by Thomas Green
The guards wore tactical armor with Kevlar breastplates, arm and shin guards, and full-face helmets, all black.
All prisoners aside from me lay on the ground, allowing the guards to shackle them with ease. Here, in Tul Sar Naar, resistance was futile. But I had a plan to execute. To that end, I had to kill some guards.
Two guards approached me, reaching for my arms. I leapt to the closest one and stomped his ankle. Bones crunched beneath my foot. He shouted out with pain. I grabbed the baton sheathed by his waist with one hand while placing my other hand on his chest. He may have worn armor, but my spell took more than that to stop it.
The man’s aether was partially arranged into a defensive barrier around his body. Impressive, given he wore the same collar I had. The guards weren’t free men, but prisoners from the Upper Prison who traded this work for favors. I pulled on his aether, absorbing it into myself to shatter the defense and then I made the rest whirl inside his body, this time, fast. His heart exploded. He fell, shrieking with pain before his voice turned to gurgling on his own blood.
The second guard drew his baton. I sidestepped his strike, hit his knee from the side with my baton, placed my palm on his chest and made his heart explode. Two down, two hundred to go.
From what I had gathered, nobody had killed a guard in decades. Well, someone had to break the tradition. Ten armored men stopped shackling prisoners and swarmed toward me, batons drawn. These were more careful than the first two, attacking in a formation. I met them head on, slamming my shoulder into the nearest man. He gasped for air but didn’t fall. I whirled, placed my hand on his chest and used my spell. Three down. Nine batons descended on me. I blocked half but the rest dug into my body.
Pain exploded through me. I spun, grabbed another man and rammed my baton under his helmet, crushing his windpipe. Two men caught me from behind. I slid down from their grasp, gripped one man’s leg, locked my own legs around his thigh and sprung my body, twisting his leg. His knee broke apart. The men fell to the ground, wailing with pain.
The others tried to kick me. I scrambled, slipping among their legs. I bolted to my feet and caught a man out of formation, placing my palm on his chest for the killing blow. Before they regrouped, I charged a man who was too slow to get into position.
From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a baton strike at my head. I broke my move, ducked and stepped aside. Sora stepped in front of me, baton in hand. He was smaller than I was, black-haired with dark eyes. But he was fast. The guards stopped attacking and used the moment to regroup.
Before I formed a new plan, Sora charged, holding the baton with both hands as if it was a katana. I met his baton with mine. He slipped the weapon on mine, whirled and kicked my leg. I spun, reaching after his jumpsuit. He swatted aside my arm with the baton’s other end and hit my temple.
My vision blanked for a second, but I remained on my feet. Sora jabbed the baton into my stomach, sidestepped my counterattack and whirled for a roundhouse kick, hitting my other temple.
The world shook before my eyes and my knees gave out. Sora stepped in, kicking at my face. I bolted forward, grabbing after his leg. He spun and kicked my ribs. Air blew out of my lungs and I fell to the ground. Before I could get up, Sora leapt to me and hit my chin with his heel.
My body lost coordination and I collapsed on the ground, grunting with pain. Sora made a slight bow and handed the baton to a guard. The guards shackled me and took me away.
Since my legs wouldn’t listen, the guards had to drag me. Before we left through the mess hall, they tied a blindfold over my eyes so I wouldn’t see the prison’s inner bowels. They didn’t waste time with questioning or anything else, dragging me down on the stairs toward the extraction chambers.
Sora had to stop me, didn’t he? Bastard… Yeah, he was here thanks to me arresting him for theft and murder. Since I also brought in all his accomplices, we had more than a bit of unsettled business.
The guards dragged me down multiple flights of stairs before abruptly stopping. “Sir,” they said in unison.
I couldn’t see anything but had a good idea of what this was about.
“What’s the fallout?” a calm, male voice asked, smooth as silk.
Hades, the prison’s overseer, himself came to see to this? Meh, I had been hoping he would be lazier.
“Five dead prisoners, four dead and two heavily wounded guards, Sir,” one of the men holding me replied.
“Lucas, Lucas, Lucas… can you not get over the whole fallen angel part?” Hades asked. “How much punishment do you have to receive to learn that struggling is futile?”
Attempting to speak hurt like hell, so I remained silent.
“Really…” he said in a calm, fatherly tone. “Why can you not agree to the deal? You would be home tomorrow if you did.”
That was true. The prison’s owner, Lucielle—commonly referred to as the Devil—offered for me to work for her in exchange for freedom and for giving up the favor she owed me. I had two problems with that. First of all, I had no desire to spending the rest of my life in her services, especially not with the excuse for a wage she offered me. Second, I promised Evelyn that I would return to her; I would quit my former life and find work at the Church. I intended to keep that promise. And I had bigger plans for the favor Lucielle still owed me. After a bit of grunting and coughing, I squeezed out, “Fuck off.” Elegant, I knew.
“Be careful with your approach,” Hades whispered. “While killing you would cause me a great deal of trouble, you are approaching the point where the benefits would outweigh the costs.”
But that wasn’t anywhere close, either. I carried the soul of Lucifer. Upon my death, the soul’s immortal part would return into the Void, from which it would be eventually reborn. Keeping me locked up and alive for eternity wasn’t worth the risk of Lucifer’s next host being worse than me. Yes, I was here for murder, but I only did that to save my lover. Not to mention I couldn’t work for Lucielle if I died, could I?
Since I had no reply for him, Hades sighed. “Throw him into extraction for two weeks. That should teach him some manners.”
Two weeks? Standard extraction time was three days.
“Yes, Sir.” The men hauled me forward.
They removed my blindfold only when we reached the extraction cell. Okay, calling this five by five-foot cage a cell was an overstatement. The walls were steel, and barren save for four shackles and a connector in the wall. They forced me to the ground, caught my wrists and ankles into the shackles and plugged my collar into the connector.
They tightened the shackles so I couldn’t move an inch and pressed a button by the connector. Pain exploded from my neck and my vision whirled.
The punishment began.
Me lying on the grass may have been an illusion, but everything felt real. Spring breeze stroked my face, sun bathed me in its warmth and Evelyn lay on my chest. Her crimson hair fell in cascades, glistening in the sunlight.
“I’ve been thinking, Luke…” She turned her orange eyes at me. “We should get a cottage in Wyoming.”
I ran fingers through her hair, enjoying the touch. “You’re not real.”
“Oh, really?” She snaked up and pressed her lips against mine. My mind blanked for a moment. “Was that real enough?”
Yeah… and that was the problem. The illusion was too good, too irresistible.
“So, what about the house in Wyoming?”
Softly, I wrapped my arms around her, savoring the moment. “Wasn’t it a cottage a sentence ago?”
“Come on.” She snorted. “You know I meant a mansion with a heliport. And it should be by Jackson Lake.”
I loved the image, which was also a problem. “What would we do with it?”
“New York’s boring in the summer.” Playfully, she started unbuttoning my shirt. “And kids need some place to spend the summer vacation.”
“We have no children.”
“Then we need to make some.” She kissed me again, sliding her hands under
my shirt. She detached, and unzipped her dress, letting it slide from her.
Her perfectly sculpted body loomed in the sun. I slid my hands down her curves, peeling off the dress. She dove down, kissing me again as she started unbuttoning my pants. Her cinnamon smell overwhelmed my senses, and her gentle touch made me forget everything other than her. She kicked down my pants, slid lower, and guided me into her. As I entered her, she postured up with a screaming moan.
A dagger appeared in her hand and she swung at my heart.
By instinct, I contorted my body to dodge. The dagger hit my shoulder, sending a burst of pain through me. With an angry snarl, she slashed with her second hand, a dagger appearing in her palm mid-move.
I sprung my hips, rolling to the side. She fell off me, but her strike cut my side. Blood sprinkled out. I leapt to my feet, shouting, “Evelyn, stop!”
She bolted upward and charged. I did a step back, but my back hit an invisible wall. A sidestep led me into another one. Smiling, Evelyn stabbed at my chest.
My mind wanted to let her kill me. But survival instinct won the struggle, as always. I stepped in, caught her right hand with mine and formed a rotating sphere of aether in my left palm. Before her second dagger reached me, I released the spell.
The magical blast exploded her midsection, spraying the grass with blood and organs.
She let go of the daggers, staring in disbelief, tears sliding down her face. “Why…” Her hand gently stroked my face as life’s light left her eyes.
My vision shifted.
I was back in the cell, bound and plugged into the extractor, but hollow inside. The extraction felt as if something pulled at all my nerves at once, trying to rip them out of me, blinding my mind with pain. I wailed, desperately struggling against the binds. They didn’t yield. A steel device forced my mouth to remain open, stopping me from biting off my own tongue.
This was my punishment.
Another vision was soon to come, one where I would be with Evelyn once more, loving her as I always had, until she would try to kill me. Despite everything, I would kill her and watch her die in my arms. Then I would return to reality for an hour before another vision would start.
This pattern would repeat, over and over again for the next two weeks.
If I could kill myself, I would.
Amarendra 1
I, AMARENDRA VISHNU, sat by my desk inside the medical ward, watching two RTG scans. The first one showed the ankle of Ricardo Xolotl from one week ago. The most precise way to describe the bone structure was total mess.
Due to the lack of better equipment, I encased the ankle into a cast and gave the wounded prisoner painkillers. The second scan, taken ten minutes ago, offered a better, albeit similar image. The crushed talus was not going to heal, no matter how enhanced the demigod’s regeneration was.
Demigod… the thought alone made the skin beneath my collar itch. We were humans with powers, and no matter how many times the others called me Vishnu, I was no god. And neither were the others, no matter how often they told themselves otherwise. I rose, and walked from my desk, my shoes silent on the steel floor.
My office featured little aside from the computer, the printer, the table and two file-filled cabinets. The round, steel door slid silently in front of me.
With Jasika’s help, Ricardo was getting up from the RTG scan, grunting with pain. His leg had to be positioned straight for a clean scan, which was too painful even with the sedatives we gave him.
Jasika’s perfectly white, nurse uniform contrasted sharply her dark skin and also with Ricardo’s orange jumpsuit. A yellow scarf covered her collar. My wife and nurse looked as dashing as ever, her originally black hair dyed blonde.
Ricardo looked at me, eyes wide and mouth sealed tight. “How’s it looking, Doc?”
I donned the professional smile, one thoroughly practiced during the years I worked in my oncology clinic. Now, almost two years after my imprisonment, that felt like a dream of another life. “It’s getting better.”
He gulped. “I’ve got a match next week. Do you think I’ll be able to fight by then?”
No. Not next week, not next month, never again. Whoever broke the ankle knew precisely how to cause irreparable damage. But that wasn’t what he needed to hear. “I am not sure, my friend.” I approached, bringing him the crutches he left by the wall. “There has been solid improvement in the past week, so perhaps the ankle will become ready within the next one.”
He smiled, wrinkles forming around his eyes. “Thanks, Doc.”
Jasika helped him get on the crutches and guided him to the exit. Two guards awaited Ricardo and walked with him away.
After the door closed, Jasika turned to me, her amber eyes bright in her dark face. “Why did you give him false hope?”
“Isn’t that all we peddle in here?”
She came to me and straightened my coat. “I know this isn’t our clinic. But we could also be in the Lower Prison.”
Yes, we could. Tul Sar Naar, formerly known as Tartarus, had three sections. Male Ward, Female Ward, which together formed the Lower Prison, and the Upper Prison. Due to working as the prison staff, Jasika and I could live together in the later. “What else do we have for today?”
Her brows furrowed for a second. “Let me check.” She walked to a cabinet at the side of the room and grabbed a file.
As she went through the papers, I tended to the RTG machine, resetting the mechanical arm to its default position.
“That was the last one from the Lower Prison, so we only have the checkups on the extraction chambers,” she said.
My heart sank. While such duty was rare, I hated it all that much more. Standard extraction took one to three days, where prisoners did not need medical supervision due to threats to vital functions being nonexistent. Thus, the checkup meant someone was being extracted for a longer period, which never provided a pleasant experience. “Let’s get it done.” I headed to the door.
With a smile, Jasika joined me. “That sounded better.”
Unpleasant tasks were best solved immediately. The extraction chambers lay four floors below the Medical Ward. We walked to the guard standing by the elevator.
He raised an eyebrow, his face young and spotless. “Leaving early?”
I shook my head. “I wish, Apollo, I wish. Could you please accompany us to the extraction chambers?”
His expression darkened. “Of course.”
Some demigods preferred to be called by their mortal names while others chose the name of the original deity. Like most inheritors of Greek god’s souls, Demetrius Apollo, a former painter, preferred the divine one. We stepped into the elevator and he pressed the button. The floor with the Medical Ward was otherwise unpopulated, so his lack of presence by the elevator mattered none.
We arrived and walked out of the elevator. The floor with the extraction chambers looked just like the other ones in the prison’s lower levels, featuring barren, steel hallways with round doors at the sides. Irrespectively of how many times I walked these hallways, a feeling of glum and depression descended on me once more. Three guards stood by the elevator, two prisoners working for favors, and one of the prison’s actual employees.
Helmet covered the free man’s face. Who would work here willingly remained a mystery to me. He gave us a short nod and then motioned for us to pass. “The one who needs a checkup is in chamber C-6.”
The other two guards stepped aside, and we walked into the hallway. After a pair of turnings, we stopped by a door like all the others. Apollo tapped out the code on the nearby panel and the wings slid open.
Jasika and I stared breathless at the blond man shackled inside. Lucas Johnson was once my friend. But then he betrayed me and arrested me, sending me for a lifetime to this prison. Yet at the same time, I would have never gotten the soul of Vishnu without him.
Mixed feeling clashed within me. What was he doing here? He has avoided longer extraction for all the time he has been here, so this was unlike him.
“Nothing,” I said and stepped into the small cell. Jasika followed me, eyes filled with hatred.
Lucas’s eyes were closed, and he trembled in the shackles, consumed in a torturous illusion as the chamber extracted his aether. A shout of pain escaped his lips every few seconds.
Questions swirled in my mind. I ducked above him and fished a flashlight from my pocket. Jasika took the device, turned the tip and aimed the beacon of light at Lucas’s face.
I rolled up his eyelid to see the eyes. His irises were unfocused, but no broken vessels presented themselves. That would be the first-to-show symptom of his circulatory system not handling the extraction process.
“Have you heard how he got here?” I asked as I checked his pulse.
“He started a fight in the Lower Prison. As I recall, he broke Ricardo’s ankle,” Apollo replied.
A scowl took over my face. With Ricardo came two wounded guards who had to be temporarily relieved of duty. But still, if Lucas started a fight, there was no way only three men would be wounded. That meant… “He killed quite a few of us, hasn’t he?”
“Three guards,” Apollo replied. “I was lucky it wasn’t my shift.”
That sounded more like the Lucas I knew. Phantom paint burst through my knee as it remembered Lucas’s bullets. Thanks to him using steel core ammunition, my bones were penetrated cleanly and thus curable with some light magical intervention, but that did not stop the joint from hurting.
“He’s fine,” Jasika uttered, rage boiling beneath the calm voice. “Unfortunately.”
He was, unsurprisingly. Exhausted, tortured, but physiologically stable. “How long is he to be here?”
“Two weeks.”
