Violina and Lux were thrust back into the grungy cell. One of the clerics then entered the cellblock and recited a message. "The High Cleric has decreed you shall be transported via his flagship to your new home. Arrangements are being made. Once completed, we will retrieve you for your journey."
From behind him another man stepped forward and unfurled a whip. "Do either of you ladies volunteer to go first?"
Lux looked mad enough to punch a squirrel, which for Lux was incredibly mad. "What's the point of torturing us before exile?!"
"Something for you to remember us by," he replied coldly. "Just a taste of the pain you've inflicted on Eden."
Violina refused to give him the satisfaction of terrorizing them. "I'll go first," she stated without emotion.
The man ignored her. "Guards, shackle the blonde one to the whipping block. We will let Miss Violina watch."
Violina was so brutally livid she could not speak. The guards seized Lux and did as he instructed, then shoved Violina to the bench.
As they clasped the shackles around her wrists and exposed her back, Lux kept her composure, but Violina could sense she was concealing despair.
"What say we start with a solid twenty lashings and see how we're feeling?" His grin was revolting.
"What say you burn in hell?!" retorted Violina.
Crack!
Lux screamed as the whip broke her skin.
Violina impulsively attempted to intervene but was thrown back to her bench by the guards.
"Tell you what, inmate." He offered Violina the whip handle. "How about we lower it to five lashings, so long as you do the honor?"
What kind of sick game was he trying to play? Violina didn't have much time to consider her actions. Eyeing the protruding shards of glass on the whip, she slowly lifted her hand to accept it, then took her place behind Lux who merely lowered her head.
The man folded his arms. "Have at it then, we haven't got—"
Violina instantly swung around and cracked the whip across his face. He howled in pain as the two guards leapt at her with outstretched hands. She dodged them both, lashing twice more at the man now on the floor clutching his open wounds.
"Enough!" called out the cleric who had been watching. "Detain them and inject them!"
The guards tackled Violina to the floor and forced the whip from her. She then felt a stab in her thigh and lost all strength to resist.
"We have a better fate for them than mere whipping," said the cleric.
"Are you mad?" demanded the torturer, blood gushing down his front. "Look what she's done to my face!"
It was the last thing Violina heard before everything went dark once more.
***
The crash of thunder jolted Violina back to consciousness. Her mind still clouded, the ground seemed to sway beneath her. She found herself in the confines of a claustrophobia-inducing wooden room. Lux lay nearby on the floor, still sedated. They must have been aboard the High Cleric's flagship. Barrels sat tied to the walls and several mops lay scattered across the floor. Was this some sort of supply closet? Not the most comfortable lodgings for the featured guests of a voyage. She couldn't see out the window from where she lay, but it was evident they were facing a storm.
YOU ARE READING
Inevitable Ascension
Science Fiction***Completed*** If you knew your world would soon be torched to carbon, would you fight to save it? ...Or light a match of your own? Violina, a girl polarized by love and loathing, finds herself thrown into a post-apocalyptic world with mankind on t...
