Every time.
Every time the silence descended long enough, and Sena found himself wondering if he'd just imagined it, or if it might have been a dog, or something... Every single time his heart had just started to settle, the screaming would start again.
It wasn't always the same scream. Once it had even sounded like an animal, wild and baying, lifting to an unnatural high pitch that raised the hair on his arms. But it was always the same voice, the same agony, and it had been at least four or five times by now. Every time he'd left the yard to try to find its source, it had always stopped before he had gotten there.
But there was really only one place that made sense.
Still parched and winded from running, Sena crouched outside the bolted door, the one that his master had explicitly told him not to open, and put his face in his hands.
The key in the padlock glinted as if to tempt him, but he had never been less tempted to do something in his life.
Sure, he could easily open the door, and let out whoever was in there.
And then what? They'd both be trapped in this house until Hiruma returned, and that would be the end of them.
For all he knew, Hiruma hadn't really left at all, but was behind the door, actively torturing some captive back there. Something had to be drawing out those screams.
Sena tried to clear the mental image. He had to get away from here. He knew that if he was at the door when the next scream came, well, he'd have to open it then, he'd have to do whatever he could to help, even if it was nothing more than holding the prisoner's hand, or offering a stolen sip of water. Even if it meant facing Hiruma's wrath.
That's why he needed leave the door, and go back outside, to his assigned task, where he could pretend not to know where the screaming was coming from, and give himself a chance to be the coward he knew he was, the kind of coward that stayed out of things like this—
Rather than a scream, there came a muffled sob this time, that sounded like a drawn-out, "Nooo..." Sena suddenly wondered if all those silences in between the previous screams had really been silences at all, or if they'd all been filled with unheard cries like this one.
Without conscious thought, he found the key turning in his hand, the padlock slipping free. He put a trembling hand on the bolt, knowing that he was probably dooming himself to the same fate as whoever was locked behind it. But then, he probably would have ended up in there one way or another, he consoled himself, and slid the door open.
Rather than the torture chamber that he was expecting, he found a bedroom not too different from the one he'd spent the night in. The curtains were drawn shut, the walls were hung with picture frames, and there was a bed against the far wall with a huge man in it, stubble-chinned and muscular and drenched with perspiration. The man tossed his head wildly, sweeping a sweaty mop of hair back and forth over the pillow. When his crumpled, unseeing face turned and caught the light from the doorway, it shone with wetness. The man was sobbing brokenly, desperately, in his sleep.
Filled with pity, Sena took one step into the room, and the man's eyes flared open as if he'd physically felt the intrusion.
For a moment, they both froze, staring at each other.
Then the man on the bed surged upright, snarling. It was definitely the same voice that had produced all those pain-filled screams, but awake, it roared instead with hatred and fury: "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Sena's whole body went slack, the padlock and key dropping from his hands to the carpet. He wanted to run, but his exhausted legs wouldn't carry him, he could only stare in shock at the contorted face of the man now struggling to get up—
"Move!" was the only warning he got, as he was shoved aside by something that surged past him, smelling oddly of citrus. He found himself flat on his rear, looking up at Hiruma's back. Hiruma, who spared only a second to look down at him, with a venom in his gaze that could have killed, if if it had been held any longer. Hiruma, who seemed to be holding some kind of baton-like weapon loosely in one hand, letting it dangle behind his leg, shielding it from sight. Hiruma, who advanced into the room, and looked calm all of a sudden, posture open, voice casual, as if he were visiting an old friend.
"All right, Musashi, you fucking old man, you had some shitty dreams, now you better get some sense into that senile brain of yours before I have to knock it back in for you."
The man jerked at the words, and it suddenly became obvious that he couldn't have gotten out of the bed, no matter his struggles: his arms and legs were chained to the four posts. Sena had never been in any danger.
Now he was dead. Worse than dead.
Without waiting to see what happened next, he ran. Back to the room he'd woken up in that morning, where he could tuck himself into a corner, press his face into the ground, and wish he never had.