The fire was almost beautiful.
Cassian Abrantes stood beneath the blackened sky and watched the facility burn. Flames poured from shattered windows and climbed along the immense walls that had kept him confined for nearly a year. Thick columns of smoke rolled upward while alarms screamed somewhere within the complex, and every few moments another explosion shook the ground beneath his feet.
Cassian didn't move, he just simply watched as the heat reached him even from this distance, washing over his battered body in waves and stinging the fresh wound carved across his cheek. There should have been something satisfying about seeing the place burn. Instead, he only felt tired, far more tired than he cared to admit. Nearly a year inside those walls had taken its toll. Food had been scarce, and sometimes there had barely been enough water to keep him alive. Days had passed when he received neither. There had been beatings, interrogations, isolation, and countless attempts to strip away whatever remained of the man who had first been dragged through those doors.
Yet somehow, Cassian looked decent enough. He was thinner, certainly so. His hair had grown longer and unkempt, his beard was wild, and bruises covered portions of his body that his clothes managed to hide. Still, he was standing, perhaps he could thank the Academy for that. Years of training had taught him how to survive when his body demanded him to stop, how to function through pain, and how to remain standing when everything inside him desperately wanted to collapse.
Or perhaps it was simply his heart, that stubborn Abrantes heart that refused to stop beating.
Beneath the surface, however, Cassian was a mess. Several dozen fractures had never healed properly, and some had been broken again before they ever had the chance. His ribs ached whenever he breathed too deeply. His left shoulder hadn't felt right in months, and there were places along his back where pain had become so constant that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to live without it.
Then there were the serums, fuck those things.
He didn't even know what half of them had been. They had injected him with anything they believed might break him. Some were meant to confuse him, while others exhausted him or slowly eroded his mental capacity until Cassian could no longer distinguish memory from imagination. Some days, they almost succeded, and unfortunately for him, there were days that he wanted to forget completely, but he couldn't.
Cassian crossed his arms as a deep rumble rolled across the facility. He raised his eyes just as a massive portion of the outer wall buckled. For several seconds, the structure seemed to hang there impossibly before gravity finally claimed it.
The wall came crashing down, sending dust and fire billowing into the night. Thousands were free now. Men and women who had been condemned to disappear inside this place were spilling out into the open. Some had committed crimes, and some probably deserved imprisonment, but many didn't.
Cassian had learned that much, that some had been journalists, investigators, soldiers, politicians, activists, or simply people who had witnessed something they weren't supposed to see. They had been sentenced not by courts, but by people with enough money and influence to make inconvenient problems disappear. A lifetime of misery and despair had been waiting for them here.
Cassian still didn't know who was ultimately responsible for the facility, but whoever had built this place was connected to those who had kidnapped him. Whoever they were, they were working together, and eventually Cassian intended to find them.
Right now, he simply wanted to leave. He wanted to go home, he wanted to see his family. Hug his parents, throw his siblings into the fountain. His breathed hitched for a moment, as he immediately regained his composure. He turned away from the burning prison and started walking down the road. Former prisoners moved everywhere around him, carrying stolen weapons and supplies while others tended to the injured. Makeshift groups were already forming, trying to determine who needed medical attention and who had the skills necessary to keep everyone alive until help arrived.
Others had completely different priorities. Cassian slowed when he noticed several dozen guards and prison employees kneeling along the roadside. Their hands rested behind their heads and their weapons had been discarded several feet away.
Some were begging, crying, and some insisted they were just working and following orders. Cassian stared at them, and for the briefest moment he almost felt sorry for them. Then he remembered the cages, the screams, the injections, and the starvation. He remembered watching prisoners dragged from their cells only to return hours later unable to stand.
Whatever sympathy had begun forming inside him quietly disappeared. Cassian commanded respect here now. His actions had helped turn scattered unrest into something far greater, and people listened when he spoke. But he wasn't their leader, nor was he interested in becoming one. He certainly wasn't going to defend the people responsible for keeping them imprisoned.
There was a time for honor, just as there was a time for vengeance, courage, mercy, justice, and everything else men liked to tell themselves separated them from monsters. Today, honor would sit this one out. Cassian continued walking as the pleading voices faded behind him.
Then came the unmistakable sound of blaster fire., as several volleys ripped through the air. Cassian stopped and closed his eyes for several seconds, standing there with his back toward them until silence eventually returned. A small gust of wind moved across the road, carrying smoke, dust, and the lingering heat of the burning facility with it. Cassian raised his face toward the night and inhaled deeply. His ribs protested immediately, forcing him to release the breath slowly.
"Gods, I need a bath."
He continued toward a makeshift command center that had been constructed beyond the facility's perimeter. Portable generators hummed beside temporary shelters while stolen equipment had been dragged from the prison and repurposed. Prisoners moved between stations, coordinating supplies, medical assistance, transportation, and whatever communications they could establish. It was there that Cassian finally learned where they were.
Hypori.
He wasn't particularly surprised. An operation like this couldn't exist anywhere near civilized space. It had to remain hidden somewhere distant enough that governments wouldn't accidentally stumble across it and powerful factions couldn't easily interfere. So it made sense, any other day he would be impresssed. Cassian entered the command center, and when someone offered him a seat, he accepted without argument. He lowered himself carefully into the chair before a holorecorder, painfully aware that even sitting hurt.
Cassian stared at the device for several seconds and suddenly found himself wondering what he looked like. Now they were about to have their answer. He activated the recorder and watched his image flicker into existence. He straightened instinctively, apparently some habits survived everything.
"I hope you got my last message. I'm on Hypori, obviously, I'm still alive." He smirked before it vanished just as quickly as it arrived. "Please come at your earliest convenience, I'll send you coordinates."
Cassian ended the recording and entered the recipients. Sibylla, and Damos, his two closests friends and persons he could trust. Suddenly, there was nothing left for him to do. Until he looked down, and began to sob.
