THE CAPTIVE
Deck of Fate: Adonis Angelis IV
Deck of Fate: Adonis Angelis IV
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Bound. Enduring. Unbroken, but no longer whole.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The sound of dripping water had become like a metronome to Adonis. It was how he told time, how he kept himself centered when everything else blurred together. During the beatings, during the torture, during the assaults, he listened to it. Focused on it. The drip never changed, never lied, never stopped. It had been months by this point, months of the same violence, the same questions asked over and over again in different voices, different tones, like maybe one of them would finally be the one that got through to him. Months of silence. Adonis hadn't uttered a single word since he had been captured, and he planned to die that way unless he was freed.
He didn't remember much about being captured, just pieces that didn't quite fit together. He remembered beating the shit out of their people, remembered the feeling of control, of momentum, right up until the moment it was gone. They flanked him, disabled his armor, then his lightsaber, and then it was just hands, bodies, weight. Then nothing. He woke up in a cage, half-aware and already hurting, and it didn't take long for him to realize this wasn't temporary. They moved him to the caves beneath the mine not long after, somewhere the light didn't reach and the air felt thick and damp in his lungs. Somewhere where water was always dripping...that was where they kept him. That was where they planned to break him.
They kept him alive because they knew who he was, knew what he was connected to. A Mandalorian, one with direct lines to Mandalore himself and others at the top. He wasn't just a prisoner, he was an opportunity. If they could get him to crack, if they could get even one name, one piece of information, it would be enough, so they didn't rush it. They took their time with him. He kept those things close, held onto them through it all, and they gave him strength. The memories of Mandalore, of Jonah saving his life, of Athena and everything they had survived together, those burned in his chest like a steady fire, something real, something his, keeping his hope alive through the darkness that had swallowed him.
It didn't stop what they did to him.
There had been several dozen forms of torture used on him since he had been apprehended, some worse than anything he had ever experienced, even with years of combat behind him. Pain had always meant something before. It had purpose. This didn't. This was different. At one point, during the torture, something in Adonis snapped. Not loud, not sudden, just… gone. For what felt like a month after that, maybe longer, the only thing he could hear was the dripping of the water. Everything else faded out, like it wasn't meant for him anymore. The screams, the voices, even his own body, it all dulled into something distant.
What Adonis didn't know, what he couldn't feel, was that his mind had started to separate itself just to keep him alive. Parts of him shut down, closed off, leaving something quieter behind to endure what was left. Something that didn't react the same way. Something that could sit there and listen to the drip without needing anything else.
Through all of it, however, he maintained his silence. That was the one thing that stayed intact. He would not give them anything about his vod, not a name, not a word, not even a sound.
The soldiers had become more malicious with their tactics over time, but not in the way most would expect. They stopped trying to get information and started trying to get a reaction. It turned into a game for them, seeing who could get him to cry out first, who could finally break that silence. They pushed harder, got more creative, more cruel, but it didn't change anything. He gave them nothing.
Eventually, they got bored.
They moved on to other prisoners who were more fun to play with, ones who screamed, ones who begged, ones who gave them something back. Adonis was still there, still taken when the opportunity came up, still put through it when they felt like it, but he wasn't the focus anymore. Just another body in the dark, sitting where they left him.
Silent. Unmoving.
Listening to the drip.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Somewhere in the silence, something is learning how to survive.
Bound. Enduring. Unbroken, but no longer whole.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The sound of dripping water had become like a metronome to Adonis. It was how he told time, how he kept himself centered when everything else blurred together. During the beatings, during the torture, during the assaults, he listened to it. Focused on it. The drip never changed, never lied, never stopped. It had been months by this point, months of the same violence, the same questions asked over and over again in different voices, different tones, like maybe one of them would finally be the one that got through to him. Months of silence. Adonis hadn't uttered a single word since he had been captured, and he planned to die that way unless he was freed.
He didn't remember much about being captured, just pieces that didn't quite fit together. He remembered beating the shit out of their people, remembered the feeling of control, of momentum, right up until the moment it was gone. They flanked him, disabled his armor, then his lightsaber, and then it was just hands, bodies, weight. Then nothing. He woke up in a cage, half-aware and already hurting, and it didn't take long for him to realize this wasn't temporary. They moved him to the caves beneath the mine not long after, somewhere the light didn't reach and the air felt thick and damp in his lungs. Somewhere where water was always dripping...that was where they kept him. That was where they planned to break him.
They kept him alive because they knew who he was, knew what he was connected to. A Mandalorian, one with direct lines to Mandalore himself and others at the top. He wasn't just a prisoner, he was an opportunity. If they could get him to crack, if they could get even one name, one piece of information, it would be enough, so they didn't rush it. They took their time with him. He kept those things close, held onto them through it all, and they gave him strength. The memories of Mandalore, of Jonah saving his life, of Athena and everything they had survived together, those burned in his chest like a steady fire, something real, something his, keeping his hope alive through the darkness that had swallowed him.
It didn't stop what they did to him.
There had been several dozen forms of torture used on him since he had been apprehended, some worse than anything he had ever experienced, even with years of combat behind him. Pain had always meant something before. It had purpose. This didn't. This was different. At one point, during the torture, something in Adonis snapped. Not loud, not sudden, just… gone. For what felt like a month after that, maybe longer, the only thing he could hear was the dripping of the water. Everything else faded out, like it wasn't meant for him anymore. The screams, the voices, even his own body, it all dulled into something distant.
What Adonis didn't know, what he couldn't feel, was that his mind had started to separate itself just to keep him alive. Parts of him shut down, closed off, leaving something quieter behind to endure what was left. Something that didn't react the same way. Something that could sit there and listen to the drip without needing anything else.
Through all of it, however, he maintained his silence. That was the one thing that stayed intact. He would not give them anything about his vod, not a name, not a word, not even a sound.
The soldiers had become more malicious with their tactics over time, but not in the way most would expect. They stopped trying to get information and started trying to get a reaction. It turned into a game for them, seeing who could get him to cry out first, who could finally break that silence. They pushed harder, got more creative, more cruel, but it didn't change anything. He gave them nothing.
Eventually, they got bored.
They moved on to other prisoners who were more fun to play with, ones who screamed, ones who begged, ones who gave them something back. Adonis was still there, still taken when the opportunity came up, still put through it when they felt like it, but he wasn't the focus anymore. Just another body in the dark, sitting where they left him.
Silent. Unmoving.
Listening to the drip.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Somewhere in the silence, something is learning how to survive.
