Pain & Silence

Pain and silence would be the most enduring memories that Alec would later recall about his time in the infirmary at the Barcelona Institute: uncontestable, enduring and uncontrollable pain which he borne immersed in the cruelest of silences. The pain obliterated everything around him: the sounds from the outside world that sometimes filtered into his room when Inquisitor Dearborn or his assistant opened the door; the voices of other Shadowhunters; the feeling of the straps that tied him to the bed; the sensation of cold or heat that sometimes impregnated his bones; the Inquisitor's hands, the sound of his voice and the feeling of his stele against Alec's skin.

Alec lost count of how many times the Inquisitor activated the memory and agony runes on his chest, and eventually the memories the runes triggered blurred into one another melting into an unrecognizable jumble of images, sensations, and feelings. A thousand time, the runes brought back the image of Magnus's smiling face and turned it into expressions of evil and hatred. The runes took Alec back to nights in Magnus' arms, to the feeling of Magnus' skin and turned its softness and warmth into burning flames, and Magnus' fingers into sharp knives that cut Alec's skin into a thousand shreds. Magnus' lips became poison that turned Alec's stomach and blistered his skin, and his voice became the sound of breaking glass.

It wasn't enough for the Inquisitor to trigger Alec's memories of Magnus; he had to go further, to the first time that Alec met Jace and his golden image blinded him; to the times when Alec felt the sun rose and set with Jace; when he felt that he could never have what he really wanted, and be who he really was, because he could never have Jace. The inquisitor took Alec even further, back to his childhood when he first felt the casual and innocent touch of a boy –a training partner –awaking something inside Alec, something he didn't know was there; to the first time the glances of the same boy felt like the light touches of feathers on Alec's skin, the sensation confusing and pleasant at the same time. The pain took all those memories and morphed them, the boy's gaze turning hateful, Jace's eyes filling with such shame that Alec's stomach turned and he began to heave, his body and spirit trying to purge the filth and self-loathing Alec felt was slowly but surely filling him.

The pain turned each memory into a wound, a bleeding festering wound that hurt Alec. And, throughout his ordeal, the memory of his father's hard and judging eyes and his voice telling Alec that he had to work harder, be braver, grow tougher constantly haunted him, his father's piercing eyes stabbing his heart.

After a while, Alec couldn't differentiate which memories were real and which were memories planted by the Inquisitor to alter Alec's perceptions of his past, and after a few days of agony, it didn't matter anymore because the enduring pain rendered everything translucent and irrelevant. At the beginning, Alec tried to speak, to scream, to break through the silencing rune to, first demand, and then beg for the pain to stop. In his mind, he called for Magnus or Jace to come save him, to help him safeguard the memories of love, to tell him that Magnus hadn't betrayed him, to send him a sign that the suffering had a purpose. But all he received in response was renewed pain and silence.

Eventually, the pain obliterated the world, as if it were a deadly fog that devoured everything, turning the world and Alec's memories, first into shadows, and then into nothingness, leaving just the pain behind. The pain first changed and then washed away the memory of Magnus, making it impossible for Alec to recall his smile, his face, the soft touch of his fingers, the scent of his skin, the taste of his lips, the sensation of his body against his Alec's, the shine in Magnus' eyes, the brightness of his smile and the way Magnus called Alec's name when they made love. Those memories Alec and Magnus had made together, became, because of the pain, insignificant, inconsequential and insubstantial, like leafs blown by the wind. As the memories flew away leaving him empty, Alec searched for the comfort of oblivion.

"Very good, Mr. Lightwood, very good," the nasal voice of Inquisitor Dearborn reached and yanked Alec out of the state of unconsciousness in which he had found momentary relief. "The treatment is going very well, very well indeed."

Alec reluctantly opened his eyes; the light hitting his pupils with the savagery of sharp needles. The room was too bright and the quality of the light increased even more the orangey parlor in the Inquisitor's skin and hair, and accentuated his mouse-like features.

"I have something to show you," the Inquisitor said, his voice soft and detached. He then produced a tablet in which an image had been frozen on the screen. He placed the tablet in front of Alec's eyes and pushed the play button. The image apparently recorded by a security camera came to life, showing two men approaching the door of what looked like an Institute. The men walked with odd steps, as if their movements were being directed by a force outside of themselves, as if they were puppets whose strings were being pulled by an invisible puppeteer.

Alec recognized one of the men; it was Rufus, one of the warlocks from New York, but the expression on his face was strange, completely devoid of emotion, as if he was, in fact, a doll being directed by someone else. After a few steps, the men stopped and stood facing each other, a meter or so between them. They then lifted their arms wide and looked towards the sky, their lips moving rapidly, saying something that Alec couldn't hear; their pupils turning the color of tar and expanding until their covered the white in their eyes. A blinding surge of energy suddenly and with unexpected force erupted from the ground between them, a massive explosion of incandescent energy that set the two men on fire, and then exploded in a massive shock of fire and flames. The camera went dark for a few minutes, its eye blinded by a thick red smoke, and by the flames and energy being released by the explosion.

Inquisitor Dearborn fast forwarded the video until the image came back, an image of utter destruction and panic; debris covering everything; pieces of walls and what appeared to be glass falling from the sky like an infernal rain, raining on bodies strewn on the ground like broken dolls. Alec looked at Inquisitor Dearborn, his eyes full of the questions that his voice couldn't ask.

"Keep watching," the Inquisitor instructed and Alec turned back to the screen. And there, for the first time since this ordeal began, for the first time since that night they made love in their hotel in Barcelona, Alec saw Magnus, the warlock's face impassive, his cat-like eyes devoid of emotion, his demeanour one of complete detachment.

Alec had seen that expression before, a few weeks ago, during the meeting with the Downworld council to deal with the Valentine crisis, when Alec found out that Magnus had aligned himself with the Seelie Queen. Magnus' eyes had been hard as rocks that day, his face completely devoid of emotion, his mouth set in a hard line. At that time, Alec had struggled to reconcile that expression with the smiling, sassy and playful Magnus of their intimacy. Now however, that same expression firmly set on the warlock's face provoked no reaction in Alec, for that image had played in Alec's mind a thousand times in the last few days as the Inquisitor's stele systematically and mercilessly rewrote Alec's memories.

Alec stared at the screen, trying to reconcile the image with the man with whom just a few days ago he had watched the landscape pass by their window as their train speeded towards Barcelona. It wasn't that Magnus had changed. In fact, he looked the same, the glitter in his hair sparkling against the red fog in the background, his make-up and his typically fashionable outfit a stark contrast to the destruction that surrounded him. Alec would have recognized those eyes, that face and that silhouette anywhere. No, it wasn't that he doubted that the figure in the screen was Magnus; rather, it was that after so many days of pain and silence, he didn't know how to feel about the warlock. He didn't know whether to be relieved that Magnus was alive, whether to feel disgust at the memories Magnus evoked; whether to feel sadness, anger, or disgust. Unable to resolve the confusion, his body experienced a violent reaction, nausea raising from the pit of his stomach, his skin breaking out in sweat, his sight blurring, the hair in the back of his neck standing on end.

Alec mastered all his strength to keep his eyes on the screen and to control the urge to throw up while he tried to decipher, not only what his eyes were seeing, but also what his body was feeling. He saw, then, that Magnus was not alone. A man walked beside him, black leather jacket over a white shirt, sun glasses covering his eyes, short dreadlocks blowing in the wind, and a smile on his face as his held Magnus' hand, the gesture and the posture reflecting an intimacy that all, and specially Alec, could plainly see. Two other warlocks, a man and a woman appeared on the screen behind Magnus and his companion, and with a flick of his fingers, one of them opened a portal, into which the group disappeared without even losing a step or wasting a glance on the destruction they had just unleashed. All that was left after the portal closed, was a red fog and the already familiar image of Magnus and a woman with ruby red eyes projected on the scorching red sky.

The screen went dark but for a few more seconds Alec could not take his eyes away from it, his mind racing, his heartbeat speeding and his stomach going into summersaults. When he looked back at the Inquisitor, his face still full of questions.

"This was this morning in Berlin," the Inquisitor informed him, answering just one of Alec's many questions. "The attack killed five more Shadowhunters. We need your help, Mr. Lightwood; it is matter of life and death. We have to capture those terrorists before they bring more destruction on the Nephilim."

Alec wished he could tell the Inquisitor that he didn't know anything, that what he had seen in the screen was also a surprise to him, but he couldn't. Not only he could not speak, but also, he wasn't sure any more whether he was surprised. He doubted his own memories and feelings, and couldn't any longer tell which ones were real and which one were planted by the Inquisitor; he couldn't any longer trust his own feelings or his instincts.

"We are going to have to speed things up," said the Inquisitor taking his stele out of his pocket and bringing it to Alec's chest. "It is a matter of life and death, Mr. Lightwood. I hope you understand."

As soon as the stele touched the runes, Alec felt fire igniting in every bone in his body, and a blinding rage joined the pain.

"What happened? What happened?!" Alec silently screamed, but as the pain overpowered and erased everything, he could no longer remember whom the question was directed to, the face of the man he loved slowly disappearing behind the pain. Only the pain remained, just the pain and then nothing, emptiness. As the pain seized him with even more fury than before, Alec stopped trying to speak or to call out, for the pain finally took his voice leaving him with no other option but to surrender.

When all was said and done, the pain erased the memory of Alec's love for Magnus, as well as the memory of Magnus' love for him. With the memory of love, the pain also took the sensitive, loving, innocent and warm Alec, leaving just a shadow in his place; leaving just a ghost of a man, raw and harsh, full of anger and desire for vengeance, unable to feel anything anymore, like a rock hit by the ocean so many times that does no longer feel the water eroding it.

Alec woke hours or perhaps days later to a room that for the first time was in semi-darkness, and to the soft touch of someone bringing a cup of water to his lips.

"Drink Alec," said a youthful and soft voice. "Water is good for you."

As they focussed, his eyes registered a familiar face, a face that hadn't aged much since the last time he saw her, when they were both summer students in Idris a few years before.

"Do you remember me?" the girl asked, a warm smile illuminating her face. "I am Jessica Hawkblue. We went to school together."

Alec nodded as he tried to recall the memories, sort them in his mind, trying to determine whether they were real or planted. The endeavour was exhausting because the image of Jessica's youthful face from school, her hair in pigtails and her green eyes framed by glasses got mixed-up with more recent images of a voluptuous, beautiful and feminine woman that the Inquisitor had either triggered or planted by the power of his ruthless stele.

"I am sorry for what you have had to endure," Jessica said, her face full of sympathy and concern. "My uncle can be a bit overzealous, but his intentions are good. He wants the best for you and for the Nephilim." She run a hand across Alec's brow, and smoothed his hair, the gentle and strangely comforting gesture triggering a wave of confusing sensations in Alec, sadness, fury, rejection and attraction mixing into one.

Alec looked into her green eyes and saw the same expression of innocence, shyness and, what he had thought was submission, that had first struck him about Jessica Hawkblue when he first met her at school all those years ago. Even then, she was pretty, despite the oddness that seems to typify all bodies when they go through adolescence. Alec always thought of her as a shy and bookish girl, quietly intelligent and apparently devoid of the vanity that seemed to have taken over all the other girls their age. She was, apparently, also the only girl in school who had not been attracted to Jace. Alec, who already struggled with his own secret, had found Jessica's company comforting and easy. She liked discussing books and talk about training and seemed to have no agenda when it came to Alec. So, they had struck a friendship that had lasted the whole summer.

At an age in which their classmates were hooking up left, right and center, Jessica had offered Alec certain safety, for classmates soon assumed that they were an item. After school ended, they had exchanged a few letters and then, that Fall, Jessica's parents had died in a mission in Buenos Aires where they headed the Institute, and Alec had lost track of her. That is until now when she entered his room and told her she was Inquisitor Dearborn's niece.

He tried to speak, forgetting for a moment that he had no voice, wanting to ask her to set him free, to loosen the straps that tied him to the bed.

"Shush," whispered Jessica, "it will be okay. My uncle says the treatment is almost done." She rested her hand atop Alec's, the touch soft and painful at the same time, and Alec wished he could shake the hand off, reach for the girl's neck and squeezed it until her lips turned blue and the smile in her lips disappear for ever.