The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Then his eyes opened, and he turned his head, and he looked straight at her, and Cixi stumbled backwards.

But his gaze moved past her. It found Cassian standing two steps behind her, hands in his pockets, his expression carrying all the concern of a man watching paint dry.

The prisoner’s entire body convulsed.

His chains rattled violently against the stone wall. His cracked lips pulled apart, and a sound came out of him that was not a word at first but a wail, high and broken and desperate.

Then the wail found language. "Please!" The man lunged forward against his chains. His wrists twisted inside the metal cuffs, the skin raw and scabbed from months of pulling. "Please, forgive me! I understood my mistake! I will never cross you! Never again! I will never cross anyone ever!"

His voice came out cracked. Tears ran down through the filth on his cheeks and disappeared into the matted beard. "I will join the Buddhists and live a better life! I promise! I swear on everything! Please, Cassian!" He was sobbing now, his chest heaving, his body sagging against the chains. "Give me one chance. One chance. Just one. I will disappear. You will never see my face again. I will leave the country. I will leave everything. Please."

Cixi heard every word from the person behind the bars.

She half turned to Cassian, her lips parted to say something, and her face looked drained of all the colours. Horror sat in her grey eyes.

Cassian looked back at her. His face held nothing, no guilt or any discomfort. No flicker of conscience or shadow of doubt. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his posture loose and his dark eyes resting on Cixi’s horrified expression with the patience of a man who had brought her here specifically to see this and was content to let the seeing take as long as it needed.

"Shall we go further?" he asked calmly.

Cixi stared at him. Then she turned and walked forward, matching his pace.

This time she did not take his hand. Cassian walked at a measured pace beside her, slowing his stride to match hers, saying nothing, letting the corridor speak for itself.

The second cell was worse.

Cixi stopped in front of the bars, and her breath caught in her throat. A man hung from the ceiling. His wrists were bound together with thick metal cuffs bolted to a chain that ran upward and disappeared into a hook welded to the ceiling beam. His arms stretched above his head, carrying the full dead weight of his body. His feet dangled two inches from the ground. His toes pointed downward, straining for a floor they could not reach.

His beard had grown to his chest. His hair hung past his shoulders in greasy, matted strands. His head lolled sideways, chin against collarbone, unconscious or too broken to lift it. His shoulders had pulled from their sockets long ago. The joints sat at wrong angles, swollen and purple beneath the skin.

He did not move nor beg. He simply hung there, swaying in the faintest draft, like a coat left on a hook and forgotten.

Cixi pressed her hand to her mouth. And she walked on. Faster now. Not because Cassian urged her, but because standing still in front of each cell felt like sinking into something she could not climb out of.

The third cell.

A woman was sitting on the cold floor.

Cixi’s step faltered when she realised it. Young, perhaps 10 years older than her age, seated on the floor of the cell with her back against the wall and her knees drawn to her chest. Her head was shaved. Her wrists were not chained, but the cell itself was barely four feet wide and four feet deep. Not enough room to lie down. Not enough room to stretch her legs. She sat in the only position the space allowed, folded into herself, her forehead pressed to her knees.

The woman did not look up when Cixi stopped at the bars. She did not look up when Cixi’s shadow fell across her. She sat perfectly still, breathing in slow, shallow counts, as though breathing itself was an exercise she had to concentrate on or risk losing.

Cixi turned to Cassian. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Cassian met her gaze. His expression remained unchanged.

They walked to the fourth cell.

Cixi heard it before she saw it. A rhythmic tapping. Metal against metal. She approached the bars and peered inside.

A man sat at a small metal table bolted to the floor. His ankles were shackled to the legs of a chair that was also bolted down. In front of him, a plate of food sat untouched. Beside the plate, a glass of water, full to the brim.

He was tapping his shackle against the chair leg. Over and over. The same rhythm with the same speed. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing. They stared at the wall directly ahead with the flat, empty gaze of a mind that had checked out months ago and left the body behind to carry on with its small, repetitive ritual.

The food on the plate had gone grey. Mould crept along the edges of the bread. The water was clouded.

He tapped. And tapped. And tapped.

Cixi walked faster away from the horror.

Her eyes scanned the place and wonder how many people are stashed inside the prison....

The fifth cell held a man strapped to a metal chair. His head was locked in place by a brace fixed to the headrest, forcing him to face forward. His eyelids had been taped open. In front of him, mounted to the wall, a screen played footage on a loop. The same clip, cycling endlessly. Cixi could not see what was on the screen from her angle, but she could see the man’s face. His eyes were red-rimmed and streaming. His lips moved in a constant, silent murmur, repeating something over and over, a prayer or a plea or simply the same words his mind had latched onto to keep from shattering entirely.

The sixth cell was flooded.

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