Falling Like the Stars

Chapter 6

A/N: What?

"I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting." Zayto sat across the room from him when he said the words, the two of them separated by a few feet of a hallway, and a grill of laser beams that would singe them if they tried to touch each other.

"I didn't do it, Zayto, I'm telling you, I didn't do it, I promise!" Aiyon was crying.

"I believe in you, Aiyon. That's why I stood up to Drakkon. You were with me when all this was happening for god's sake!"

Zayto and Aiyon stared at each other, bloodied, and broken beyond recognition; Aiyon couldn't even sit up straight, his insides still on fire, every bit of him crumbling and hurting, tearing apart at the seams. Zayto's injuries were physical, he was holding onto the bars, beaten up, flogged, burnt, and branded. A special rank of sentries especially trained to torture prisoners, so they could vomit up whatever information they knew, periodically, had been unleashed on Zayto and Aiyon. It hadn't even been an entire day, and without food or water to sustain them, the two felt like they were slowly inching towards an excruciatingly painful death.

What was worse, was that the two star-crossed lovers were going to have to watch the other, suffer and die, right before their eyes. Neither of them could know who would leave first, but it was going to happen, they were going to have to go through it.

"I'm sorry" Aiyon mouthed, "This is all my fault. You shouldn't have been in here!"

"No! I'm doing what I feel is right. I know you. You can lie to anyone, but you can't lie to me... right?"

"I'd never lie to you, Zayto..." he sobbed, and then crumbled to the floor, "I love you"

And the next minute, came the next set of their torturers...

XXX

Javi's heart came to his throat, when he saw the place he had once called home.

An old, abandoned, dilapidated house was what he had expected. The reality was so much worse, that Javi almost turned his horse around, with the thought that maybe they were at the wrong place.

But through the bombed remains of his childhood home, he spotted a little sofa, covered in dust and debris, but the wood was unmistakable. Teak, black and golden designs, that he remembered hearing his mom say, was inherited through generations. There it was, lying amongst things that he could barely recall. Three walls standing, no roof, the flooring of the first floor of the house had come down, in the back he could see a dilapidated staircase, that went up halfway to where it used to. Everything was broken and bombed, Javi's head was spinning... something felt so wrong, oh so wrong.

Amelia wouldn't know what hit him— almost as if he was bit by a rabid dog— after standing in shock for a little too long, he suddenly ran as fast as he could, to the couch-sofa, and started dusting it, pushing all the debris onto the floor, "sorry it's a little messy" he said, laughing nervously, "mom hasn't cleaned it, I guess. I'll talk to her, I'll, I'll—" he broke into fits of coughing, from all the dust, and took support of a chunk of debris, while Amelia rushed to him, rubbing his back, and helping him calm down. In that second, when he looked up at her, she saw so much pain buried behind those eyes, as he struggled for breath, and at the same time, looked as if that breath would do him no good.

Once he calmed down, he stared blankly at the debris of his house, and then at Amelia, "I'm sorry" he mouthed, not being able to think or say anything more.