AN: I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, it's definitely not my favorite out of the ones I've written. Chapter 5 is going to be different than the others ones out now so that'll be interesting though : Enjoy! Sorry for being a date late.
The week progressed at a slow and routine pace, just as the prison officials wanted. Wake up, sit around, go to interrogation, get beat up, eat, sleep. Wally began to fill his time with going over what could be happening outside the walls. How his friends and soldiers were doing. Sometimes he'd whisper stories about himself out loud, although they were all useless and likely already known by the Council. His favorite pastime was singing a soft tune, though. Music wasn't banned by the Council, but it was severely restricted. The majority of newer songs contained little to no lyrics, and all music from before the current government existed was banned. Wally only managed to know some older tunes because he grew up with a few ancient devices around, like handheld products that played music and applications. His used to be able to utilize the internet, but being nearly a hundred years old it was hard enough to even charge the thing, much less convert its primitive connection capabilities to adapt to the modern day.
On what Wally figured was a Sunday, a song drifted through his head, the chorus repeating "let's kill tonight". It was an unsettling song, mostly because of what memories it brought to mind. He decided to say it aloud, but really not for any good reason. He persuaded himself to think he was just sharing with Conner.
The ginger's voice was low and full of a kind of seeping and hateful remorse. "In the earlier days of the rebellion, before we had much of a rebel army, we had night raids on smaller communities. Used the places as outposts and gathered up the supplies we could. Normally we would try to be polite, ask if we could take refuge, and ask if they would join our cause if all had gone smoothly." There was a pause and a deep sigh. "One night, we decided the people here, after they shut the door in our face, deserved to pay the price for their loyalty. A couple of the guys took some scraps of wood and lit them up as torches. They set fire to any of the wooden structures and supplies they could find. The barn on the far side of the town was completely engulfed in the flames. The fire generated a huge plume of black smoke. There were some horrible noises, sounded like some pigs burning up." There was another pause, this one longer, before Wally muttered, "they would repeat 'lets kill tonight' as they marched through the shadows of buildings. The people inside could hear them, and they waited outside the doors, chanting. Just to scare them. They turned from men to wicked beasts. They marched into the houses and took their knifes. Didn't even use bullets. Let the townspeople bleed out as they wept and cried and it was a slaughter. Blood soaked the wooden floors and refused to burn." One of Wally's hand was now tightly curled into his hair, and his eyes were wide and blank, seeing it all over again as if it was right in front of him.
"I didn't stop them. I let them. I told them to do it. I wasn't myself. It was exactly what I feared would happen to me. I stopped treating the enemy as other human beings but as just tools for my trade, pawns in my path. I didn't sleep for days, and we made a rule to not kill anyone unless they were a threat. We'd just use a weak discharge of electricity set to the right frequency to disable the chips for a bit. The data in their memory banks wouldn't be there so even if they went to the Council to tell them the Council wouldn't believe it.
"That doesn't help me from forgetting any of it, though. I'll always remember. The war will end and I will have sleepless nights where I'll feel the slime of blood on my fingertips and remember the crazed look of my eyes in the reflection of a puddle, the background full of flames. I'll remember the smile."
There was an endless silence afterwards. Wally kept a hand over his mouth and felt a couple of tears slide down his cheeks and didn't notice Conner peering through the bars to look at him with worried eyes. Later he was shoved off to take a quick shower and then interrogated just after. He didn't feel like giving them a smile and saying anything witty. When they pushed him for an answer he'd just shout, "does it look like I know?!" The guards were definitely pissed off by that. One of the guards, a new one, was smiling though. His hair was a light blonde. He undid the buckles on one of Wally's wrist and repeated a question. Wally simply stared into his eyes. The blonde guard smiled slightly and quickly snapped Wally's wrist. The guards hurriedly pushed him out of the interrogation room, the blindfold on quickly and the handcuffs discarded. Wally was too shocked by the sudden pain to resist. He'd had worse before, but that didn't make pain from his other injuries decrease. Any movement spent sharp spikes of pain through his nerves and so he kept his arm at his side, dangling uselessly. Before the day ended a man that must've been the asylum's doctor came in, fitted Wally with a light cast (nothing really, most of it was only in the needed area) and departed without a word. He received no painkillers and his food was vacant of fruit yet again. The blonde guard from before passed by Wally's cell, waved an apple past the bars, and laughed as he left out of view. The redhead didn't have the energy to get angry at him, and when he tried to clench one of his fists he clenched the injured one and groaned from the pain. It had been a dull sore pain until then, so Wally had easily forgotten in his haze that he was in a sadistic hellhole where his wrist had been snapped. He slept early and whispered goodnight from his bed and figured Conner couldn't hear. However, always the surprising one, Conner whispered a goodnight in response to him. It gave the ginger something to smile about.