Chapter 17- Venir Veritas

Chapter 17

 

Venir Veritas

 

           

Judicium, the land of everlasting peace and order. The land where all is one. Where the Sun shines bright and the Moon sees every truth. The perfect world. Once upon a time not too long ago, Venir believed it to be true. Now it seemed nothing more than an illusion in a dream. Time had lost its value along with everything else. Venir had no idea why they didn’t just physically kill him but he didn’t care. Questioning was a lost art to him.

Shortly after arriving underground he was taken into a dark room, but not before being paraded through crowds of angry Cruorians, cursing, yelling, and throwing stuff at him. He’d never seen so many people he’d never met before hate him with such scorn. In their eyes, he almost believed he deserved this.

The room where he was taken was lit by two torches and had about as much space for five of him to fit uncomfortably. Two guards half naked in armor were left behind to watch him. Once they were alone with him, for no reason as far as Venir could tell, they engaged in beating him senseless. They beat him with the sheaths of their swords until he could no longer stand on his two feet and then moved on to stomping him until he was barely conscience.

After the beating Venir assumed it couldn’t get much worse. He was wrong. As soon as the next day came he was dragged out of that dark room into a slightly larger dark prison. They undressed him and tied his wrist together with a chain hanging from the ceiling. Afterwards, he learned the true meaning of pain.

One of the guards came in with a leather whip and ripped three lines of flesh off his back. That was the first time Venir actually cried from pain. When a medic came in to tend his wound he thought he had found hope but she did nothing aside from her job, even when he begged her for help. When she left, hope faded.

On random days, crowds of people would come visit him as he was hanging from the ceiling naked. They would laugh at him, spit at him, make jests about his penis, and some even hit him once or twice before the guards stopped them. Whenever the people came he would try his hardest to hold on to the little pride he had left and not cry, but one could only take so much. With the crowd in front of him, the shame ate at him from the inside and tears would rain down like a waterfall as they laughed and humiliated him.

It only took a couple days before he was completely lost. Life had lost its value and he was little more than an empty shell. He stopped questioning why they beat him. He stopped questioning why they whipped him. He stopped questioning why they hung him from the ceiling naked. He stopped questioning why they would come in just to laugh at him. He even stopped questioning what became of Erica anymore. As far as he was concerned, he was already dead.

After a while the guards lost their interest in humiliating his living corpse. The few times they came in it was to force food and water down his throat. Sometimes they would beat him or piss on him afterwards just for the sake of it but Venir didn’t care. What was pain and humiliation after he stood and watched his sister get beheaded. He’d learn that he could take endless days of torture and humiliation and get used to it, but the death of his sister was something that he’d never overcome.

Even dreams had had lost their solace because of her. They reminded him of a time that was. A time when she still smiled and his father never came home. A time when everlasting peace and order was a reality instead of just an idea. But all of it was soon washed away by Emilia’s blood. Every night he saw that red man’s smirk, raising his sword, and his little sister’s head falling. Only when he heard the sound of her head hitting the floor did he wake up from his nightmare into his living nightmare.

With no hope for the future and not a care for the present, all that remained to him was the past. Looking back now though, he wondered if he was ever truly happy. What had seemingly seemed like the perfect life had been a cage. Venir had been the perfect son with the perfect life. Handsome, talented, rich, everything a mother could ever hope for, and everything a wife could ever want. But trapped in people’s expectations as well as his own he never truly felt free. Was it all just a fake smile upon his lips? If so, it was definitely a trait he had gotten from his mother.

His mother had always done her best to seem happy, but he could see right through her mask. Inside she was always crying, crying for what used to be or what could’ve been. Venir never knew the woman she used to be but he could see remnant fragments of what was. His mother was beautiful but her true beauty always came from the inside. To say she was perfect would be a lie, but the mere effort she placed into having the perfect family despite her own unhappiness said enough. As for the rest…a cage can defile even the noblest of people.

Venir had known of his mother’s indiscretions for many years but wouldn’t dare condemn her. When imprisoned for so long there weren’t many who wouldn’t do anything in their power for a breath of fresh air. Of course it took some getting used to. The first time Venir noticed, it was with Pain, the head servant. Venir had been searching for his mother in the middle of the night because of a nightmare. Upon reaching her doorstep he froze. He could still hear the sounds of their lovemaking and remember hiding in the dark corner of the hall until Pain stepped out. After the discovery of his mother’s indecencies, Venir had made a habit of spying on his mother. The second time he noticed it was with one of the Black Coats. Each time he saw a new face he died a little more inside until one day he saw the first real smile his mother had. Her smiles always had a unique genuine air to them, but this was type of smile you only had when you were truly happy. It wasn’t so often she actually left the manor but when she did she was never wearing a mask. For Venir to deny her that happiness would’ve been a cruelty he wouldn’t wish upon anyone. What I would’ve done for Emilia to enjoy that happiness…

 

***

 

The door to his small confined prison opened and he heard a voice. This wasn’t just another guard’s voice, it was a woman’s voice, it was her voice. “I leave you here alone for a couple days and this is what they do to you. If you ask me, they were kind.”

Venir’s shoulders burned from hanging so long. His feet hardly touched the floor and he was covered in bruises. His ribs were starting to show and his complexion was three shades paler than usual. The room smelled of piss and s**t and not a window to ventilate the stench. All insignificant things that were overshadowed by the presence of the one person who was to blame for all his misery.

Venir found the strength to lift his head and glare at the woman. Her red hair burned as bright as he remembered. She was wearing what looked like golden undergarments with a translucent cloth over it, most of her flesh still exposed. There was not an ounce of morality anywhere on this girl, whom he now realized wasn’t much older than he was.

            “Good to see you’re still awake,” she said. “I would’ve came to visit you before but his Highness wouldn’t give me the leave to. Allow me to introduce myself before I tell you why you are where you are. My name is Mhia Atlas. I am the daughter of Rhyth Juno and Princess of Cruor. My brother is Ezra Octem, King of Cruor and leader of Paradise Lost. Your father killed our mother and sister.”

            Venir searched for his voice. “Then why…am I here…instead of him…?”

            Mhia punched him in the rib. “It is because you are his son that you are here. I intend to make Charles suffer the same pain I went through.”

            “You think…my father will give two f***s…I’m missing?”

            “No one puts that amount of security around people they don’t care about. I lost two good friends, good people, to your father’s Black Coats. I’ll make sure your precious family suffers for each of my losses.”

            “You attacked…us. My family…is innocent…we never hurt you…or your friends.”

“You’re a fool to think that. Permit me to tell you my story, so you may better understand why you and your accursed family deserve to suffer.”

            She started walking idly in circles around him. “Ten years ago when Cruor lost the war, it was your father who ended it. I was only six at the time and still a little girl. My mother had remarried after separating from your father but that King died in the battle prior to the one that ended the war. After the battle in which my mother died, Cruor would’ve been lost for good if my brothers and me hadn’t escaped. We knew there would be no negotiating with Judicium a second time, so my mother had kept all of our births a secret, even from her own people, in case we lost. Only Cruor’s most trusted followers knew about us.

            “When your father seized the castle, we were taken into a secret passage inside the throne room. Before we left I had the unfortunate privileged of witnessing from behind a wall the type of man your father was. I watched…I watched each of your father’s men take a turn raping both my mother and sister before they crucified my mother and dismembered my sister. And before your father stabbed the killing blow through my mother’s heart do you know what he asked her.” She drew close to his face. “‘Do you believe in God?’ As if he were something greater!”

            Venir spat on her face. “F**k your mother…f**k your sister…and f**k my father…”

            The red ran through her entire face. She grabbed Venir’s bare testicles and squeezed them so hard he began to puke. “You think you have nothing left to live for. You think you know pain because your sister is dead. That nothing can hurt you anymore because it’ll pale in comparison. Well let me be the one to tell you that you’re wrong. There are worse things than death and there are even more things that can remind you you’re still alive. Once you finally break you’re going to wish you had something to believe in. And when that happens, I’ll be the one who asks you, ‘do you believe in God?’”

            “God…isn’t going to help me…anymore than he helped your mother.”

            She walked to a basket in the corner of the room and pulled out a knife. “At first I wanted to make you literally experience what my mother and sister went through, but unfortunately you’re worthless dead. Crucifying you or dismembering you would guarantee unwanted results. I considered having you raped over and over again but homosexual Cruorians don’t live long in our society. So once again you found yourself in luck. Unfortunate, that your friend can’t say the same. The men were more than eager to have their fun with her.” She squeezed his groin again to open his mouth, and stuck the knife inside his mouth pressing it against the inside of his cheek. “As for you, I’ve decided on a different punishment. My mother once gave your father a scar. I think I’ll do the same with his son.”

            “Aaaaaarrrrghhhh!!!!”

            Whatever life he thought to have lost returned to him in a wave of agony. Just the act of screaming brought immense pain. Pain flared across his entire face. His whole body shook with the need to tend to his wound but he was naked, tied, and defenseless. His wrist cut into his chains as he struggled to break free. He kicked and kicked but to no avail.

            “This is but a taste of what I intend to do to you.” She turned her back to him. “I’ll send in for a healer to stitch up the wound. Try not to bleed to death until then.” She was gone a second later.

            Venir passed out before anyone else came in but by the time he awoke his cheek was fully stitched and he was laying in a rock of a bed. His hand automatically went to touch his cheek and was surprised when he felt nothing. Whatever ointment they placed on the wound made the entire right side of his face numb. He was grateful; he’d never known physical pain like a blade ripping through flesh. Stitched up or not, he imagined the pain was still there. His suspicions soon came to confirmation.

            Eating had never been so unpleasant. The simple act of opening his mouth was enough to overcome the numbness and bring him to his knees in grief. After several measly attempts, Venir decided he preferred not to eat. Unfortunately, once the guards noticed he wasn’t eating they started feeding him personally once again with little regard to his crimson smirk.

            The cut had miserably brought Venir back to full life. Beatings began to hurt again. Being naked now felt naked. Laughter shamed him. The wound didn’t get better with the days either, in fact it got worst. Once they stopped giving him the numbing ointment, he had to endure the pain in its full affect. About the only thing that changed for the better was the fact that he was no longer hanging from the ceiling. Compared to that, his new three feet radius cell seemed luxurious.

            Ironically, loneliness soon became his biggest fear. When hours felt like days and the only company one had was their own pain and thoughts, it was easy to become grateful of their captor’s visits. A little thinking was a blessing, too much was a curse. Thoughts only served to bring tears. At least while he was being humiliated it was easy to forget just how hopeless. Alone, it was clear as day that no one was coming for him. Everyone in his household was probably dead. His mother was powerless. His family had no friends. And his father was in another city. The only person that might even consider wasting their time searching for him holding some form of authority and power was Caius, and Venir had given him little reason to like him. And even if Caius did search for him, his efforts would be in vain. No man who didn’t know about the rebel’s secret passage in the church would be able to tell it from a normal wall. And who would even think to look underground. With his odds, Venir was better off praying to God after all.

            One night or day, he couldn’t tell, Venir cried so much he thought he would drown in his own tears. Time seized once again in his solitary prison and his mind was doing laps around his entire life over and over again. He pitied himself and cried because he pitied himself. He begged out loud in his mind for some sort of salvation or an ounce of kindness from anyone or anything, for any release from this hell he was living in. But nothing changed. He was alone. And nothing was changing.

Venir started to bang his head against a wall. Why did she need to come? Why must she hate me so much? I never hurt her. I never did anything to her. How can you hate someone so much for something they never did? It’s just not fair. I don’t know how much longer I can take this pain. I rather die…I rather die. I rather die!

            “No you don’t.”

            Venir jumped and scanned the dim fire lit prison. “Who said that? Who’s there?”

            Another voice said, “You want to live, Venir.”

            “There are still things you must do,” said the other.

            “I have nothing left to do. I’m already dead. The whole world has forgotten me.”

            “No,” they said in unison. “Before, you were dead. Now you are alive.”

Author's Note

What are your thoughts on Venir's fate? Where do you think his story will go from here?

Reviews

[Dark Rider]

Poor Venir. I can't even imagine the pain he must be going through. Once again, you did a great job describing what was going on, and I loved everything about the chapter. I can't wait to read the next chapters and find out what happens to him and Caius. :)