Days Without Sun

Chapter Ten: Chance

Misaki mutely followed Jadir down to the shower room.

It had been several days now since he had been forced to see Korovin, to attend to the man's perverted desires, or be victim to any of his inhumane experiments. Misaki was so worn down he was incredibly grateful for this small window of recovery. And now he was getting the added blessing of a shower.

The boys in Korovin's dungeon were generally only bathed before a "play date" or when the Doc needed to repair one of his "toys" after playing too roughly. So when Jadir had seen Misaki's terrified eyes, he as he led the youth out of his dim cell and towards the showers, he had looked at into the wide green gaze with sympathy and shook his head in a reassuring "no".

Misaki breathed another sigh of relief as Jadir led him down the hall. Korovin had been increasingly busy it seemed, since he'd taken his finger nearly three weeks ago. At the memory of that terrible instant Misaki unconsciously balled his remaining fingers into protective fists.

There were still moments when he couldn't believe it was actually gone. Even more disconcerting, however,were the times he felt as though it was still there, the knuckle needing desperately to be cracked or the nonexistent finger aching as it used to sometime when he'd been working too long typing on his computer doing his school work.

Just thinking about it now, Misaki suddenly felt his missing finger start to itch; then he looked at the boy walking in front of him. Jadir was down to two fingers and a thumb on one hand and a single finger and thumb on the other, this didn't even begin to take into account all the other scars on the youth's skinny body.

Misaki suddenly felt convicted for his self-pitying thoughts.

Misaki stepped in to the shower room following Jadir. The Brazilian teen, who was responsible for the dungeon's upkeep, despite his tattered hands, kept the washroom so spotless no one just looking in would ever suspect the terror that had been flushed down the drain in it tiled floor, along with all the other traces of horror.

Jadir turned the water on, when he felt it had reached a comfortable level he nodded again to Misaki. Misaki nodded back before stepping in to the cleansing cascade. Not that he would have spoken, even if he'd been permitted. Misaki had woken after passing out the day Korovin had cut off his finger and found himself seemingly unable to speak at all.

The youth had thought at first, given how terribly his throat hurt from screaming, that perhaps he'd temporarily damaged something. As the days passed and his pain diminished, however, Misaki still found that he couldn't get a single word to form. Something he'd been punished for now on more than one occasion.

Still, Misaki consoled himself, at least this way I don't risk spilling out Usagi-san's name to that sick fuck.

Misaki was jarred from this dangerous train of thought when he felt Jadir's strange hands on his skin, washing him. He leaned forward, placing his own palms against the tiled wall in front of him, closing his eyes against the water and his missing digit. He relished the other boy's tender touch and the hot stream of the water against his now ever-soiled skin. Misaki started, however, when, under the muffling spray, Jadir leaned in and whispered into his ear in English.

"I will be dead soon."

Misaki turned his head, his large eyes grown huge with shock that Jadir would chance such an utterance.

"I am dead," Jadir offered, first in Portuguese and then in English as he dropped his eyes and slicked soap down one of Misaki's thin arms: it was also his task to clean Korovin's "toys" as well as the sadist's rooms.

Misaki's eyes flashed automatically to the camera mounted to the wall. Jadir saw his nervous glance and shook his head with a sad smile, indicating, it seemed to Misaki, that somehow the Brazilian teen knew that their abductor wasn't watching. In his fear Misaki was having difficulty processing what Jadir was saying. It didn't help that since English had never been his strong suit and certainly not under this kind of pressure.

Jadir frowned seeing Misaki's difficulty. He took his hands off Misaki and then with his single finger he pointed at himself. With his other hand he drug his two remaining fingers across his throat.

Now Misaki understood: Jadir was telling him that Korovin planned to kill him.

"I go… you come," Jadir repeated this phrase in his heavily accented English three times before finally getting frustrated and pulling Misaki's hand as he nodded towards the door.

Misaki's heart was suddenly pounding in his chest. He had understood what Jadir said that time but could hardly bring himself to believe what the other boy was suggesting. When finally saw in Jadir's eyes how serious the he was, Misaki wondered why the other boy had bothered to even pull him into the shower room to start with.

He saw Jadir leave him and go over to a set of cupboards on the other side of the room and take out two pairs of thin cotton garments that looked like pajamas. Misaki then realized the state he was in in when Jadir had come to claim him: filthy and matted, covered in dried blood and other crusted fluids.

He had for a time used the toilet water in his cell to bathe in after his dealings with the Doc. Sometimes these days, too he'd been forced to depend on the toilet water for drinking. These were things he could have never conceived of before his kidnapping, though they were just two things among many now. When Korovin had at last seen Misaki's bathing, however, he had cut off the water to his cell again for a time. And once Misaki had been informed washing outside the showers was considered new infraction and punished, he remained in the state he was returned to cell in now until he had permission to cleanup.

So, Misaki understood that though the pajamas were obvious, they were certainly less obvious and more preferable than trying to escape, naked and filthy out into the streets or wherever it was they were going.

Jadir's black eyes watched Misaki as he waited for the other youth to decide.

Misaki couldn't understand why out of all the boys in the dungeon Jadir had chosen him and even more than that, he was terrified. His captor had told him so many times there was no chance of escape.

Misaki shuddered, he couldn't even begin to imagine what Korovin would do to them if they failed.

Looking at Jadir, Misaki saw the other boy was trembling too and then he realized if it was true, and Korovin planned to kill Jadir soon, this might be the Brazilian teen's only chance. He looked at the camera once more and then at Jadir.

Another tremor rattled Misaki's thin frame. He swallowed hard and then stepped out from under the shower and reached with dripping hands for the clothes that Jadir held out to him.

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Cerberus