Test of Faith - Chapter Four

Test of Faith - Chapter Four

Fortress Thunder Rock
Pleione
Word of Blake Protectorate 
23 March, 3075


     Faith moved her arms and legs, more just because she could than anything else. After the deranged Word of Blake fanatic had left, the locks on the restraints binding her wrists and ankles to the chair had released. She was confused, frightened, and angry. She had assumed that the fanatical Blakists would interrogate, and probably torture her for information about the unit, Capellan force dispositions and the like, but this was far, far worse.

     Ever since the dawn of the Blakist Jihad, there had been rumors of prisoners being brainwashed and sent to fight for the Word. In the most famous incident, Colonel Fritz Donner had nearly wiped out a gathering of anti-Blakist leaders on Arc-Royal, and the rumors were that the Word had programmed him into doing so. But that's all they had been, rumors. Now she found herself here, face to face with a woman who was doubtless insane, who was intent on making her 'reclamation' very much a real thing.

     Pull it together, Faith. You just have to outlast them. Keep saying 'no' until it kills you, or you get rescued. After a few moments, she stood up and began walking around the room. There was no way out, of course, but just to explore the surroundings felt good. At least she was doing something. She rubbed her arm absentmindedly. The witch had injected her with something. There was nothing she could do about it except try to battle through whatever it was they had injected her with.

     After a few minutes, she started to notice a slight ringing in her ears, a mild sense of disorientation. She made her way to the chair and sat down, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on her breathing. Something was wrong. Her entire sense of equilibrium was wrong. She found herself gripping the arm rests of the chair trying to steady herself, even though she was seated. A moment later, she was so disoriented that she somehow fell out of the chair and onto the cold ferrocrete floor.

     A moment later, she felt a painful, wrenching spasm rip through her abdomen. Before long, her stomach and diaphragm were rocked by painful spasms and she vomited uncontrollably. Just as she would begin to relax and orient herself relative to the overhead light, she would be rocked by more spasms and vomiting. In the end, the disorientation overcame her, and she drifted into unconsciousness.

     She awoke curled in the fetal position on the floor. She had no idea how much time had passed. The cell had obviously been cleaned while she was unconscious, as the floor was free of any sign of her induced vomiting. She sat up on the floor and tried to get her bearings. She felt as if she had just awakened from a fever, with a kind of hangover effect. Her mouth was terribly dry.

     Then suddenly, the door opened and two guards entered, followed by the woman she had seen before. The second guard wheeled some sort of small cart in with him, but before Faith could examine it in any detail, the two guards picked her up off the floor and forced her into a kneeling position. The Blakist walked over to her. Rather than the seemingly formal robes she had worn yesterday, today she wore a rather simple white jumpsuit, adorned only with the downward facing broadsword insignia of the Word of Blake. "Symbolism surrounds us. We cannot escape it. No doubt you are feeling weak from all the purging last night. We purge ourselves to rid ourselves of excesses, and are left with that which is the strongest. Our time together today is short, Faith. But we embark on the first step of your journey of reclamation."

     One of the guards had wheeled the cart closer to where they had her kneeling. The Manei Domini looked deep into Faith's eyes, hers burning an artificial bright blue in contrast to the natural blue of Faith's eyes. "Let go of pride, vanity, pretentiousness. Let them fall away and realize your true potential as an instrument of the Word of Blake." The woman picked up an object from the cart. Faith kept her eyes locked on the Blakist's gaze. She heard a soft hum, and felt cold metal against her skin as the Precentor ran some kind of trimmer over her scalp. Her blonde locks fell to the floor, and after several more passes, her head had been shaven clean.

     She fought hard to control her breathing and her heart rate, not wanting to give the fanatic any satisfaction. The guards pulled her to her feet, and manacled her hands in front of her with a pair of relatively loose fitting cuffs connected by a solid bar of metal with a hole through the center. They forced her arms above her head and slipped the manacles over a rod protruding from the ceiling that she had not noticed before. A ring locked into place, securing the cuffs to the pole, ensuring that her arms remained over her head, locked at such a height that the soles of her feet still touched the floor.

     The Precentor gestured to the guards, and they both left the cell, the door sealing shut behind them. "We must cut away the false trappings that you have been bound by." As she spoke, she produced a rather ceremonial looking knife from her belt. Delicately, she took Faith's 4TCR tank top in one hand and slipped the knife between the fabric and Faith's skin with the blade facing outward and slit it open down the front. A few more quick slices to both straps and it came loose entirely, the Manei  Domini casting it to the floor. Using a similar, blade-outward motion, she slid the blade directly down the center of Faith's chest, the razor sharp blade cutting through the moisture-wicking fabric of her sports bra with ease. Two more cuts and it went the way of her tank top. Having stripped Faith to the waist, Eisheth walked around to stand directly behind her. She felt the cold steel of the blade against her skin again, and with a few slices, her captor was soon able to peel away her leggings, leaving her now totally naked and exposed.

     "Just as we cut away garments to lay bare the flesh, we will soon slice away the old notions that bind you to an outdated way of thinking and seeing. I will leave you for a time to ponder on that." As she left, the Precentor issued a series of commands with her thoughts.

     First, the lighting in the room increased to an almost blinding intensity, as if shining on Faith from every angle. It was a struggle to keep her eyes open against the intense flood of light.

      Secondly, the bar to which her manacles were attached retracted slightly, leaving her in somewhat of an awkward position. If she stood on her tip-toes, she could loosen the tension on her arms, chest, and back. If not, she hung suspended with incredible stress on her upper body. At first, she tried to alternate between the two positions, switching when one became too painful or taxing. But after a time, she could not sustain it any further. The temperature in the cell had dropped, tightening her muscles, and when she tried to stand on her toes, her calves burned with an excruciating pain.

     After a while, she began losing track of time. She knew she was sleepy, and her upper body was in pain, but she could not sleep. In the intense light, she began to see things, as if someone was appearing and disappearing suddenly as soon as they attracted her gaze. She felt as if hands were softly touching her at various times, and as she would try to wrest herself from the touch, the change in position would send more arcs of pain through her already screaming muscles.

     She was left to hang there in a terror world, neither sleep nor waking, tormented by slight figments of her imagination, and completely at the whims of her captors.