One Hundred Days
Rating M (R)
Day 3
The third day, a loaf of stale bread was thrown into the cell. It bounced into the no-man's-land that resided between the two prisoners.
Eons seemed to pass. The clanking of the brig door signaled that the guard had departed.
His eyes slowly rose from the bread to the other prisoner. She did not look at him, or the bread. She was in the same position; her knees huddled to her chest and her graying eyes staring into the space on the floor in front of her.
He reached over and took the bread in his cracked and blistered hands, and lifted it to his cracked and bleeding lips. It was hard, yes, but it was food. More than he had had in the last three days.
He wondered how long she had been here.
There were echoes in his mind of civility, chivalry, nobility, and honor. Protocol and what was expected of him. Yet he felt as if it had all been stripped away, beaten down along with his bruised body.
What the hell did prisoners know about chivalry?
He looked at the bread in his hands, to her, then back to the bread. Ripping it in half, he set the piece that he bitten into down next to him.
Sliding the bread across the floor, he turned back to his own piece, bringing it to his lips again.
The hardened chunk of bread hit her side softly. She didn't move. He was starting to wonder if she was still alive when she lowered one hand and picked the piece up.
Her eyes never wavered from their stare into space.
She lifted the piece of bread to her mouth, bit a piece, and chewed. He noticed she chewed slowly, like someone who was starving rather than going hungry.
The silence between them was louder than any battle he had ever fought in. Finishing his bread, he turned to lie down again.
A strangled noise escaped from her throat. He turned back, looking at her with his golden eyes.
His eyes did not meet hers; her graying ones did not meet his.
She put her face into her hands and began to cry.
He turned around, lay down, and said nothing.
There was nothing to say.
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Arcadiana