like the dead sea | mordecai oneshot

M  O  R  D  E  C  A  I

Seven.

He grunts softly as his head is thrown back and he is rocked within his holdings. A tooth, half rotten and loose already goes flying from between his lips with a gob of spit and blood. Blood dribbles down his chin and when he slumps forwards it drips into a growing puddle between his bare feet.

His attacker shakes his hand out and laughs. The other man leans against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Mordecai doesn't know where the third one is. He's probably preparing something awful for him. Maybe he's getting the hatchet again. The third man has a fondness for the hatchet.

Mordecai doesn't move. If he tilts his head back he might choke on his spit and kill himself and none of them want that. He breathes heavily, through his mouth, his nose broken. Again. The man who is playing with him today likes breaking Mordecai's nose because he likes fixing it later. Mordecai doesn't know why.

"Kid, did you know that it's our anniversary?" asks the man who leans against the wall. They don't know his name. Mordecai doesn't know their names. They prefer it this way. He knows better than to attempt an answer. They've stopped expecting him to try. He barely remembers how to speak. "You've been with us for exactly three years now."

The number means nothing to the boy slumped in the chair. He can't remember how long a year is. He can barely recall how many hours are in a day at this point. All he knows is that he has been here, in this place for a very, very long time.

A hand grabs the long ends of his hair and tugs his head back, exposing his neck. "Look at me when I'm speaking to you," hisses the man and he stubs his cigarette out on the spot where Mordecai's shoulder meets his neck. He barely whimpers but he doesn't slump forwards again and he doesn't scream. He figured out long ago that the more he screamed, the more they'd punish him. His screaming was too loud for 'the neighbors upstairs'.

The third man comes back and he puts a brightly coloured paper cone with an elastic for under Mordecai's chin on his head. The men have a laugh over it. The hat looks far too cheerful and out of place on the head of a half-dead shell of a boy.

The first man lunges forwards, fist slamming into the side of Mordecai's head. Eight. The punch splits the skin over his ear and it drips down the side of his head, splitting off into twin rivers, dripping onto a shirt so black with blood and dirt that it immediately blends in.

He hums to himself under his breath, long crooked fingers that have been broken over and over and over grasping at air as he grits his teeth through the pain. The straps of the chair dig into his skin and he wonders if they will hurt him for much longer today because they did just take some new kids. As if they can read his mind, the second man stoops down again to be eye-level with Mordecai. "You're our favourite," he coos at him as if this is an accomplishment. "We've never had a kid last for so long."

It's a wonder that he has. His body is battered, broken beyond recognition. He cannot move without it making an odd clicking sound from various spots in his shoulder and hip. He does not walk correctly anymore. He hobbles along when they let him walk instead of dragging him along behind them ever since they took the third toe off of his left foot. There is no longer a patch of skin on him that does not bare some horrible layer of patchwork scar.

"Your brother must have stopped looking for you."

Mordecai reacted to that, wiggling within the chair at the mere mention of his brother. "Tobias," he whispered past cracked lips, voice raw and red, old. Even if he could no longer remember his own name, Tobias's was always at the forefront of his memory.

He had to protect him. He wouldn't let the men get to him. He'd fight them, struggle too much so they couldn't take both of them at once, so Tobias could run away and get help.

It felt like it was yesterday.

The third man undoes the straps, hooking his arms under Mordecai's lifting him out of the chair as if he was a small child. "We've got an anniversary gift for you, kid," says the first, the glee in his voice sending a shiver of fear down Mordecai's spine.

The third man dumps Mordecai on the ground and the second douses him in a bucket of salt water. He cringes as the salt finds his open cuts, stinging him. The paper hat holds, wilting only slightly. He doesn't fight them as they lift him up again, tugging a thick winter coat onto his thin frame. They zip it up to his chin and it hides the marks on his skin and the dirtiness of his shirt. The corse workpants they gave him to wear two months ago when his old pants finally became unusable are left alone. They put shoes on his bare feet, giggling as they do so.

Mordecai does not react, shutting his eyes as they work to be by himself for awhile inside of his head. He imagined the sweat dripping down his forehead is salt water rising up to cover his whole body and then his face and drown all of them. "It will be okay," he mouths to himself as his kidnappers work.

They take him down a side tunnel that he has never been before and he looks back from where they came, soft confusion making him afraid. His cell is in the opposite direction.

They come to a ladder and the third man shoves Mordecai against the base of it. "Climb," he orders him and the other two snicker, laughing behind their hands. He does as he is told, gripping the rungs rusted by salt water with trembling, weak hands. He is afraid because of their laughter and because this is different than anything else he has known for a very long time. He pees himself and the men laugh as they see the urine drip down his leg.

"We'll be coming for you in a week's time, kid," says the first man, pinching the bottom of his foot to get him moving up the latter. "It's a game of hide and seek," the second man says as Mordecai scrambles hastily up the ladder, "You better hope your brother finds you before we do. This time we'll really kill you."

He pushes a large metal disc out of the way and pushes his head up uncertainly past the opening of the hole, eyes peaking out over the rim. All he sees are bags of garbage and brick.

When he looks down, the men are gone.

Fora long moment he considers going back down the ladder, afraid. The scent of salt, crisp and fresh catches on his nose. He pokes his head out further and see the canal two the side of him. Water flows down it, languid and so much of it. Mordecai grins. He hasn't seen so much water in a very long time. He can't remember how long.

He climbs further out of the hole, the effort making his muscles ache.

He looks upwards and there is no ceiling.

Fear gnaws at him and he scrambles further out to press his back against the brick wall, chest heaving as his eyes roam the air, searching for the safety of brick ceilings and darkness but there are none.

Far away, so high above, there are twinkling lights.

Small twinkling lights, winking on and off like a story.

He looks back to the hole that he just came out of, heart racing in fear as he spreads his fingers over the brick wall, mashing his nails against it, holding on for dear life as if the men were joking as if they would be back in moments, jumping out of the hole to drag him back down it.

Seconds pass.

He dives for the hole, sliding the cover back over it and nearly crying with relief as it falls back into place with a clatter, sealing his demons in their hell.

"Is someone there?" quavers a small voice and he stills the way that a wild animal would as if he could turn invisible. "You can come out, I won't hurt you," says the voice and he shudders, knowing that it is a lie. Everyone hurts him.

The voice becomes alive with a body as a hunched form shuffles into view. An elderly face pokes out from the folds of a thick jacket like his, long white hair turned to dreads and two shaking hands wrap around each other. Mordecai tenses, preparing himself to hobble away.

"Are you hungry?" asks the voice and Mordecai nods. He is always hungry, always. They feed him moldy bread because they think it's funny and he eats around the mold as much as he can and he is so very hungry. As if she can understand the hesitation in his stance, the woman's voice softens, "I..I don't have much but I will share what I have with you."

He stays still, glancing up to look at the twinkling lights in the sky. Wonder is pouring into him even as he is ready to curl up and die from fear and confusion. He knows that he is meant to find someone, that there was someone he wanted to protect.

"I like your hat?" offers the woman.

He relaxes, inching forwards slowly. His finger hooks around the elastic band that keeps it on his chin and he hesitates for a moment, wondering if he'll be punished if he takes it off. He doesn't know. He can't remember the last time someone that wasn't insane spoke to him. He wants to please her. He takes the party hat off and offers it to the woman with shaking hands.

She takes one of his, along with the hat, tugging gently as she turns to go back from where she came. "Come child," she says, voice soft, patient, "I'll take care of you."

He stumbles slowly along behind her, tripping often because he can't stop looking up at the twinkling lights in the ceiling that is so very far away.