The room was pitch black. And yet somehow Rami thought it resembled an empty closet with a door made of metal poles. Rami was certain that it was metal because of how cold it was when he once attempted to hold it with his calloused hands. But that was as far as he could venture out in his quite lacking space.

His eyes remained shut as if they had been hammered for days and were swollen beyond their limits. He winced every time he shifted his body hoping to find a more comfortable position to lay in. Eventually, he would fall back to his side and have his head rest on the wall.

The grimy wall had markings of a tally of whoever was in it before he was. For a moment he wondered if it was him, if he was the one who made the tally, if it was he who was counting his days in this God-awful place.

He sighed, remembering his last moments before being rudely awakened to being whipped alive.

The car…the accident…

His head ached as he tried picturing the moment he first saw those headlights speeding toward him as he crossed the road that morning on his way to work. But that was all he remembered till he found himself in his current state with markings of lashes and cuts gracing his body, exposing the meat under his skin. He couldn’t really connect the dots.

His thoughts were suddenly disturbed by that awful stench, once again. There was a hole in the floor at the edge of his room. The smell of piss and feces augmented it. He knew it was where he should relieve himself. Yet he never had a nature’s call since he was thrown in here after being chained up and tortured for perhaps hours on end.

Maybe I died…and this is hell?...This sure feels like hell…

He thought. He knew he was currently stuck in some sort of a jail cell. He knew that much. But he could not for his own sake wrap his head around how he ended up in this mess. The only logical reasoning was that he had passed away and somehow ended up at the bitter end of the afterlife.

He felt his body be frail, his skin hugging his bones. He could no longer move a single muscle without costing him his precious ability to keep breathing. His stomach grumbled constantly as hunger augmented throughout his being. His lips were left rough and brutally chapped with not a single drop of water to quench them.

And to think his physical state was all the pain he had to endure would be an understatement. His mind was constantly going in and out of consciousness. Once he thought he was back in his apartment on his dull bed. A moment of peace before he was gasping for air as if he was drowning in the deep blue ocean with no one to save him.

No matter how hard he tried he would always end up waking from his dreams, heaving for air. He could no longer afford to fall asleep and forget his pain for he would come crashing back from his nightmares and be woken to pain emanating from his body.

Time was no longer a concept for Rami. Everything was simply being counted by the plates being slid into his cell now and then. It was some sort of mashed filth being served on those plates. And it was only once that Rami attempted to eat it. It left him retching in a corner after the first bite making him push the next few plates right back out the slit at the bottom the second it would arrive.

Suddenly he heard the familiar sound of a door squeaking open in the distance. It was time for his next plate. He was hoping, even if it had always been the same, that it was something different this time, something more palatable and with flavor.

As opposed to the single set of footsteps that usually made its way to him, he heard multiple this time. His ears perked up in alert, wanting his body to retreat to the shadows. But he remained sluggish in his corner resting his head on its side.

The sound of metal keys reached his ears and soon his cell door was wide open.

He forced his eyes to squint open. Three figures stood tall in front of him, looking down at his state.

“Wake him,” a familiar voice commanded. A slap came harshly down on his cheek making him straighten his back rolling into a wretched cough. Another crouched down to his level and poked him with a stick to his collarbone making him let out a cry in pain.

“I heard you weren’t eating your meals. Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Rami heaved himself to a stop before looking through his slit eyes to see nothing but a shadow in front of him. It was the same shadow that had grabbed him by his chin the other time to express how glad everyone was that they had not managed to torture him to death.

“If you’d given me something more appetizing–”

Smack!

He had barely begun to speak when the same stick that poked him came right back down on his head.

“You don’t have the luxury, you fool! But worry not, I will let you kill yourself after all of this is over, after I squeeze every bit of information out of your being. I will make sure you starve till I see nothing but your body rotting away in these dungeons. Now,…”

Rami felt the air move. A plate with the same plop of filth appeared in front of his nose. “...eat! I’m not finished with you. I need you awake and speaking by the morning. And I need you to think it over. All of this suffering could end if you start speaking.”

Rami wondered where he got the energy but as soon as the voice stopped commanding him, he smirked and whispered back, “But you just said you’d let me starve after squeezing every bit of information out of me. So you are not really intending to let me go even after I speak. That’s not a good deal–”

A second smack came thrashing down on Rami’s head making him wince in pain.

“Shut up, you coward!”

He squirmed while footsteps shuffled in front of him and soon he was left to himself with a plate of twice as much food than usual near his feet.

He wanted to shout out and ask them what they wanted of him. What was the reason for his sudden imprisonment when he should be in a hospital impaled after the accident or worse, dead and gone? By the time Rami opened his mouth to shout back they were gone.

He groaned in pain, moving back to his side letting his head rest back on the wall. His fingers automatically found the markings on the wall once more. There were twelve or thirteen of them, the tally marks. Rami couldn’t quite tell, his vision was giving in. He got to the end of the last tally to keep etching it. He had been working on it all day, piece by piece as if that was the only reason his body had not given up yet, the only reason he had not completely lost his mind.

#

For a moment Rami thought it was another plate coming his way. He startled awake to the familiar squeak of the door to the dungeons opening ever so silently. Footsteps shuffled in as a cellmate to his right began a series of groans drowning the ongoing disturbance. Rami stayed still at his corner listening, trying to pick apart the noise and prepare himself for when his plate would eventually slide in or worse, get flung at his face this time so he actually ate it.

A moment later, the groans had subsided and pin-drop silence resumed.

Maybe I heard wrong…

A thought passed between his ears as he settled to his side once more.

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

“No, you idiot…”

Whispers drawing closer had Rami jolting awake. He pried his swollen eyes open to glimpse at the sudden surge of voices. Two shadows began to appear peeking through every cell, stopping, then observing for a few minutes before moving on.

Rami watched as they approached his corner. He stayed as still as he could, eyes shut, pretending to be asleep or better yet, dead.

“Noor, Noor!” a sharp whisper from someone in front of his cell called for the other, “It’s him!”

Footsteps shuffled over and Rami began to feel a huff of breaths observing him. The silence was unnerving. He wondered if they were here to get him, finally end his agony, or drag him back to that pitiful place to have him chained up and tortured once more.

“That’s not him–”

“It is! Don’t just stand there, help me,” a voice commanded as the other huffed in disapproval yet pulled closer making their conversation turn to mere muffles.

Rami squinted, unable to hear a single coherent word as they hovered over the entrance to his cell, huffing and puffing, when alas the lock to his cell suddenly clicked open.

The wind of someone rushing in caught up to him in no time. And without a warning, a hand began sweeping aside Rami’s long hair he never realized he ever grew, out of his numb face to reveal the bruised skin he bore to the world.

“It’s him,” Noor's voice confirmed in astonishment.

“Of course, it is,” the voice closest to Rami retorted then turned to Rami tapping lightly on his cheeks making him wince out of habit. As the taps increased in intensity, the calming voice of the man closest to him began to whisper to him, “Azul, wake up…”

Azul?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Rami’s mind raced. I am not Azul. You’ve got the wrong person!

He thought, wanting to blurt it out but struggled to get his vocal cords to cooperate.

“Azul, it’s me, Yulhan. Noor is here too. Do you….remember us?” Yulhan’s gentle voice spoke once more as Rami managed to pry his swollen eyes open only to see the silhouette of Yulhan and nothing else.

“We must hurry…” Noor sounded impatient making his way into Rami’s cell hurriedly.

A hand grabbed Rami’s waist and pulled him up as Yulhan’s voice whispered, “Don’t worry now. We are going to get you out of here, my friend.”

Rami’s fever dream was far too realistic. He thought he would be racing out of the dungeons accompanied by his saviors, who he had never met in his life before, and skip to the good parts. Yet he found himself wobbling out of his cell unable to walk with his own two feet for quite a long distance. It had been a while since he remembered using his legs to walk. A part of him started to worry he had forgotten how to use them now.

“One after the other, you idiot,” Noor huffed, not wanting to shout out, dragging Rami by his side.

Rami, whose hand was tightly held over Noor's broad shoulders, tilted his head to finally witness what one of his savior’s looked like. Noor looked just as he sounded, a stoic man with a hard shell, tall with broad shoulders and a hard muscled body that could ram into a wall and still come out the other end unscathed. His features were sharp with his tan skin complementing them, especially his cocked eyebrow that seemed to be a part of his typical resting face.

Noor took another look at Rami then kicked Rami’s right foot in front.

“Stop using both your legs at once. One after the other.”

Rami gave a quick nod and stared back at his feet pushing them out as his mind kept pace. Left-right, left-right…

“This way,” Yulhan sounded out as he whipped past the other two, directing them to a passage to their right. He was much gentler and smaller than Noor, a bit disheveled and jumpy, with a piece of parchment tightly between his fingers. He was also much softer in features, curious slender eyes, and paler than his companion. Rami only caught a glimpse of his gentle savior before Yulhan buried his face in the parchment at his hands.

“Have you seriously not noticed it? We’ve been circling the same path for some time now!” Noor hissed at Yulhan throwing his hands in the air letting Rami glide down into an elegant split.

“Well then, why don’t you go ahead? Guide us out of here! You boasted so much about how well you knew the dungeons anyway. Go ahead, prove it!” Yulhan raised his voice letting it echo down the relatively empty and dark passage.

And as if Yulhan’s loud echoes awakened his senses, Rami suddenly realized he was no longer in the unbearable darkness. In fact, he was finally seeing light. Light that seemed to be emanating from a thick wooden stick Yulhan held so fervently by his side.

“Fire?...” Rami said, baffled, “...A stick with fire?”

Yulhan and Noor exchanged a quick look before staring blankly at Rami.

“Um…yes, it is a torch,” Noor replied nonchalantly, watching Rami’s eyes bulge in confusion.

“He’s right! We must put it out. It will only attract attention.” Yulhan dropped the torch to his feet at once and immediately began stomping on it, letting darkness take over in a snap.

“Why are you putting it out?” Noor started.

“It will attract the guards!”

“Guards are not the problem we’ve got right now, is it? We need to find a way out of here. And now we have to do it in the dark!”

“Fine! I will light it back up,” Yulhan shouted back to which Noor simply commented, “You idiot!”

“Stop calling everyone an idiot!”

Suddenly a loud bang sent the three of them jumping. The echo of the sudden noise passed through as they began to hear footsteps shuffling in the distance. It seemed it was too late, with or without the fire that may have alerted the guards.

“Give me that,” Noor grabbed the vague representation of a map from Yulhan and pulled Rami to his side to say, “Listen carefully, Hold on tight, as tight as you can, or else you will not make it out of here.”

Rami nodded fervently as he climbed and secured himself, wrapping his legs around Noor’s waist like a monkey. Yulhan grabbed the remnants of the torch at his feet and gave a quick pat on Rami’s back.

Without a warning, Noor began running head-on, with Yulhan right at his heel. They ran through the darkness, cutting through the air. Rami squeezed his eyes closed, feeling himself slip with every turn Noor took. His frail body was fighting with every ounce of energy left in him so desperately to keep hanging on. Yet unbeknownst to him, his mind slowly began to slip. His fingers let loose and his legs split apart.

Rami felt his body detangle and go pummeling down the hard floors till it found a corner and crashed to a halt.

This is it…

He remembered listening to the thundering footsteps of perhaps a hundred or so guards charging their way pulsating through the walls. Feeling the rumble reverberating against his bones his vision blurred as his body finally gave out.

#

It was that dark room again. He was back in the dungeons. He was chained up once more with his body immobile and sore. Suddenly, that voice greeted him with words he couldn’t quite comprehend. He thought it an insult before the words repeated once more.

“Come on, my friend. You need to wake up.”

His heart began to race. He knew the drill. He knew that they would fill up a bucket with ice-cold water and soon thrash it on his face, sending him jolting awake before beginning to lash his bare back with a whip that felt like a blade against his skin, sending waves of searing pain reverberating through his bones.

And without a second to lose, water came splashing onto Rami’s face. His eyes shot open in shock.

“Stop it! Why would you do that?”

It was Yulhan’s voice. Rami’s vision formed the very next second only to have him groaning in pain as the excruciatingly bright sun caught his eye at once. He quickly buried his face in his hands while listening to Yulhan argue with Noor, who Rami guessed was the one with the idea to shower him awake.

“There he is! He’s awake now, isn’t he?” Noor clowned Yulhan as he threw an empty pouch at his face.

Taking the shot in full force to his cheek, Yulhan retorted, “You did not have to be such an ass about it and throw water at his face! Besides, you threw my water!”

“Shut up, Yul,” Noor’s voice trailed off.

Rami rubbed his eyes a few times and slowly began pulling his hands away from his face letting the warm sunlight shower his skin. It felt like it had been years since he felt the sun so warm against his skin. He wondered why he took it for granted for so long.

Water droplets rolled down his cheeks and found his dried lips, nourishing them, awakening his senses that had been dampened by pain for quite some time.

He sighed in relief, opening his eyes to finally find himself sitting against a tree trunk in a thick forest with every inch covered by leaves. A soft breeze passed through as the sounds of the forest greeted him like a warm hug enveloping his being, calming himself from within.

His racing heart had calmed to a lull while his saviors still bickered in the distance. He was glad he was never back in the dungeons going for another session of being tortured. He was glad that they had somehow made it out of there, out of the hellhole he was sure to have rotten to death in.

The smell of fire caught Rami’s attention. He looked to see a small fire with a tiny pot balanced on top of it only a foot away from him. The sweet smell of whatever was brewing began sending malnourished Rami’s stomach grumbling loudly. A piece of cozy cloth of adequate length, just enough to cover oneself while crouched into a ball, laid covering Rami adding a touch of comfort. He instantly knew it was all Yulhan’s doing.

He beamed looking at Yulhan, who was busy throwing a stick at Noor in the distance. Yulhan only stayed confident with his hands on his hips before Noor lifted a rock the size of his head to throw back at him. With a shout, Yulhan immediately abandoned his post to run back to Rami.

“Azul!”

Rami gulped listening to Yulhan exclaim in joy as he plopped down next to him. “How are you doing? You hit your head quite hard when you fell earlier…”

Yulhan grabbed Rami’s head ever so gently to observe his crown, “...Luckily, no signs of any head injury.”

“Right…yes, I fell earlier. I thought…you would leave me behind,” Rami somehow managed to string a few words together.

“Noor turned around right away,” Yulhan said, proceeding to whisper, “He would never leave you behind even if he threatened you he would.”

Rami managed a gentle smile to which Yulhan simply beamed with happiness before asking, “How are you feeling, Azul? You look…awful to say the least. What ever did they do to you in there?”

“Um…” Rami's eyes shifted. He was unable to move on from the fact that Yulhan kept addressing him as Azul. He felt quite taken aback.

He stuttered as his eyes wandered off till they suddenly found Noor in the distance leaning against a tree. His arms were crossed and his eyes were narrowed in on Rami like a hunter that had spotted a sudden disturbance in the wild, something quite unexpected. Rami tore his gaze off of Noor’s threatening glare. He felt as if Noor had figured it out already, somehow managing to sniff the hesitation in Rami’s voice.

Deflecting back to the less-threatening savior, Rami breathed deeply. He knew in his guts that he needed to say it.

“So…um… before we carry on with–with things, I just need to make a quick clarification. Real quick…”

He looked into Yulhan’s curious eyes.

“...I–I am not Azul.”

Rami did not expect it, but the silence that followed his revelation was deafening. He watched as Yulhan’s relaxed brows slowly knotted themselves looking at him in utter disbelief.

In a desperate attempt to sound serious Rami repeated himself once more, “I am not Azul.”

“You are not Azul?” Yulhan finally asked back.

Rami jumped on it, shaking his head vigorously, “No, no! I–I am Rami.”

Yulhan’s eyes darted back and forth between Rami’s eyes as his forehead began to wrinkle in confusion. Rami waited till Yulhan could form some words letting the silence envelop them once more. But it was Noor’s sudden mocking laugh that finally broke the ongoing lack of words, releasing the tension, taking a turn for the worse.

“I am sorry. What were you saying before? That you are not Azul?” Noor prodded.

Rami sighed, “Yes, that’s right. I’m not.”

“Alright then, what would you have us do since you are not Azul? Take you back to the dungeons? Find the real Azul?”

“No, I–I don’t know, I thought I should say it. You’ve got the wrong person–”

Rami only barely sounded it out before getting cut off by Noor’s roaring laughter.

“Oh no, I assure you we’ve got the right person. You look exactly like how I remember you, Azul. You have not changed at all. You are exactly who we are after.”

“No. No, I’m not. I’m telling you–”

“What are you playing at?”

“I’m not playing at anything so let me explain. I was in an accident–”

“So you are saying you are not Azul although we can perfectly well see that you are…him.”

“I’m not him, I’m me! I’m Rami.”

“I’m sorry. Why do you keep addressing yourself as Rami? Is that what you call yourself now? A new…persona perhaps?” Noor mocked.

“No! I was always Rami. I am Rami for God’s sake!”

“Let’s all just…calm down, shall we?” Yulhan threw his hands up in an attempt to get the ongoing heated argument under control. But it only ticked Noor off as he rolled into another humiliating laugh, heaving himself to stop and then looking dead straight at Rami, mostly dripping in amusement.

“Not in a million years did I think I would witness this. The day Azul Ascari would lose his bloody mind.”