Edward thought he recognized a thump. It wasn't the first time he heard it, and by now, he was beginning to think there was something in his ear. Was there a bug that gave you ear-thumps? Must be. He focused on counting to ten, and then listened to the time pass. The noise stilled once more. The counting didn't really work, but he liked to think it did.
Made things easier, when he didn't have to listen to the noises inside his mind.
It was his mother who had coerced him into joining the police force. Terrified of her son's oddness, she'd pushed him into the least strange position of all. In their hometown, cramped and backward, policemen were well-respected, and could do no wrong, not in his mother's eyes, and not in Edward's. So a career with a badge had seemed like a natural solution to what would've otherwise been a very peculiar life.
He remembered great pride when he'd been assigned to the main headquarters of the police force, all the way up in the capital. An honor for a small-town boy, even if now, he inhabited the shoes of a grown man. Sometimes, when he thought no one was watching, Edward shook. Sometimes, the noises got too loud to ignore, and he'd step away from the door, and walk around, always careful to listen out for footfall.
All Edward had done since arriving in the capital was guard the same six-foot perimeter around the metal doorway. From here, he'd watched capped figures come and go. Not policemen, though Edward never thought for too long about their true identities. It wouldn't do to harbor information you couldn't quite keep to yourself, now, would it? And he wouldn't want to put his mother in danger. Not when she'd sacrificed so much to see him up to the capital.
So for everyone's sake, Edward hummed softly against the thumping, and waited for the door to break open. For something to happen. For the noises in his mind to stop.
On the other side of the door, Karolina wasn't weeping anymore. She'd spent the first day in sullen silence, and then, the next three, crying until her throat was raw and her eyes dry and swollen. Or at least, she thought it had been three. Truth was, the closest she got to marking the passage of time was the pile of excrement in the right-most corner of the asymmetric room. Designed, she felt certain, to rattle those kept in here. Karolina hesitated thinking of them as prisoners, because then, what would that make her?
In the beginning, she'd tried maintaining her dignity. Had built an entire raison d'etre around that, but then found that raisons d'etre didn't really hold up against hunger and bruises. So in the end, she'd caved. Done her best to wipe off the grime - how long ago had that been? A week? A day? A year? No, she couldn't have been here longer than a month. Someone would've come looking for her, someone would've remembered rules. Except down here, in the misshapen room, in the dark, there were no rules. There was just the sound of time passing in her ears, and the thumping.
Twice, Franz had smacked her for "making noise", and part of Karolina knew that maybe she should stop. But she couldn't. Couldn't stop banging against the iron door, because then she'd be as bad as him, wouldn't she?
On the other side, Karolina knew there were others. Multiple times, she'd glimpsed the freshly shaven face of a boy, older than her by no more than a year, yet already mimicking her tormentor's posture. His Army haircut, his posture, and worst of all, his sadistic grin, the ones he saved only for Karolina.
If there was hope to be found on the other side of the door, it didn't reside with that shaken young man. In her underground cell, Karolina felt abandoned.
Somewhere far above, Edward heard the door at the top of the stairway open. He straightened himself against the iron door, and poised himself for the man's arrival. Edward knew who was coming even before the man's steel-capped boots peeked out from the stairway, because no one else descended into this hell to visit the prisoner.
There was only Edward, the night guard, and the man, nameless to lowly soldiers such as himself, though undoubtedly important. The man came at odd times, sometimes early in the morning hours. Sometimes just after lunch. Never spent too long down here, and that worked fine for Edward. He was making an effort not to cover his ears, for fear that the door would open suddenly, and that he'd be dismissed on grounds of cowardice. But deep down, Edward knew he couldn't stomach the noises for very long.
If Edward had been human, perhaps he would've pitied the girl inside, the prisoner. Alas, he was not, and so he greeted the man's arrival, forcing steel into his glare. The man didn't so much as glance at him. Fingers tightening around the leather whip. He didn't always bring the whip, but when he did, the noises in Edward's head got louder. Instead, perhaps preparing himself, Edward forced his eyes on the man's back. The only part of him that seemed safe. There was a rotten aloofness to him, a certain sense of danger that Edward recognized from his days as a boy. Too long, he'd lived under the tyranny of just such a man, and promised himself he and his mother would never be on the receiving end of tyranny again.
As the door opened, Karolina froze. She'd been crouched in one corner, trying to sleep, though that never worked for long. There were noises from above, and then, there were rats. And when it wasn't either, it was the door opening. To reveal the boy, bringing in a tray of gooey mush, or the man, bringing in the whip.
She didn't have to turn to know that this time, it was the latter. She'd learned the man's footsteps by heart, and now, it was everything in her power not to flinch after every one.
"Good morning."
His voice was gravely, though not in the least unusual. The sort of voice that might've hustled after her, once. Now, scrawny, filthy and bruised, no one would look at her, save, perhaps, in horror.
"I said good morning," he said again, the footsteps stopping directly behind her.
It wasn't that she was playing tough. She'd long since given up on that game. But she wasn't so sure the words would come out anymore. Her stomach hurt. Her jaw hurt. Everything hurt.
"Now, that's not very nice, is it?"
But the words grew muffled when she felt the tip of his boot against her ribs. Hard, though by no means his worst. Ever since they'd brought her to the underground cell, Karolina only knew him at his worst.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered, turning to face him against the voice screaming inside her head - no.
Keeping her back to him would be seen as rudeness, and if there was one thing Franz couldn't tolerate, it was rudeness.
"Good morning," Karolina whispered, lips resting on the muddy leather boots she knew so well. Then, she was silent, for she'd already tried it all. She'd been defiant, at first, and proud, forgetting that it had been her pride and defiance that had brought her down here, in the first place. She'd tried pleading, and then, at the end of it all, she'd begged. Now, Karolina no longer knew what to say, and lately, words had grown meaningless.
A terrifying thought gnawing at her insides, that maybe he wasn't looking for any specific words or reactions. There were no right answers, which only meant there could be wrong. Karolina wondered how much longer she could survive down here on wrong answers alone.
"Please," she whispered, as Franz brought his hand down and pulled her up by her hair. An easy task, since she'd grown so painfully light. "Please."
On the other side of the iron door, Edward put his hands over his ears, and then, after a moment, forced himself to uncover them again.
Remembered the beast inside his own home, and the nightly noises, so similar, yet with one crucial difference. Now, Edward wasn't the victim anymore, and he wouldn't ever be the victim again. On the other side of the door, Edward forced a smile.