The Reason Why
Chapter Two
Erol woke up sore and stiff, joints cracking as he sat up. His eyes couldn't see anything in the darkness that surrounded him. "Hello?" he called out into the black. "Did the power go out, sweetheart?"
A very different voice than he'd expected answered him. Instead of the soft, gentle voice of his love, it was a half-robotic voice that he recognized as that of a Krimzon Guard. At the sound of it, everything came rushing back. "What the hell did you do to me?" he asked the voice. "Did you drug me?" Nothing but silence answered him for many minutes. When he thought that he had been left alone again, the lights flipped on with a loud click. They buzzed and flickered as they cast yellow light on his surroundings. He looked around and found that he was in a completely empty cell.
"I see you're finally awake," a voice said from the doorway. "We thought you were never gonna wake up." The door opened and a Guard stepped in, crimson armor clanking. "Your training begins in 5 minutes. It'll take you that long to get there, so lets go."
"I don't want to go. I don't want to be a part of the Guard. I want my life back!" Erol yelled at him, standing up to face him.
"Too damn bad, boy. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. And it looks like you can't take much more of the hard way."
Erol thought about his options. He could keep fighting against these people and die immediately, or he could go along with it and have some hope of seeing her again. He sighed and followed the guard out the door at to his first training session.
The door slid open to reveal men on all kinds of exercise equipment, working out to impossibly loud music. It looked like any other gym in Haven City except for the addition of facial tattoos on the men's faces. Erol turned to say something to the guard that had led him there, but he was gone. The music suddenly stopped and he turned back to find everyone staring at him. "What is a civilian doing in here?" someone asked as a few men stepped forward to figure out the answer.
Someone that Erol could have sworn he'd never seen before gave it to them. "He was drafted three days ago. Took him until five minutes before now to wake his ass up. Didn't have time to go make him one of us before coming here," he said, pacing in front of the crowd of men. Obviously he was used to doing that. He must be some sort of commander or something.
Men continued to stare at him throughout the entire day, even as he was coming out of the shower. At the end of the day, he couldn't decide which would be worse: getting stared at all the time, or getting the trademark facial tattoos of a Krimzon Guard. The pain almost seemed like a better choice than the embarrassment. Almost.
He was brought to an actual room to spend the night in that time due to the fact that they "couldn't afford for him to be so stiff another day". This room came with a bed and three roommates, all of whom continued to stare at him until the lights were shut off. There were two bunkbeds in the room and four trunks- one for each man in the room.
"You fought them, didn't you?" the one in the bunk above him asked. "I was out for a week when I first got here. Sore as all hell when I came to."
"No one really wants to be here, but you just accept it after awhile. What other choice do you have? At least they don't hurt your family that way..." The one one the bottom of the other bunk bed added.
The only man who hadn't spoken yet had a very different opinion, one Erol didn't much care for. "You should be honored to serve Baron Praxis. He's made this city what it is today. Not all men get such an opportunity."
"What it is today?" Erol asked in disbelief. Who could possibly think that the city was in great shape. Thousands of people had homes riddled with cracks and holes if they were lucky enough to have a home at all. Most of the city struggled for jobs and the money to feed themselves. The city was falling apart and this man spoke of it like it was amazing! "The city is trash."
"You should watch your tongue, newbie. You could disappear one day," the Baron-praising man said, a hint of a threat in his voice.
One of the other men spoke up then. "Don't worry about him. He'll be moved before long. He's farther in his training than the rest of us. My name's Jace, by the way."
Erol could tell that the voice was coming from the bed above him. Soon he learned that the man in the other bottom bunk was named Erik. No one offered to give Baron-praiser a name and Erol didn't ask. He didn't like him much anyway.
"About tomorrow," Jace said, "it's not so bad. You go numb eventually. Hurts like hell before that though."
"Takes forever too," Erik added. "I don't know why they think they need to tattoo every part of you. What's the point?"
Erol fell asleep to the sound of Jace and Erik trying to figure out the purpose of the full body tattoos. He was bothered by the absence of her beside him, but his body and mind were too exhausted to let it keep sleep away.