Ice-cold water made him take a sharp breath and he struggled, hoping to escape that cold torture. Trying to move only brought him pain. His arms, which he’d blessedly became unable to feel, now hurt with a vengeance, as if sharp needles were running through his vein.

Several harsh things were scrubbing against his body and he tried his best to open his eyes. The world that surrounded him was blessedly dark and empty, except for the flaring blaze lit at a corner, and he immediately tried his best to look away from it. More cold water was thrown over him and the harsh things scrubbed him some more, making his sensitive, broken skin burn.

There were people around him, he concluded by the blurry silhouettes that surrounded him, and they were scrubbing him raw, the hard cloths tied to the ends of long sticks. Pressing his lips together he did his best to remain silent. In his memory a gentle but weary-looking girl presses her dirty index finger to her pale lips and silently tells him not to speak, not to cry, not to whisper and, up till now, he’s only went against her request once in his life.

Once the people surrounding him were satisfied someone walked closer, a man, he could now see, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a hard, serious expression on his face. Grabbing his chin with cold, sharp fingers, he forced him to tilt his head back and pressed a brown bowl against his lips.

“Drink!” he commanded and, even though whatever filled that bowl stank dreadfully, he had no other choice. Either he drank it or he’d probably choke on it. The gooey thing tasted even worse than it smelled and his empty stomach immediately rebelled against it. He gagged and forced it down, trying his best to breathe. Once the bowl was empty and was taken away he almost threw up, but the man that had fed him that awful thing quickly pressed his hand against his lips and tilted his head back again.

“Don’t you dare spit it out! Or I swear I will scoop it from the ground and feed it back to you again!”

His eyes burning with unshed tears he made his best to swallow everything down again. The man waited until he was sure he wouldn’t throw up and finally released him.

He gasped for air and coughed, the shaking movement hurting his arms and shoulders, but managed not to gag again.

Now that his mind was a bit more clear he could finally see that he wasn’t in that small, richly furnished, bedroom anymore. In here there was no bed, no red satin drapes, no scented candles or incense. All there was were dark walls and the rough floor beneath his bare feet. His arms were pulled up, above his head, and every time he so much as breathed a bit deeper he could hear the rattling sound of chains. If his clothes had always been scarce and rugged now they were simply gone, and the air that touched his naked skin was cold and moist, and smelled of something putrid and rotten. He had no idea of how he’d gotten here but, then again, he normally had no idea of much of anything. The only things he had been sure of were the existence of the immutable bedroom that used to surround him and of the consecutive passage of days, one after the other.

“I’ll come back again at night and feed you another bowl. We have to get ride of those drugs as soon as possible! At least it would seem you’re able to understand human speech. The Lord will be pleased to know that. Until then try and rest,” the man told him coldly and turned to leave the small dark room.

What wouldn’t he give for a night’s rest, he thought pressing his lips together, trying to endure the blazing pain in silence. If only they would allow him to lay down. He couldn’t tell how many times he’d wished they would let him up but, right now, all he wished for was his hard, cold bed.