and he didn't know where he was. Didn't matter, in the end; with a click of the door Ivan was gone, and Ludwig was alone. Without the strength even to stand, or to sit up, he could only stare up at the ceiling, and wish that he would fall asleep and dream again.

Gilbert's voice had been so comforting, even if it had been only a hallucination.

He'd rather dream.

I'll take care of you, Lutz. I always will.

He wondered if Gilbert was laying somewhere now, thinking of him.

He was thinking of Gilbert.

The clock was always ticking.

Constantly. Tick tock.

Time never seemed to stop, no matter how much he wanted it to. The minutes kept on ticking by. He glanced up at the clock on occasion, and wished he could make it fall off the wall just by thinking about it. No matter how hard he tried, it stayed put.

For some strange reason, even though there was a clock on the wall, there was no keeping track of time in this constantly veiled world. Or maybe it was his head that was veiled. He saw the clock, but his mind couldn't really comprehend it. Maybe it had been hours since Ivan had left. Maybe it had been minutes. Being trapped in this bed for so long was making him a little crazy.

This was the first day he had woken up and felt 'good'. Awake, really awake, for the first time.

And then there was coffee. He could swear he smelled coffee. Or was it just his mind playing tricks on him again? He was always drifting off into sleep, it seemed.

There was a shuffle through the room, a clatter of porcelain on the end table, and, gathering himself for the day ahead, Ludwig opened his eyes.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," came a drawled, bored voice, and he jumped in surprise when he realized that a pair of eyes were boring into his own, a mere breath away. Pulling back so fast that his ribs ached with the effort, heart racing, Ludwig nearly toppled off the edge of the bed in terror.

A snort.

"Calm down, won't you," the voice said, and when Ludwig's overloaded mind finally woke up, he saw that it was not Ivan that was hanging over him.

It was Toris.

He did not look pleased. Actually, Toris looked exceedingly irritated.

They watched each other in a moment of intensity, and then Toris raised a brow, inclining his head in Ludwig's direction.

"Bacterial pneumonia," he suddenly said, breaking the silence, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills, tossing them onto the bed with swift indifference. "You nearly died, you know. Though, I can't say whether you got pneumonia from the snow or from the shitty hospital when they were treating you for hypothermia. Either way. You're lucky."

Lucky? A strong word.

Resting back onto the pillows, eyes narrowed in annoyance and pain as his head began to pound, Ludwig sent Toris an equally distasteful look, grabbing up the bottle and clutching it in his hands. This medicine was the only thing that had kept him alive, and he was damn well going to finish the bottle. Needed his strength at full force to get the hell out of here when the time came.

The stare between them was tense. Awkward.

Made more so when Toris turned his eyes back to the coffee, face so lofty, and said, "I won't lie. I was hoping you would die. It would be better for everyone."

That may have been, but Ludwig scoffed all the same and muttered, bitterly, "Likewise."

Tilting his head to the side, Toris watched him once more, thoughtfully, and then nodded his head to the counter. "I brought you some coffee. I hope you like sugar."

Ludwig didn't, not much, but his brow came up nonetheless, if only because he was fucking freezing and coffee sounded like something close to heaven right about then. Didn't really trust Toris too much, honestly, but he'd have drank it anyway, even if Toris had admitted to poisoning it. Toris seemed to want him dead. Had no shame or hesitation in voicing it. Ludwig just wished he knew why.

"Thanks," he finally grumbled, and Toris walked backwards and leaned against the wall, and it was then that Ludwig noticed for the first time that Toris' left arm was up in a sling.

Well. He tried to think back on events past; he hadn't done that, had he? He had only knocked Toris on the side of the head, and he had not fallen with nearly enough force to break his arm. Or had he?

Ah. Who cared?

Toris saw his wandering gaze, and gave a half-smile, rolling his shoulder indifferently.

"I let you get away," was his simple explanation, and Ludwig's first feeling was that of alarm, because the unspoken conclusion was that Ivan had been the one who had caused the injury, then he felt something like fear, because Toris said it so casually that it did not appear to be anything out of the ordinary, and, lastly, he felt a bit of shame, because it had been his escape that had brought down such punishment upon Toris.

Shame?

Wait a minute. Nope. No shame. Gone like the wind, in a blink. Toris had just declared, after all, that he very much wished Ludwig had died. Kinda wished he had been the one to break Toris' damn arm. Wouldn't apologize, that was for sure. None of this was his fault. He hadn't asked to be dragged out into the heart of the Eastern Bloc. All they had had to do was arrest him and ship him off. That had been the deal. Not all of this.

Still, he cast one more glance at Toris' arm, curiosity mostly, and Toris shrugged his shoulder with what looked like a leer.

"What? I've had worse than this. This is why you're born with two arms."

Ludwig scoffed once more. Toris was hardly bothered, and so Ludwig wasn't either. Didn't care much about what happened to Toris, in the end, as long as he could get out of here. Toris was only one more obstacle. Something to remove.

Taking the coffee mug in his hand, Ludwig stared down at the steaming black liquid and asked, tentatively, "Where are we?"

"Home." He could feel Toris' eyes upon him, but he did not care to meet his gaze. "Ivan cut his tour short after that little, ah...incident. From Brno, he had the train redirected straight back home."

"And where," Ludwig murmured, wincing when the coffee hit his tongue, "is home?"

Far too sweet, but warm.

"Mirny."

Oh, for fuck's sake, Toris. What an asshole.

He didn't know the town, obviously, and wondered aloud, crankily, "And where exactly is Mirny?"

"A new town," Toris supplied, patiently if not quite condescendingly, "founded around a diamond mine discovered in Eastern Siberia."

Siberia.

So, he realized with a shudder, he really had been sent to Siberia. His prison was far more elegant than the concrete cell he had originally imagined, but a prison all the same. For now.

"This is Ivan's private residence, when he's not on call. This is where you'll spend most of your time. This will be your room, I suppose. I can't recommend leaving it unless absolutely necessary. And the town is very small; one post office. One doctor. One KGB office. One prison. And everyone knows the general, so I can't recommend going out there, either. Also, I wouldn't recommend..."

Ludwig was barely listening. Mind whirring away. Because even the strongest prisons could sometimes have their weaknesses, and as long as he kept his wits about him and took a good care of his surroundings, maybe—

Maybe.

Toris quickly dashed any hope of future escapes with his next words, which broke through Ludwig's haze like a knife.

"—but, to give you a sense of distance, allow me to put it this way: we are almost ten thousand kilometers from Moscow. Ten days on the train. A few days to reach the train, to begin with. And if you try to run now, you'll find nothing but forests and snow for five thousand kilometers. It's winter, so expect extreme sub-zero temperatures on good days. Nothing over minus thirty until February. If you're lucky. Last year we actually reached minus seventy! That was a fun month."

Nausea.

Seeing his sudden paleness, Toris' look turned grim, and he shook his head, more to himself.

"Germans were never meant to live in this winter. You shouldn't be here. You'll wish you in a damn gulag before long. Well. Too late now, I guess. Shoulda died, like I said."

Toris was right; he shouldn't be here. None of this was right.

Escape certainly looked beyond bleak, and Ludwig set his mug down as his hands began to tremble. The thought alone of being in this godforsaken land, where something as simple as stepping outside could become a death sentence, was far beyond overwhelming. It had sounded noble and honorable, certainly, when he had been cornered, with Gilbert's pleas behind him, but now that he was actually here...

He did not know how long he would last.

Stupid Gilbert, that stupid, stupid man, that impatient, miserable son of a bitch—

Couldn't have just waited, and now Ludwig sat here in the middle of nowhere. Alone.

A silence, and then a sigh, and suddenly Toris had settled down on the edge of the bed, and when Ludwig managed to meet his eyes, he could see that Toris' stern face had softened. Just a little.

"Listen," Toris began, quietly, "You'll get used to it pretty fast. It's not so bad out here, once you get used to it. Just do what you're told and don't talk back and you'll do fine. You didn't die, so you gotta make the best of it. You'll be fine. You'll see."

He felt sick. He was going to vomit, he was sure of it.

Could barely talk, but Ludwig somehow managed to utter, in a deep, miserable whisper, "What do you mean? I'll be fine. What do you mean?"

No answer.

His head was hurting more than ever, and when Toris shook his head and stood and walked to the door, Ludwig said after him, "But I still don't understand. I don't understand why I'm here. Tell me, please. Why am I here?"

Just tell him. He was so confused. Didn't understand. Why wasn't he in the prison?

There was a moment of silence, and when Toris looked over his shoulder, moving his broken arm gingerly, the strange light in his eyes made Ludwig shudder.

"Why? I ask myself that every day," he whispered, as he eyed Ludwig from the doorframe.

Ludwig could only stare back, and knew he must have looked terrified.

Toris' impassive face fell, just for a second. A look of exhaustion.

Regret.

"Oh. ...I shoulda shot you."

Then he was gone.

Alone.