I am going to warn you now, this chapter has the torture scene. If you can not handle this sort of thing, DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER. HEED MY WARNING WHEN I SAY IT IS A TORTURE SCENE. Or if like, you don't want to read that part then you can just skip past it. If this sort of thing is alright with you, then I am not stopping you from reading this.

You have been warned.

I was unsure of when I awoke, but I was awaken by someone gently sitting me up and pressing something to my lips. Greedily, I held tightly onto the cup and gulped down every last drop. Someone took the cup from me when I was finished. The insignia on her jacket told me she was Military Police, but she did not seem as cold hearted as the other soldiers. She looked as if she was not much older than myself. She had extremely short, black hair next to her scalp. Her brown eyes looked so innocent it made me think of a baby animal. Her dark skin matched the tan of her uniform. Just her presence made me feel calmer.

In her lap she held a tray with the empty cup and a bowl of thin soup. I was ravenous. I could only remember eating the lumpy biscuits and gravy however long ago that was. She insisted to spoon feed me, but I was impatient. I had to physically restrain myself from grabbing the bowl and slurping it all down in one gulp, but I feared I would spill the soup I so badly wanted to eat. After a few spoonfuls of it, I reasoned it was probably better that I eat slower. I wanted this to last as long as it could before the Military Police did something else to me.

When the bowl of soup was finished and licked clean (by myself of course), my newfound companion gestured to herself. "(Espyon.)"

"Ariadne," I replied after repeating her name. "Thank you so much for the meal." I still felt hungry and thirsty, but I figured I would be getting another meal later. However, I did not hope for much.

She smiled at me then stood up. She went to the cell door and looked down both ways of the corridor before returning to my side. "(From Erwin,)" she said reaching into her pocket and handing me a small piece of paper.

I unfolded it and squinted my eyes in the lack of light to read it quietly. Surprisingly enough it was in English. It read: Ariadne, I am using your device to help me write this to you. Thanks to Espyon, I have your possessions. You need not worry about anything. In the meantime, wait for me to come get you. I cannot promise when that will be. More notes to come. ~Commander Erwin

I read it over several times, still in shock that he had written in English. I gave the note back to Espyon and she shoved it back into her pocket. She held her hand up to me and then left the cell quietly, locking the door behind her. She was obviously a person of few words. Either that or she did not want to bother me with the language barrier.

So Erwin was coming to get me? I wondered how he was ever going to accomplish that. Especially since I am completely hidden from the outside. It would take him ages to get in here. And the only way in and out of this cell was the door. As far as I knew, I was in an interior cell underground.

I stood up and stretched, the chains rattling loudly as I lifted my arms. I had not noticed the chains were lengthened. I walked as far as I could toward the doorway, stopping at least a foot away from it. When I heard the door at the end of the hall open, I scrambled back to the far wall. By the time I had reached the far wall, two soldiers were already standing at the entrance and unlocking the door. The little bit of light shadowed their faces, making them more terrifying as they grabbed for me.

They unlocked the chains around my wrists and began to drag me out of the room. I resisted by thrashing around as much as I could, but that only rewarded me a punch to my gut. They continued to pull me further into the building through various corridors and down several sets of stairs. Finally, we arrived in a dark, cellar-like room. Two more people in white lab coats greeted us. On either sides of the walls were assortments of torture devices. Most of them I had no clue how they would use and I did not want to find out.

"(Strip it of the clothing,)" said one of the men dressed in the lab coat. The soldiers grabbed the sleeves and collar of my shirt and ripped it off of me. I screamed and tried to cover myself, but they continued and tore the pants and the rest of my clothing until I was wearing nothing. I began to cry, my dignity gone with the clothing.

A table with bindings sat in the center of the room. They forced me onto the table and eventually were able to get my limbs tied down. I hated it. Even with the bindings, I continued to thrash and try to break the table in some way and grant me some bit of freedom. One of them grabbed my hair and pulled me back down hard onto the table.

"(This one sure likes to move,)" stated one of the men in a lab coat.

"(Those are the fun ones,)" said the other. "(Shall we get started then?)" he suggested, going for a jagged blade from the wall. My eyes widened at the sight of it. I could not tell if the stains on the metal were dried blood or rust. Either way, it was going to hurt.

"Please!" I cried desperately. "Please don't…! AAAAAHHHHHH!"

He had taken the blade and run it all the way down my middle, splitting open the skin on my chest down to my abdomen. Blood flowed evenly and heavily out of my body, dripping off of my skin and onto the table. My body was on fire with pain. They stood back and watched as if waiting for something to happen as I cried out even more.

"(It's not healing itself yet. Why has it not begun to heal?)" asked one of the men.

The one with the blade shrugged. "(It's probably holding back it's abilities so it won't reveal it's true nature yet. Let's try it again.)" He took the blade and slashed a large cut on both of my thighs. I screamed even more. I did not know how I was still awake with all the pain. My vision was turning fuzzy from all the blood I had lost. There was eventually an end to this. Right...?

I do not remember blacking out, but after he had cut my thighs, I was taken out and put back in my cell. Espyon had me lying naked on the bed. She was tenderly wrapping my body and both of my legs with gauze. I hurt all over. It hurt to breathe, my throat raw from my cries. I hated it. I hated them. I hated this place. I wanted to go home. I wished this was a dream. A horribly, evil world my subconscious had created as I slept. But the pain told me it was a reality I had been thrust into.

I lay on the bed as silent tears fell down my face. Espyon was kind enough to wipe them away and gently stroke my hair. She was so sweet to me that I could not figure out how she arrived in such a horrible place among these wicked people. I prayed to God that Erwin would come get me soon.

…Four months later…

I had been in and out of that cell so many times I had lost track of time. Sometimes they would get me twice in the same day. Or at least I figured it was the same day. But everyday was basically the same thing. Espyon would give me water and food and most of the time a new note from Erwin. I came to look to him as my saving grace who would someday come for me; the only hope I had left. Though something inside of me told me I was clinging to a false hope. I was going to die here. Eventually those people were going to kill me before I even had a chance of being rescued. How I was still alive now was an amazing feat by itself.

After Espyon would feed me, she would leave. Then several minutes later the two other soldiers would come and take me back down to the cellar and the men in lab coats would do their "work" on me. Since I could not walk after the first time, the soldiers had to carry me down to the cellar, but they were, by no means, gentle. By about the fifth or sixth time I was down there, I had forgotten why I was even in this situation, but then I would recognize the word they used for me. Titan Shifter. Had I not proven myself innocent of this? What more proof do they want of my humanity?

Sometime during my captivity they had sheared my long, once honey colored hair. It was now just a bit longer than Espyon's but uneven and scraggly. I had not looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. I had pretty much forgotten what I looked like. I was absolutely positive I did not look like I did before. I just knew I probably looked like something that someone had thrown away and left out in the dirt for a long time. Disheveled, bony, and unwanted.

Slowly, I realized I had begun to forget my own world as well as my face. My own family and friends. What was it like to be with them? I could barely remember my own mother's face. I still knew how to read and most of the things I learned in school, but even those were becoming vague memories. English was getting harder and harder for me to understand. I found myself understanding bits and pieces of soldiers' conversations. I was unsure of when it began to make sense to me, but I did not like understanding what I heard. It was always negative or sexual or gossip. I hated it. Sometimes, Espyon would speak quietly to me, but it was usually only a few sentences. I liked it when she talked because it was always kind, never like any of the other soldiers' conversations.

I had lost count around the number thirteen of how many times I had been down to the cellar. I had pretty much given up screaming in pain every time they put a new device on my skin or somewhere else in my body. One could also say that I had given up on life totally, but who could blame me?

Then one day, as usual, Espyon awoke me from a restless sleep. She had a frantic look in her normally quiet eyes. Quickly she handed me a note and fidgeted uncomfortably as I read. The only word it read was this:

Tonight.

Sorry I have to cut this one short! And I did warn you about this torture scene so don't be mad at me, please! I did not have fun writing this chapter as much as you probably think I did. I really like Ariadne and I want to apologize to her for putting her through this kind of trauma. D:

Anyway, despite this being a wicked chapter, I hope you continue reading. At the moment I don't think I'll have any other parts like this, but it depends on what else I come up with.

I kinda think that the Military Police (for the most part) have lost their sense of humanity. Only a few of them actually believe in Humanity (like Espyon (OC)). This is my take on them but you may think different.

Please leave a review for what you thought! Thanks for reading! There will be an update next month!