Alvina ducked her head to her chest so that no one can recognize her or sense her. She saw a boy of around her age openly looking at them.
"What are you doing?" She said in fright.
The boy proudly replied, "We should stare at them with anger in our eyes. that way we will not be picked to be butchered next time."
Seeing this, Alvina was at loss. She was frightened too. She saw the first man with the symbol of flames drawn on his chest coming towards them. Alvina instantly ducked her head in her chest so did the others except the boy who was staring at him.
The man gave one glance to everybody present there and looked at the boy's eyes.
"You!" he said pointing at the boy.
Two soldiers rushed from their places and dragged the boy out of the cage.
The boy standing next to him was so frightened that he wetted his pants.
The boy was dragged to a thick and somewhat broken chair. He was tied to the chair with his hands bound to the backside of the chair and his neck strapped to it.
"Why were you staring at us?" the blue flame one questioned.
"I don't know." The boy replied.
"Where are the rest of the people of this castle?" he asked again.
"They are in the cages." He replied.
He got one heavy blow on his face at his answer.
"Do you think I am a fool? Where Is The Rest Of Your Men?" He asked once again pressing each and every word.
"I don't know." The boy was afraid of them and was shaking.
"Then tell us about the other mages." The man said with a smile on his lips which didn't match with his cold eyes.
"I… I don't know any mages." He replied panicking.
The man with flames, which Alvina named 'Blaze' sighed.
He instructed something to the man which had a drop of water drawn on his chest, with his eyes. Alvina named that man, 'Aqua'.
Aqua opened a box that was placed in front of the boy on the ground. From that, he took out two scorpions and placed them in a bucket.
This made the boy more frightened.
"Where are the other mages?" Blaze once again questioned him.
"I don't know." The boy replied
"Where. Are. The. Mages?" Blaze once more repeated his question. Slowly, one word at a time.
"I really don't know." The boy started crying at the end.
Blaze once again signaled Aqua with his eyes and aqua placed one of the scorpions on the boy's chest and the other scorpion between his legs.
"Which of the villages aided them?" Blaze interrogated once again.
"I don't know." The boy replied.
When they were getting nowhere with this interrogation, the man with a tornado-like symbol drawn on the left side of his chest came with a burning log of wood and placed them between his legs.
All of the 'Masked Men' except the fifth man, gave him a look. He just shrugged his shoulders.
"I am getting late." He said in his explanation and once again looked at the girl and smiled lecherously at her horrified expressions.
None of the Masked Men stopped him.
Blaze continued asking his question, "Which villages?"
"I never saw." He replied terrified.
"Who?" blazed continued his interrogation.
"I never saw." The boy screamed at the end. "Stop! Please stop!"
"Ahhh….. Please make it stop."
Suddenly he began choking.
He frailed his bounded hands here and there but it was useless.
Not a single word of pain came out from his mouth, but from the look of his face, it was very much clear that the process was very painful to him. He was choking and was unable to breathe. It was as if his lungs were on fire. The area between his legs was literally burning and he couldn't do anything to extinguish his pain.
Suddenly everything became silent. The boy stopped his struggle and eventually, he stopped breathing.
Alvina sucked a deep breath when she witnessed their cruelty. This time, she was not frightened at all. All those struggles that she had endured in the past had made his heart strong. It was as if, she wouldn't even flinch if she would see a dead body near her.
Soon, the days passed and it was night time.
As always, they were given food.
To say it was food will be an insult to the food. It looked and smelled much more horrible than a pig's food.
They were never given food on a plate or something. The food was directly scooped from the bucket and thrown inside of the cages on the dirty ground. The prisoners have to pick their food from the ground and eat it.
Alvina was living at this place for over a week now. She had become accustomed to this. She was not willing to eat the food previously but soon hunger got better of her determination and the next day she picked the food from the ground and ate it.
The prisoners were served food only once throughout the day. And it was usually at night. So, there was always a fight in the cage to obtain more food than the others. Sometimes they would not get food for days. Even keeping food to eat the next day was useless to them. It would either become staler or the rest of the prisoners present with them will snatch it away. There was even no place to hide the leftover food too.
This night, even though Alvina was feeling hungry, she had no intention to eat anything. Like always, the food was thrown inside their cage and the rest of them hurriedly started eating, except Alvina. She remained lying on the ground away from them.
A boy slightly older than her approached her with food in his hand.
"For you." He said giving the food to her.
"You can have it." Alvina smiled at him.