Page 113 of The Blackened Blade

I sit down on a chair near the window, my body sagging down a little further as the weight of the emotions I had been holding back slowly begin to seep through.

A cold chill from an open window at the back of the room fills the air as my eyes slowly close, a memory instantly hitting me; his gravelly pained voice, my name on his lips, and then…silence.An unending and infinite silence that will haunt my dreams with an agony so painful and destructive, it pierces my soul to its depths. It's followed by screams so unearthly and pain-ridden that it's hard to believe they’re my own.

I’m pulled back through my memories and tohim.

We had met in the Facility, I say ‘met’ but we never really saw each other.

I was placed in the cell next to his with large old cement blocks separating us and a huge metal door holding us each prisoner.

It was after my first week and first‘test’in the Facility and after all the tears and screams had left my throat and eyes raw, that I had finally fallen silent in my cell.

That's when I first heard him. A low hum that slowly rang out from the cement bricks behind me.

I limply sit against the cold grey wall after their first little ‘test’, my body bleeding and aching all over. Suddenly I hear a noise behind me, a low voice humming on the other side of the thick cement wall. It rings out around me in my cell as I sit listening to it.

With no contact or communication of any kind–other than the twisted guards here–it was strange to hear a voice other than my own around me.

But that's all I hear. There's no voice, no words, just a low melancholy humming that fades after a while.

A few days later and after another ‘test,’ I hear it again. And then again the day after that. It becomes consistent and I realise whoever it is would hum their sad melodies when I would return from another‘test’. It was almost as if they were trying to help me in some way. To soothe some of the pain I felt with their gentle humming.

It started out as a light hum but over time, it slowly grew into a low soothing song.

When the first words flowed from his mouth, I felt my breath catch in my lungs, my heart pick up pace and something small pull from the depths of tender emotions I thought I had very little of left.

I didn’t even realise I was singing along with him until he had stopped. The voice that then called out to me was nothing like the beautiful melodious one from when he sang. It was low and coarse and so fractured. And almost sounded like he was in pain trying to even speak.

“Ho…w? No…o not h…ere…” His words were rough and his voice so broken, it was hard to make out what he was saying.

What did he mean? Was he telling me not to sing?

It wasn’t something I had intended on doing either. I don’t even like singing, especially in front of others.

Or did he mean he wouldn’t sing for me again?

A small ache works its way into my chest with the thought. His voice and light melancholy hums had been the only reprieve from this nightmare, from the months of torture, pain and silence.

It was the only comfort in this dark and cold room that made me feel like I wasn’t alone. That even with a wall between us, I had someone here to come back to.

“I…it won’t happen again.” I call to him, “I won’t sing again, so please…” I didn’t even know him, not even his name and yet I felt almost desperate to not lose this small contact with him. “I won’t–”

“No…N..oo!” He shouts, his voice like gravel as he raises it, sounding more pained than before as it cracks on the broken vowels. “Don..t st…op sing…ing. Beau…ti…ful.”

Beautiful? He thought it was beautiful?

Was he joking?

I don’t think I had ever been complimented on my voice before. Even when I had to sing in music class in the academy, my voice was low and feeble and I’d always fumble the song's words. The rest of the class would laugh or whisper to each other. Ihated every second of it.

“Z…rael…” He murmurs after a moment of silence.

“What?” I lean closer to the wall, trying to hear him better.

“My n…ame is Zrael.”

‘Zrael’ I mumble as I look toward the cold grey wall before leaning closer toward it. At least I knew his name.

“I’m Micai.”

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