Silence had become his lullaby. It was the soft call that brought him from the dead, that called to him and soothed him. With silence there was no pain. No past. No dreams. No cries of anguish or growls of rage. It was the one thing he accepted, and the one thing that accepted him. It was as precious as the sound of a feather falling through the wintry sky. So quiet and serene, it was the only thing he could take for himself.
It was what Talon understood most — the only thing he understood. Besides the darkness, silence had become his friend and it seemed as if nothing else would take its place.
The flutter of bats in the night, the rustle of leaves from dying trees, the frigid howl of the wind... It was all soothing, curing, but not as much as the silence. The comfort stayed with him through the darkest parts of the night, when not even a rat would dare scatter across the floor.
Darkness wrapped around him, shrouded him in a cool blanket. He was trapped, taken, and tortured. To them, he was a monster. He deserved what he was dealt. Pleased smiles and bloodied hands were the only things he was given. No solitude, no mercy.
The innocent light of the shimmering moon was the only thing allowing him to see his surroundings. The walls that caged him left him shivering. There was no reason for warmth — warmth meant sympathy, sympathy meant mercy, and mercy was something he wouldn’t be granted. It was a known fact by the two men who took their pleasures in torturing him.
His arm stung, badly enough that he barely noticed his other wounds. Eyes, the color of melted silver took in his appearance. It was painful to see the shame that covered almost every inch of his body. The marks and abrasions on his skin felt more like brands than claw marks. With swift flicks of a wrist, the brand had been made and he had been claimed. His lip curled.
Checking himself for worse injuries was useless, There was no way to speed up the healing process, and there was no tending to be done. It had been beaten into him that if he wanted to feel better, he might as well be similar to a dog and lick his wounds. He breathed in, ignoring the metallic smell of blood that sang through the air.
The blood that splattered the wall was not just his own, but the remains of those who had been there before him. Talon couldn’t force himself to feel pity for them. He knew exactly what they had been through, but they had found a way out — either through death or escaping, it made no difference. He wished that he could have the same option.
His head hung on his shoulders. The weakness within him was only worsening. The food they let him have was rarely edible, and the amount they gave him was just enough to keep him alive. He gained no strength, and if he did it was rapidly burned off.
Once, he had stopped eating completely. Belief that starvation was his only way out, it had been shattering to realize that the lack of food wouldn’t kill him. He was still stuck in this hell house, still dealing with the bastard called Master, and still not finding a way to escape. How had the others done it? he asked himself, absently observing a spot of blood. It was small, had dropped from his arm, and now joined the millions of other droplets that formed a pool of pain.
He saw his captors’ faces in the pool of blood, imagined his claws raking through their skin and torturing them. He wanted to give them exactly what they had given him, only tenfold. Talon’s eyes closed. His time there was wearing on him. His hand weakly moved, so much weaker than it had been before. He trembled with the effort.
It caused something to awaken inside of him.
A surge of power rushed through his body and he latched onto his arm with clawed nails. The pain radiating from it unleashed something dangerous. Recalling the conversations that they held over him, he knew that on some level it was the thing inside him that drew them to him.
A snarl of disgust burst from his chest and he was ashamed of himself. Hate roiled through his chest. Lashing out, he hit the wall beside him. His roar echoed through his prison.