“Please read the note,” the robotic voice I had grown so accustomed with replied.
A small envelope, like one of those delivery cards, was attached to the side of the massive wooden crate, so I picked it up and opened it.
“Dearest Captain Harrow,
Please accept our apologies for the delay. Gale is not best known for his collaboration skills.”
Another delay? Seriously? I hoped they were not planning on taking this time away from my trial, because we had already lost about twenty-four hours.
This was weird as fuck. First, I had no knowledge of the subject, then I had no idea of the premises and no analytics team and now we kept expecting delays as if was some sort of train station.Unable to contain my rage, I kicked the crate, shoving my boot into the wood and making splinters burst from my anger.
The side popped open, the nails sustaining it too rusty to hold onto the wood. How long had this crate been closed for? I moved to the side, tilting my head to peek through the opening and my heart leaped out of my chest, because inside the wooden box, a bloodied figure trembled at the sight of light.
It was chained.
What in the hell? How was this even…
I shook my head, banning all the questions. They did not matter. Nothing mattered but the shaking figure, covered in blood and wounds, trembling inside the wooden box. By the state of those rotten pieces and the rust around the nails, this figure had stayed inside the box for a long time.
Surrounded by damp and cold.
In the dark.
Of course it shook at the sight of light, forcing its body to retract, surely thinking that whatever happened to it before being put inside those tiny walls, will start again. Poor thing, to think that being buried alive was a reprieve from pain.
My mind registered the instruction only then.
“Welcome Gale,” the note had said. They apologised for tardiness. And then this wooden box was somehow delivered to me, with a being inside. I inched a bit closer to gain a better view of the interior, without frightening the faerie. Because it was a faerie, if those chains were what they seemed to be.
Iron.
They had put it away, for gods know how long, without food or water, bound in iron and darkness. I didn’t even want to think how their skin must look like, the pain they had to suffer through, possibly for days or even weeks.
Which told me several things:
1. This Gale creature was strong.
2. This Gale creature had been uncooperative to the point of deserving punishment in detriment of collaboration
3. The creature was hurt
4. The creature will most definitely be unable to speak or fend for itself for quite some time
5. This completely messed up at least the first week of the trial
6. I would have to be made responsible to care for it
Fuck me sideways.
I gave myself a minute to force down the frustrations and anger that had no one to be directed at but the one in front of me, and it clearly had more than enough. I was not here to hurt. I was here to befriend.
Putting an imaginary friendship cap on, I tried to think through what it would need. I tried to put myself in its place and think what my first necessities after such dreadful days would be. Weeks? It could not have been months. Definitely not months.
“Hello…” I whispered softly to the box. At the sound of my voice, it started jittering, the wood creaking under brisk movements. I assumed it tried to rip away those chains and escape a new round of torture. A part of me wondered how many times it had to do just that, trapped alone and in the darkness.
“You are safe now, no one is going to come and hurt you…”For the next twenty-nine days at least.I kept that part to myself, no use giving more information that I had to. I did not know what happened to the subjects after their removal from the living quarters, after I extracted the information we needed. In my happy dreams, I liked to think they were set free and could return home to their families, mates and partners. In my nightmares, I knew the cruelty of the realm I had chosen to live in.
I stepped closer to the box, ensuring that my gestures were slow and easy to decipher. The last thing I wanted to do was scare the creature even more. It had the potential to become aggressive and I did not want that. I did not fear for my safety, because after being iron bound for so long, I already knew the faerie had limited to no power. I was mostly concerned by the adrenaline its fear would produce. Which would weaken my new subject even more.
