WebNovelDies Irae28.57%

The Evil that Men Do

Several seasons have passed then I have been subjected to this den of wolves. My sense of scale has been utterly lost. Every day has continued it's daily monotony of torturous existence. I have been able to retain my own self of being.

I would love to say that I have been completely able to stave off the sense of giving in. Unfortunately, I have slowly felt like giving into the Unleashed brotherhood. The only thing that has saved me, is when two new Unleashed have been forced to join in the cult.

They are both the same age as me, or close enough that I could not tell if either of them were older or younger. What saved was seeing one of the two being broken in just a few weeks. She gave in so quickly. The mirth I saw on her face the first day she was there, was drained from her in no time. Seeing that happening to a child made my resolve that much stronger.

The other child, a boy, has lasted a little longer. I can tell, though, that he is at the point of giving in. His face has lost the light of life. At times I do see a flicker of existence in his nearly dead eyes. Alas, another innocent person has started to fall into the vile clutches of the Unleashed.

I wish I could help either of them, but I am fighting for my own life. I have to bottle up my emotions more and more each day, so as to not let my defiance show to the world. I know that Otec and his fellow henchmen know that I have not given in. I swear the more I try to hide my anger towards those people, the more they abuse me.

Like how I was first introduced into my existence here, I am woken from sleep at irregular hours. From there, I am made to exert myself physically, far beyond what my body is able to. I am getting overall stronger, but that just makes my morning routines that much harder.

After that, there is a simple meal in the cafeteria. There is no set time that people come and eat here. So, I am able to see almost everyone that lives here, on a regular basis. There are roughly forty people here. Of that, counting the two that joined after me, there are eleven Unleashed that have not been chained.

I have only seen one of the Unleashed that has not been chained, been given his Chain. It was a silver Chain. I have yet to seen anyone that has a Chain that is above silver in this enclave. I know that there are not that many people here, but I would think that there would be at least one or two that had stronger power. Logically I know that there are stronger out there, but it seems to be rare to be stronger than silver Chained.

Initially, when I was first brought here, I was sent to the isolation chamber right after my morning meal. Now, though, I am subjected to actual physical torture. Yes, actual torture.

Thankfully they have never gone as for as to mutilate me enough that I would be scared for life. My torturer is changed daily. While I do not know, definitely, who the torture is each day is, as they are hooded, I have a good idea who it was. More often than not, it is one of the Chained Unleashed, but on a regular basis, one of the unChained Unleashed is my torture.

How do I know that? Ha, I can see their body. The unChained are all kids. A child's, or for that matter, a teenager's body does not look like a grown adult. Even hooded, their identity is not completely hidden.

As for the torture itself, as I said, there is nothing that will become permanent, physically, done to me. Beatings were some of the first things done to me. Straight up body shots through with more power than my body could handle. I will say that, I prefer when the adults are the torturers, they control their strength more than the children. I can suffer through their abuse easier than that of the uncontrolled children.

Not only do they try to break someone and have them join their ranks, they also make them participate in it. That is before they have officially joined in their sadistic fraternity. Enough, enough, just thinking about how the Unleashed treat their future adherents makes me angry. Back to my torture.

The beatings were bad enough. After I became well acquainted with punches, I was introduced to sticks. No, not those heavy poles that have no flexibility. The sticks are just simple sticks from a tree. The only difference about them is that the outside bark has been stripped off, along with any twigs attached to it. I want to kill whosoever came up with keeping the sticks soaking in oil.

Welts from the sticks often decorate my body, along with all the bruises from being beaten. They all must study the same manual about torturing somebody with a stick. Maybe it is my naivety, but I always assumed that caning and whipping were done to the back alone. That is ignoring poorly aimed strikes. Much to my chagrin, they love to strike the whole body.

My back, torso, and legs are to be expected to be hit, as they are nice and large targets. Alas, feet, neck, armpits, and head were in their wheelhouse of targets that they happily struck. Learning to accept being struck on the back, is much easier than learning to grin and bear with being attacked on the bottom of your feet. No matter how calloused my feet are, they are not used to feeling that type of pain.

Enough of talking about the physical torture. I have had to endure enough of it it. Though only done for a little amount of time a day, maybe an hour or two, I have survived through enough of it, that I do not want to live through with it any more.

After said torture, I am sent to an isolation room. There are five of them here, that I have been so generously been allowed to visit. In pain from the abuse that I have received previously, I am left here, to my own devices, until dinner. This is the only time and place that I am left to be able to ruminate over my existence.

The isolation rooms are where I can bridle my emotions enough, that I can have a chance to hide them from the other Unleashed. The boon of being allowed to myself, is probably the only thing that has let me stay sane. I will bend to act the way they want me to, but I will not break.

After the end of my solitude, have a meal. Then I will sent to bed. At some point, when I am asleep, I am healed. I am healed so that they can further abuse me the next day.