Searing 4, 122
The room was quiet except for the soft breathing of Morin, asleep on his side, facing the door of his one room apartment. The man had a soft look of contentment on his face. He was dreaming. Something pleasant. A dream that brought beads of sweat to his brow and caused his hips to undulate a bit. A beautifully delicious dream one that ---
KRACK!
Morin's eyes flew open just as fast as the bolted front door that had been bashed in. He was a light sleeper, it was a requirement in the mining camps, the deep sleepers always were shipped out in boxes or added to the camp's stew. In the first second, a man dashed into Morin's apartment. In that same instant, Morin was already jumping out of bed, his hand grabbing the pillow he'd slept upon, and throwing it.
In the next second, the pillow hit the man square in the face, distracting him momentarily, as another man entered the building. Morin saw this man clearly, and saw the wooden club he carried. Morin ripped the sheet as it covered his naked body, tossing it in the air as distraction and obstruction. His heart was racing but his mind was entirely empty. In these survival scenarios, there was no time for thinking. Thinking got one killed. Morin was running left.
In the third second, the man hit in the face with a pillow was checking his bearings, having tossed away the distraction, while his companion was busy entangling himself in a cheap, stained bedsheet. Morin was already at his window, unlocking it and forcing it upward creakily against the water damaged frame. Another second passed and one man was rushing toward Morin, club raised, as Morin stepped out into the hot, muggy air, naked as all, the metal grating of the fire escape biting into the bottom of his feet.
Another second as Morin slammed the window down hard, his assailant crashing face first into the glass, the second man still fighting an invisible opponent in the sheet. Morin smirked smugly at the man slumping down inside his apartment, and he stood up straight.
Something hard crashed hard into the side of his head and he felt himself fall into the same window he'd just shut and the world went black.
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Morin groaned, his eyes slow to open, caked with something sticky. It was dark here, wherever he was. The air was musty. Damp. Smelled of shit, piss, sweat and mold. He didn't sit up yet. He closed his eyes, hoping no one was around to have seen him make that mistake. First he listened. Took in his surroundings, and took stock of himself.
He could hear shuffling. Feet on stone. Rhythmic, steady. Someone walking patrol. There was the sound of water flowing into water. Someone was pissing into a bucket, nearby. And from the stench that now came, a bucket that needed emptied. He didn't hear any breathing nearby save his own. He felt pain in the side of his head and the opposite side on his face. He'd been hit by something, hard, and that blow crashed him into the window.
Someone had come for him. But why? He hadn't crossed anyone, yet. Not that he was aware of, anyways. Last season had been pretty boring for the most part. He had spent most of his time pickpocketing around the arrivals at the river docks, mostly people who were leaving the city so that by the time they noticed the notes he'd taken, they were already long gone. It was an easy, dishonest living.
But this had been organized. At least two attackers at his door, another waiting on the fire escape. Coordination. It had to be one of the gangs. No one else operated here. But why? He didn't make income on this side of the river and he paid his tolls on the bridge. There was no good...He groaned, sitting up.
It was the damned apartment. He lived in a contested neighborhood. A gang had come to solidify their hold, there wasn't any other explanation. That was the why. But where was he? His eyes were open now, but it was dark still. There was a faint light coming from around a corner and Morin groaned. He could make out the shapes in here enough to know. He was in a prison cell. And since he lived on this side of the river, it wasn't a cell operated by the state. He took a deep breath then let it out in a deep sigh.
Fake it til you make it.
He turned his body, his bare feet settling up on the damp, stone floor and he stood up. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness. he saw the piss bucket and he felt his bladder ready to empty. He walked over and obliged. As he pissed, echoing loudly in the empty wooden bucket, he spoke to his neighbor who had pissed earlier. "Oy, where are we?"
An older voice chuckled, "Ar'm in mer ceh, yar in yar."
Morin couldn't have rolled his eyes any harder as he shook himself clean. He moved over to the front of his cell, feeling the metal bars, "You're observant." He said this with a chuckle, waiting a long, tense moment before he heard a single chuckle from the older voice. "Werlcorme tar da Carges. Ih whar da River Rarts kee' uh."
A low groan from Morin's chest. This man's accent was annoying as shit, where the fuck was he from? Of all the shitty gangs it had to be the one that called itself the River Rats? What a terrible name. "Why are we here? There ain't enough light for them to watch me jerk it."
The older voice laughed, then coughed wetly several times, "Sheer soirn, yar carn' mairke me largh loike da'." He coughed a phew times before hocking a phlegmy loogie into his piss bucket. "Were 'ere fur furn, Ar pose. We foigh', dey mairke coirn. Wern enou' bou's arn' yar gor free."
Morin's head hurt from listening to the man, "Where the fuck did you learn to talk? It's grating as hell."
The man laughed and coughed heartily, "Ah, yar wourn't knar ih. Far fror 'ere."
Morin snorted, "So we fight, do well, they let us go?"
"Ayr."
Morin sighed again. Easy enough.
"Yar gortar geert da coirn tar foigh firs'."
Morin blinked multiple times.
"What?"
The man cleared his throat multiple times, then spoke slowly, in a dialect that could only be described as the highest of Imperial nobility and study of language. "You must first acquire enough coin to fight."
Morin was taken aback, blinking wildly now. Suddenly this man was a scholar. Morin took a moment or two to get past that whiplash.
"How do we earn coin down here?"
"Da gar's. Mairke dem bert oin yar."
The older man shook the tin can that hung on his cell.
"Foiver corpas tar foigh'. Gars arnd us cehes cairn purt coirn in. Nurn tairk our'. Tarboo. Yar wern mar coirn, mar foighs."
Morin felt a headache coming on but he understood the basic concept.
"How'd they get you?"
There was a silence. Pure, perfect silence. Morin leaned a bit through his bars, trying to peer down toward his neighbor when there was a tap on his shoulder that startled him so bad he smacked his head off the bars, twice, and fell backwards onto his bed, "What the fuck!"
"Oy, sahr mair, dirnt mearn tar starle yar. Dey dirnt ger mer. Ar goit pirss' lars noigh, worke uh 'ere. Nor da wors Ar've worke uh in."
The man yawned, as Morin looked on, wide eyed and still entirely stunned.
"Arght. Ar ber gorin' ner. Gord lurk mairte."
Even though Morin was watching the man, years from now, had no idea how the man was able to instantly pick the lock and walk out, without making, literally, any sound at all. The man just left, closing Morin's cell door behind him, the lock thunking into place.
"Mer nairme Rory ber da war. Noice tar meert yar, Morin." He then dropped several copper coins into the can that hung from Morin's cell door. Their clattering echoed off the walls of this prison they were. That Morin was in.
Morin, stammering, his hands shaking in disbelief at what was happening here, "B-b-but I didn't tell you my name."
A smile and a single chuckle, "Ar knar."
And then he left, without a sound at all. Morin sat back against the wall of his cell, his eyes wide and frenzied and distrustful. What had he just seen? What was that? Who was that? After several long moments, he walked over to the door of his cell, reaching into the can, he felt five copper coins in there, leaving them.
"What the fuck..?"