The boy in the darkness

This is my first piece of writing in a very long time, I kind of got the bug last night after reading Manroon's war letters thread. (thank you for that sir!)

In the middle of a barren room, surrounded by nothingness, a boy sat in the darkness. His mind held no fear, he knew in his heart that nothing could harm him. He remembered being taken from his home, his mother screaming for the men to stop, he remembered the Dark Man killing his father when he got in the way. Yet, he knew that nothing could hurt him. It had been so long since someone had used his name he had forgotten it, it was almost like people using his name would be dangerous. The men that brought his rations almost looked afraid of him, no one even looked at him.

The room started to get colder, the boy began to shiver. What was this? He was never cold, even sleeping on the slab of stone that served as his cot he never felt the cold. There was a scream in the distance, nothing out of the ordinary for this place. The boys and girls that lived in the other holding cells tended to cry out a lot. This was a girl screaming, he remembered her screams from before.

The scream got louder. This was different, the boy moved to the corner of the room that held his stone cot. His shaking hands unconsciously fumbled for something to hold, even though he knew that there was nothing there.

The scream changed to a pain filled, agonizing expression. Were they killing her? The screams continued for so long, the boy wondered if they were real. He closed his eyes and tried to block it out. Then it hit him, he felt her pain. His body convulsed and he fell off of his stone bed.

He picked himself up off the floor and sat back on the edge of the slab. His entire body was shaking now, and the boy pushed himself as far in to the corner as he could, trying to make himself disappear. The girls screaming abruptly changed from to a blood curdling choke and then stopped. He pulled his knees into his chest and began to rock back and forth, trying to console himself. Trying to see past the pain now seared into his brain.

It was useless, tears began to flow. Raw fear gripped him like he had never known. The door opened and the room got colder. The boy began to scream…..

TBC