What's Left (Complete)

Cold.

No. It wasn't cold. It was hot. Burning. But it was cold all around. Cold, and the burning...It was ahead wasn't it? Ahead of him. He could see it, kind of, beyond the smudged glare against his glasses, he could see the bright smear that was painted against the dark canvas of the sky. Orange and angry, the air thick with smoke, the acrid stench of flesh burning. He felt the cold again, against his back, against his skin...

No.

No, that was wrong too. There wasn't any warmth. There hadn't been. This floor and wall, the bars, they were cold. They always were. Not for ages had there been any warmth besides what he could breathe out onto his hands, fingers numb and curled against his palms, ragged fingernails biting into his skin as he tried to clutch onto whatever warmth was left. Why were his fingernails so jagged...? He couldn't remember. His neck was sore. It was distracting, bothersome even. Why was it so sore? He couldn't remember that either. Every inhale, every dry and lumpy swallow, made the soreness of his neck and shoulders a dull and haunting pain. He couldn't remember wh-...Then a flash of frantic grappling, fingernails raking against stone and bars and cloth and skin, breaking, breaking, snapping, ragged breaths ripping through his sore throat as he tried to break free, warmth spilling free, trying to break free from...

Oh.

There were little hands knuckled against his cassock when he looked down, little pale hands, bundled and clutching as a little head of a black bob buried itself against his thigh. He could feel the small form trembling against his leg, trying to hide. That's what was keeping him in place. He pulled a meager smile over his cheeks, hardly noting the way they cracked as he smiled. He had gotten used to it a long time ago, stopped trying to lick them wet, stopped trying to...Stopped trying to...Stopped trying to do what?


He smiled automatically, in a fond and familiar way. He looked to the side, finding a figure of matching height beside him, dark hair, dark eyes, a dark and somber look, but one that made him feel nothing but comfort. The scowl did not translate as a scowl at all, but a worried glance, one that he appreciated very much. There were roots between them, he and that dark figure, roots that ran deep, deep, deep...










He was deep down. Deep underground. He could hear the echo of each inhale. He could hear the weight of the world above him, the groan of the earth. He could hear, it was so quiet, so silent, he could hear back into the echoes of those scattered, battered, memories that lay scattered about the darkness like broken glass, too sharp to touch, but so tempting to just take...To take and press against skin. He could hear his name being called. His name? What was his name. He just heard it didn't he? Why didn't he respond?



                       Little one?




















Bright shock, momentary, fleeting, sang through his head like a knife through a melon, slicing clean through the tangled fleshy webs of muck, spilling guts and seeds free. For a brief messy moment, he remembered his name.

He was Guillem Bautista. Father Guillem Bautista. But he was Father Wellam to a small boy that he had left behind, a mere twelve year old with darkened glasses too large to yet fit his face, a small boy whose accent warped his name into something new, something fond and unique. Wellam! Yes! That's it! That's who he was! Picking himself up, slowly rolling his aching and heavy body onto his hands and knees, peeling himself from the wall, Father Wellam squinted through the blur towards the cold metal bars that lined the small enclosure of his space. Maybe, if he could free himself from these chains, from these irons, he could make it to those bars. If he could just make it to those bars, perhaps he could figure out a way to escape! With frantic movements, tired and sore, he slowly forced a small pin of light between his fingers with what energy he was able to glean from his short nap. He leaned forward, against the short chain about his neck, and tried to angle his wrists behind him, tilt them enough so that maybe, maybe, he could delicately knit through the latches and locks confining his wrists behind his back. He had little time. He had to work fast, not to avoid what dangers might be patrolling the hallway, but to work before he forgot what it was he was trying to do.

Before he forgot the small boy who waited for him back home.


Before he forgot the small boy who...



Before he forgot...




Before...


His hands stilled. The pin of light vanished. He sat back, a growing, slackening look of worry pulling over his gaunt and bedraggled features.

...Who was he...

Who did he forget?

His mind searched. But..He found nothing. There was nothing there. Nothing but an old man sitting before the door of his cage, eyes distant, mind dark and deep, like an empty well. Each question he asked himself was like a stone thrown into that well, every thought, every worry and wonder. Except, with the well of his mind, with every question, there was no answering sound, no bottom, no end. Just a yawning endless vacuum.

Nothing.

There was nothing left.

Wellam leaned back against the cold wall and stared forward into nothing.

Cold. It was still cold.

Cold, yes, that was a consistency. Something that had been the same, something that hadn't changed in these long days, these long weeks, months...God, had it been years? It felt like years. Sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking, but it never felt like he was going to leave this nightmare. It was all the same, day in, day out, the same...This, though, this blurry shape wasn't. She wasn't always there, but sometimes she was. He couldn't remember her...Who was she...? Who was she? Wellam squinted at her, his face shifting from bleary confusion to...well, a different shade of confusion. He didn't quite...remember her...No. Did he? He did, she wasn't new, she was a shade of something that he remembered. W-what was it? Who was she?

"Let me out."

A garbled response, something lost. He couldn't remember the words, but he could remember her voice saying something to him then. He was sore and battered, his glasses were gone, just like they were now, and he felt a terrible burning in his neck, a miserable weakness in his limbs, sores around his neck and wrists, the weight of irons growing heavier and heavier with every moment. They had clasped his wrists in irons, forcing them behind his back, given him a matching necklace. The chain was short, too short for him to sleep lying down, short enough that he couldn't lean forward, couldn't wiggle or writhe, or twist himself enough to angle his hands to summon his rapier of light and cut himself free. They had already figured out that they couldn't leave him with a long chain. They had run that gambit of circumstance years ago. This place, these people, they learned quickly. Over time, the chain was shortened and Wellam was left sore and exhausted, left to sleep in the noose of the iron collar, his hands to remain behind his back. As this scenario replayed itself, over and over and over, always, always the same, he was left wanting to scream, sometimes screaming, sometimes ripping his throat so much with his sound and fury that he was left coughing up spit and blood. Yet, as the days passed and time waned, as the nightmare trudged on, he was left with nothing to do but beg instead of scream and struggle. They had taken that away from him too. Behind him, the wall was left with blackened chips and lines of Wellam's attempted escapes, a fresco of failure.

"Please, if there is any humanity, any kindness in you, yet, please let me out, you must. I have to get out. I have to go back. I have to get back!

And so it went. Their conversation rotated, reinvented itself multiple times, and yet it felt like the dialog was always the same. A question. An apology. Another question.

"I have to get back home! I must get back home! I have to get back to him! You don't understand, I have to get back!"

He kept asking, kept begging, kept struggling when he could, kept screaming and pulling at his chain. Another apology, something sincere, something pitiful, and it would recycle again. Sometimes, the other voice in the conversation,  no matter who it was, would say something, point something out, something cosmic, something beyond anyone's control. It felt like a lie. Yet the way they said it, it felt like a fact, a truth, something as plain as blood was red. It bothered him to hear it, rattled him, made his blood spike. When he heard that, he did something out of character. Something violent. He couldn't remember anything more than that, just...Red. Nothing had changed since then. It was the same. This was the same conversation.

"We're going to see if you're ready to be integrated into the household..."

No. No, that wasn't the same. This was different. That was different.

Wellam blinked. He was distracted, blinking up through the haze of his miserably shallow sight at a figure who leaned over him, with that same soft slightly voice. He tilted his head, the cold clink of the chain shifting behind him as he squinted at her through the blur, trying to sift through the memories, but they kept sifting through his grip like sand. Now, he could only hear the word "house".

House.

Hou...

Ho...

Home.

"Ready?" he asked. His voice cracked as he spoke, unused and crumbling from both overuse and neglect. He swallowed thickly, and tried again to speak, croaking gently, "Ready for home...? Ready to go home? I want to go home."