Heaven in Hell

MORNING, BOYS!

1300 HOURS

ARJUN NANAVATI

A simple lunch without blindfold is all it takes to make me feel heavenly. And there is the side benefit of giving my shoulders some reprieve. Today morning was a true wake up call to all the things we have ignored about this place.

We reported to Chief Darhk sharp at 0500 hours, only for him to lead us to the infirmary where Dr. Darcy was gently waking up Agent Prescott. Stopping Dr. Darcy, with a bucket of ice cold water fetched by Officer Roshesh, Chief Darhk, inconsiderate of the man's IV and his pain, poured it over his head.

Agent Prescott woke up startled and jumped out of the bed on seeing who was holding the bucket. Quietly he stood in attention while Dr. Darcy removed his IV and Chief Darhk turned towards us with the nicest smile I have ever seen.

In a cheerful tone, which now makes me shudder and wary of him, he had asked, "Kiddos, did you bother to check out the place so that you don't fail miserably today too?"

When none of us replied, he turned to Agent Prescott and spoke, "Is this how you do things here? They enter a building without checking whether there is a threat inside, they have no idea of the exact layout of this building, let alone any other kind of awareness one must have. Is this how you trained them, Prescott? Did you train them so that they could die with the very first step they take?"

Agent Prescott looked down and said nothing, which only resulted in the tone of his voice rising and a few occasional hits and punches being thrown Agent Prescott's way for a mistake Agent Prescott had no control over. Well, technically, he did. He was just too busy being unconscious to help or lead us. Though Agent Prescott looked remarkably calm, you could see him clenching his fist when the hits got harder and the lecture turned to be just string of curses thrown his way.

After Chief Darhk was done with ripping Agent Prescott to shreds, he decided that we must acquaint ourselves with the place very well and therefore, we crawled every inch of this damn warehouse. After every few minutes of crawling, there would come planks with rapid fire round. And boy, Chief Darhk knew how to be rapid and bring in the fire. We had answered the number of steps one would take to walk from any point A to point B in this huge-ass warehouse. The answer, ofcourse, had to be said in push-ups. So, between crawls, planks and push-ups, my shoulders have learnt that rapid fire results in ashes.

Agent Prescott looked worse for the wear and his push-ups were slower than us. Chief Darhk did not let this fact go and quite a few additional weighted push-ups and crunches awaited him tonight. Along with whatever he is ordered to do every night that has a well fit and high functioning man like him in infirmary.

--

0200 HOURS

AGENT PRESCOTT

I'm treading dangerously close to the edge of consciousness and a run on the tracks is definitely not what I need right now.

The cold wake-up call produced enough adrenaline to keep me going till breakfast but since then, my muscles have locked and cramped. My movements are slower and my awareness dwindling. It is only the knowledge that Chief Darhk would follow through on his threat that keeps me going.

Oh, and let us not forget the anger. The anger at the stupidity of those fools to not even check out the place after knowing what happened the whole day when they were blindfolded. I couldn't even fucking glare at them. They have no idea how much rage is simmering beneath and the wonderful day that awaits them when I gets my hands on each of them.

Riding high on these, I can produce enough strength to keep going, but nowhere near enough for Chief Darhk's demands. He wants me to do a timed run, on the fucking tracks, a run where I'm supposed to perform better than the time of my first visit. Like that would happen!