Witnesses (Part 3)

I continued writing and writing this section so I split it up. Sorry if it seems too short. if you haven't read the first one please do here and please follow me if you enjoy reading my work. Happy Wednesday!

It was much darker this time. My eyes were thankful for the difference. Someone was stroking my hair. My head was not hurting. I wasn’t even hung-over from the last bout of drugs they had pumped into me. It was like I had woken from a normal night’s sleep. I looked up to see Jean’s outline staring into a corner. When she felt me move she positioned herself to give me a hasty hug.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a gentle whisper. I could tell there were undertones of panic but she was also trying to keep even more quite than she had before the café.

“Yes,” I answered as quietly as I could. “How long was I out?”

“I think they brought you in a few hours ago. It’s so hard to tell in here.”

“Where are we?”

She only looked back to the corner. As I followed her gaze I noticed the walls were the same cement bricks as the room I was just in, only they were left unpainted. The door was solid metal. I imagined it was the same structure as the one that made the agonizing popping and squealing. Bars covered its tiny window toward the top and a thin long mail slot-like flap was at the bottom.

I continued to follow my wife’s sight line to the darkest part of the room. A body stirred from the shadows into the light. His hair was the first thing I recognized, then the nose. It was his eyes that threw me off.

They were so somber in their pure sapphire. It increased his apparent feeling of dread or remorse or regret. I could not tell which. Simply put, he was sad.

“You,” I began in a louder voice before a hand slapped over my mouth. I looked back to my wife. She had her first finger over her mouth shushing me.

“They’re listening,” she half mouthed. “Milas wants to get us out of here. He thinks he has some people heading our way. We just have to be patient.”

I looked back at who I suspected was Milas. The female was just behind him, I could see. She had tears pooling at the edge of her eyes. He nodded and extended his hand for me to shake. Although my hand was lying on my side, nowhere near where he would have grabbed for it I placed it behind me and inched myself and Jean back toward the wall on our side.

“Willie, please,” she whispered faintly in my ear, “just take his hand. They’re no harm to us or anyone.”

“You’re the one who thought they were secret weapons. You weren’t the one who was tortured to identify them. If I’m being tortured there’s got to be a reason and the reason has to be that they are dangerous.”

I felt a droplet hit my cheek. “Please, they’re in as much trouble as we are and it’s my fault.” Her voice shook only a little as she continued to exclude the invisible listener.

I looked back at Milas who was shaking his head and patting his chest. Then his extended his hand again. I inhaled deeply, praying that what I was about to do was not a mistake.

Our palms met. It was like viewing one of my own memories but they were not my own. They told of a very long trip after escaping a plague, of splitting from others just like them only a few years ago. He and his sister, Midian, were on their way to visit some friends up north. Both were mute, which explained excessive lack of speaking.