Volume 1 Chapter 13 The punishment is Torture

Jack slowly woke up in a dark room, his cell to be precise. He started shaking; it was cold, so cold.

The last thing he had done before being put to sleep by the guard was to swallow the Bone Ring; he couldn’t let these bad guys know of it.

It took quite a bit of time for his eyes to adapt to the near non-existence of light. He was stressed, fearful and he was so cold.

The ten year old tried to move but the sharp pain that came from all over his body dissuaded him to continue trying.

He looked at himself and was aghast to realize why his body had reacted that way. A chain was wrapped around him but it wasn’t one you would find in a normal prison.

The chain was full of thorns, and more than half of them had found their way in his flesh.

Jack knew he had to remain calm in this kind of situation; otherwise he would likely die from the blood loss caused by his recklessness.

With a deep breath, the kid started looking around him; there was not much in the room. All he could see was a pile of hay and his injured body.

Jack was however still able to move, given he did slow movements and endured the pain of his body being torn apart from every angle.

He had barely made his way to the hay bed when he heard his cell being unlocked. He looked over his shoulder and saw a pair of church’s executioners come in.

The woman spoke first: “Hello kiddo, today your home schooling program will begin. Hope you’re ready to endure this difficult course.”

“And I will be today’s teacher.” Said the man, his smile betraying his seemingly good motives.

Before Jack even saw it coming, a merciless kick was given right in Jack’s solar plexus.

Jack’s breath was cut short by the heavy hit. He could hardly breathe and his body started convulsing.

The executioner came closer to Jack; he started pulling the thorny chain that was tied around Jack’s body. The thorns started ripping away bits of flesh.

Blood started pouring from the boy’s wounds. The torturer was taking his time to make Jack’s agony last longer. He screamed out of his lungs, the pain was unbearable.

When Jack’s chain was fully taken off, the man asked his colleague to bring over the Chus sealer.

He forcefully put the restrictive vest on Jack’s body. While it had a similar use to the one Mars had during his stay in Bonerest, this one was specifically made for torture.

The straitjacket was incomplete, the Chus could hardly be absorbed and refined but some could still pass through, the reason why was because there were large holes in some places.

That way, the executioner could hit the tortured soul without destroying the mechanism.

The next torture method used was even more vicious.

The man in front of Jack took out a large fishing hook out of his bag, with the chain previously used to tie Jack, he hung the fishing hook on a hook coming out of the ceiling.

He grabbed Jack’s hand, pierced it using the anomalously big fishing hook and let Jack hang from the ceiling.

The man laughed and left the cell along with his co-worker.

Jack was left in the cell, crying in pain alone in the dark. Gravity quickly impacted the boy and dislocated his shoulder causing him even more distress.

A scream came out of his ajar opened mouth.

The night passed with an agonizing speed, or so he thought it was night outside. His sense of time gradually failed him during the hours that came after his torture session.

At random hours, Jack would hear screams of pain and of misery from the cell around him; he was not the only one who was living this hell.

What was even worse was that the torturers only gave him fragments of stale bread. Over the days he was starving, yet he was kept alive by rotten food.

The taste was terrible but he could not decide to not eat it; this stale viand was his only way of surviving.

Time passed as slowly as possible, the torture sessions were getting more and more frequent. Jack was sure the sadistic team had made it so their sleeping schedule was the opposite of the other that way they could torture Jack and the others at seemingly random times.

Sometimes Cardinal Joseph would come in secret. Cardinal Joseph was a good man, a real one this time.

It had taken time for Jack to accept the goodwill of another Cardinal even more since Cardinal Joseph had been on that balcony at that time. Jack hated Cardinal Francis to his bones.

In contrast, Cardinal Joseph was full of good intentions, one time he was even able to bring Therio with him.

Therio had cried from sadness when he had seen the look his close friend now had. Again and again the good Cardinal would come in secret and would only meet him out of all the prisoners kept here.

The Cardinal had explained to him how the Church had been divided for years now.

The Church of Eryn was divided in three big factions:

The Clergy that contained most of the priests; they were motivated by greed yet remained faithful to the Goddess, they were the conservative faction.

The Guardians was the second faction of the Church; they were the assembly of some priests and some knights, they were the reformist faction.

The Inquisition was the last great faction of the Church; they were led by the Grand Inquisitor Rasputin Gabriel Claudius and his brother the Second Inquisitor Hyperion Raphael Claudius. They remained neutral in the internal fight of the Church.

While in theory, the Guardians had the same numbers of Cardinals than the Clergy, that wasn’t true in practice because of the pseudo-Cardinal that was the Overseer who sided with the Clergy. At the same time the Inquisition, who was barely weaker in terms of political power, did not side with any of the other two main factions.

Unfortunately, since Cardinal Joseph had officially left the Clergy, he was no longer allowed in the private property of Cardinal Francis because of that his trips to see Jack were short and rare.

And after the good Cardinal left, it was inevitable time for torture.

Author's notes:

This chapter is the first of my Writaton Challenge, I'm not sure if I'll be able to win as I have very little gaps in my schedule and I kinda want to use my free time reading (I am first and first most a reader, only then am I an author) but I'll try to write as much as possible because I love winning.

Wish me luck and appreciate this unusual stream of content.

See you :]