The coldness of the stone cell bore into the youth’s bare arms and legs as he sat leaned up against a wall in a room located in a building close to the Military Headquarters. His formerly short black hair came down to his shoulders in matted clumps. The shackles that held his hands above his head did not clang or ring as his frail body subtly moved them, but they certainly served their purpose. Reserve handcuffs were said to be ten times as powerful as even the toughest Terran-made handcuffs. Clad in only a sleeveless grey shirt and black pants that ended just below his knees, he’d wondered how he’d been able to survive nearly nine months. He was not only somewhere that was not his home, but not even the planet that he was from.
Still, something that troubled him even more was how the man in the cell with him was still alive. A once strong, proud man, he’d been reduced to skin and bones. Much of that was because he’d given half of their meager daily meals to the boy. From a caloric standpoint, the two would’ve died only weeks after they had been shipped off to Titan. The Utrium-fertilized potatoes and cabbage grown on Mars had somehow kept them both just barely alive. It was yet another mystery attributed to the rock.
If it had meant saving the man from dying, the boy would’ve given the portion of pottage back, and his own meal on top of that as well. He did not want to see the closest thing he had to a father die in front of him. After all, his own mother had been executed in cold blood right in front of him. He’d seen her lifeless head being picked up by the scalp in the hand of her killer like some precious trophy, the rest of her corpse getting pushed onto an old rug from a burgled house to be taken away. It had happened months earlier, but the memories were still fresh on his mind, seared into his brain.
“If that kid had an ounce of our blood, he might’ve been worth keeping.” he heard one of his guards saying in front of his cell.
“The Demon Princess—” the other guard coughed as if he had slipped the wording up by accident. “General Karesti must have a good reason for keeping him in here. My own personal issue is that man. They say that he was one of the most trusted advisors to the Defender of Terra herself, but it all gets thrown out the window when you’re left to rot in a cell like that.”
“We’re just here to do our job,” the first guard shrugged. “Let’s not get our feelings into this.”
“You’re the one who mentioned yours first, pal.” the second argued.
“That wasn’t an invite for you to tell yours.” the first shot back.
“Does it matter? Stronger emotions strengthen your Reserve. Expressing mines means I get to the brunt of the work of keeping those shackles in place.”
“We were taught to minimize that at Heimat, don’t you remember? Jeez, I can feel all sorts of things, but I’ll never let another person know—shit, shut up.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Huh?”
“The Warden’s coming. Shut up.”
A Titanian in a similar all-grey uniform. Much of his light-brown hair had long since faded into grey, although his face kept almost all of its youth. At 40 years old, Lieutenant Colonel Lambert Ernst was the oldest active-duty member of the Titanian Military. He was so good at his work that not another person had been considered for the position of Warden of Xanadu Penitentiary, the nation’s most renowned prison in two and a half decades. Not a single breakout or riot had occurred during his tenure. He had been at the job since the latter years of Emperor Henrik’s reign.
The two guards, approaching their 30s, quickly brought their hands up in salute, which he reciprocated.
“General Karesti decrees for Subject 293840 to be transferred immediately into the custody of the Crown. Subject 4893501’s detention has ceased, effective immediately.” he said, getting straight to the point.
After exchanging hesitant looks, the two guards opened the grilled cell doors. The prisoners slumped forward, and a groan escaped the mouth of the man, but the teenaged boy didn’t react at all. He was simply too numb, too deep inside his own personal hell to care. Two other guards came and forced them to their feet before taking them past rows of cells, each occupied by other Terrans. This particular sector was reserved for human slaves who disobeyed their owners, but the two prisoners being let out were very special exceptions.
They were led to a door leading to a walled yard, exposed to the frigid air of Titan. The centre of it was occupied by a pool of liquid methane, a substance common all over the moon’s surface. But this pool had a specific purpose. The man was pushed through the door, even though he did not object nor protest. He knew exactly what was going to happen.
It was surrounded by nameless graves, after all.
“Kal, you won’t have to wait much longer,” he muttered through tired, cracked lips. “I’ll be right there with you.”
Upon realising what was being implied, the boy finally screamed, begging for what was about to happen to stop.
“You can’t! Bring Uncle Ruben back, please! T-Take me instead. I deserve it more! Mum took that bullet for me. Let me go to hell-
A strong hand clapped over his mouth, preventing him from crying out any more. The guards attending to Ruben turned him around a final time to face his ‘nephew’ again.
“Subject 4893501, do you have any final statements before you are released?” the warden asked, as part of procedure.
“Joakim,” Ruben said without indicating that he indeed had something to say. “Don’t be sad. I know that these past few months are the worst that you and I have ever gone through, but it’s over now. I don’t know what they’ll do with you, but I’m confident you’ll find a way to go back home and find Stefan by the end of it. And one more thing, before I’ll never be able to say it. Joakim, you already know that you and your brother have different fathers. All I can say for sure is that… I am your father. You are my son.”
“Will that be all?” the warden asked.
Ruben was silent.
“Release him.” He ordered his guards. The two very tall, robust soldiers pushed Ruben back first into the pool. Mere seconds later, he was out of sight. He was gone forever.
Joakim was pulled back into the prison. Minutes later with a gas mask over his face and a borrowed jacket and boots given by the Warden, he saw himself at the gates of the prison. As his weak body fought off the deathly cold winds, a vehicle, one that hovered right above the road appeared in front of him.
For the first time in months, the possibility of Joakim finding his little brother felt real.