Chapter 4- Subjected to torture.

"I know nothing about the scorpion venom, Alpha Gabriel! Trust me!” Ella stammered out of fear as she spoke.

“Don’t just try to cook up excuses, you girl! I know that the witch has already given you enough training to abstain from speaking the truth in case you are caught. I think that I have already tolerated you enough, and I will have to use assault against you to extract the truth from you."

“Soldiers! Just take this girl away from my sight. Imprison her and use all forms of torture that are possible, but make sure that you extract her whereabouts and, more specifically, about the scorpion venom, or else be ready to be beheaded yourselves."

“But Alpha! She is a human, and the torture we use is difficult, even for the werewolves to endure. How will she sustain it? She will definitely die.” interrupted Beta Leon.

“How dare you question my command, Beta Leon? Don’t you think you are trying to exceed your authority? It seems like I will have to order the soldiers to imprison you along with this girl.” The voice of the Alpha shivered as he spoke in a towering temper.

“I am sorry, Alpha! I didn’t intend to question you. Soldiers! Do as per the order! Alpha seems to be disturbed at this moment.” Beta Leon said it in a subdued tone.

The soldiers dragged Ella along with them as if she were a criminal and took her towards the area where the prisons were built.

Beta Leon turned towards Alpha Gabriel and patted his shoulders, trying to console him. “Everything will be alright, Alpha. We will soon discover the scorpion venom, and our Luna will be cured. Try not to stress yourself so much, Alpha. It will be detrimental for our pack. You might end up punishing our brave, honest soldiers without a reason. It is important that you remain calm and composed.” Beta Leon tried to remind the Alpha of his duty towards the pack.

“I know, Beta Leon, that I am supposed to remain calm as an Alpha. But besides being an Alpha, I too am like other werewolves. I, too, have sentiments. My ‘to be Luna’ is lying unconscious. She has been poisoned, and I am sitting here helpless, unable to heal her. I am too disturbed." Alpha Gabriel turned out to be expressing his emotions to Beta Leon as he turned towards Lara, placing his head over her chest, and started sobbing like a child.

On the other hand, Ella, who was already chained, was gagged and thrown into the prison like a rug. For hours together, she was not offered even a drop of water. She was famished and felt like screaming at the top of her voice and demanding food, but then she felt helpless as she was gagged.

“I wish I could escape from here. Heaven knows what their torture methods are going to  be."She thought as she felt butterflies in her stomach out of nervousness.

The prison was dark, but there was a small aperture in the wall, allowing a ray of light to enter inside. Ella got startled to see that the light fell exactly on the bones and skeletons scattered around the floor. The skeletons were huge in size compared to human skeletons. "She should be the skeleton of a werewolf!”  She thought.

She could now feel the stink inside, and a nauseating sensation gripped her. She felt like spewing. But she was gagged and couldn’t even breathe properly. Her stomach was growling. She was gripped by anxiety and fear of the unknown torture that was to follow. She felt like screaming her lungs out and reaching out for help.

“There are only werewolves around. Even if I could scream, nobody would reach out for help. They would all obey the orders of their Alpha.” She considered.

It was already dark by now, and the ray of light enabling a little visibility fainted, making the prison completely dim.

Just then, Ella could hear some commotion at the door. She felt her heart race.

“Are they going to torture me now? What will they do to me? Will the next morning see me alive, or would they feed upon my corpse in their breakfast?” She felt a thousand questions arise in her little mind.

A soldier opened the lock and hung the key on the key hanger. He was carrying a flambeau in his left hand. He then entered the prison and placed the flambeau on the holder attached to the wall. Ella felt a little relieved at the heat emanated by the same. Her frozen body felt a little warm. He then ungagged her.

“Your men are going to offer me food, isn’t it? The prisoners in our city are offered food and water at least twice a day.” She gathered her guts and asked.

But to her disappointment, he didn’t reply. He simply stood there still, as if waiting for something.

Ella hoped against hope that another soldier would bring her some food and water. She waited anxiously. After ten minutes, another soldier entered with an iron rod in his hand. There was complete silence. Without speaking a word, the first soldier took the iron rod from his hand and held it over the flambeau. Soon, the iron rod turned red. The soldier now lifted the rod and placed it right on Ella’s arms. Before Ella could realize what was happening, she was already burned in several places on her arms.

The grueling and agonizing pain seemed unendurable for Ella, and her screams echoed throughout the prison. She was being punished and treated like a criminal for no fault of hers. Despite all her efforts to remain strong, she started whimpering.

“Hey! You are not a petty prisoner, so we should offer you food. You are a hard-core criminal. You have tried to murder our Luna, and you deserve much harsher punishment than this. You will be tortured even more severely until you utter the truth about the availability of the scorpion venom." The soldier warned her.

“Trust me! I am innocent. I am not a criminal. Why would I tolerate this harsh treatment if I knew the whereabouts of the scorpion venom?” Ella tried to explain as her voice cracked out of the excruciating pain.

The clock hanging in the prison showed that it was 3 a.m. The soldier came closer and warned again. “We are giving you half an hour for contemplation. If you fail to disclose the truth even after that, then be ready for the next round of torture. We would just love to hear your screams once again.”

The soldiers locked her up and left. She was all alone. She eagerly started looking for ways to escape, but unfortunately, she could find none. Moreover, her hands were already chained, and she couldn’t even touch the burned places on her arms.

She was pampered by her father throughout her life. Her father passed away recently during a battle on the border. She remembered how worried her father had become once she burned her fingers while trying to cook dinner for the first time in her life. It was just a minor burn, and it hardly hurt. But he immediately took her to the clinic and got her dressed. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she missed her father and wanted him back in her life. She had just recently recovered from the insurmountable pain when her friends betrayed her and left her exposed to the dangers on the island.

She closed her eyes and sat quietly. “How can I disclose something that I don’t know? What should I do so that they are able to trust me? She thought as she recalled that she had the cruise tickets in the pocket of the warmer that she was wearing.

“I should have revealed everything about myself to the Alpha. He would have trusted me if I had shown him the tickets. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? These soldiers would not allow me to meet the Alpha now, even if I requested it. They are too rude." She was just contemplating when she heard the commotion at the door again. “Oh! No! What are they now going to do? What would another round of torture be like?” Ella got extremely worried at the thought. A chill ran down her spine.

The soldier appeared with a rat in his hand. Another soldier followed him with a bucket and the heated iron rod. “Are you going to kill this rat by burning it with the rod?” Ella asked. She wanted to remain silent, but the anxiety coupled with pain made her too nervous, so she kept asking questions. “What is this rat for? Are you going to leave it here in the dark room with me? She asked again.

“Can’t you just keep quiet? You just blabber a lot. Just shut your mouth and let us do our work.” He warned again.

The soldiers then started chaining her legs this time. "Hey, stop it! What are you doing? Don’t chain my legs. I will not try to escape from here even if you let my legs free.” Ella yelled.

The soldier got enraged this time and slapped her tight on the cheeks. They then fastened the other end of the chain to two poles on either side of the prison, ensuring that she was in a lying position and that she could not move.

They then pulled up her clothes, uncovering her belly, and placed the rat over it. All the while, she kept screaming, requesting that they set her free. But they turned a deaf ear to her requests and continued their work.

“Call your Alpha here. I need to speak to him. You all are punishing me for an offense that I have not committed. I will explain things to him. Please call him here once.” She pleaded.

“It is Alpha’s orders that we are following. He will not listen to you since he is in a towering rage. But for the information that we need to extract from you, he would have slayed you right there.” The soldier said as he placed the bucket over the rat that was on her belly. Ella felt creepy and wanted to jerk off the bucket and the rat. But her hands were chained tightly to the poles.

“The rat has been kept hungry for twenty-four hours, and it will feed upon the flesh of your belly. This is the second round of torture, and more rounds will follow unless you disclose the truth.” The soldier informed me.

“Kindly set me free. I am innocent. I am frightened of rats. Please keep it away.” She kept pleading, but it was of no avail.

The soldier then started heating the rod once again and then gently warmed the edge of the bucket. The uneasy rat, which was kept hungry for hours together, started chewing her belly.

The soldiers then left the prison, locking her again. She was battling against that creepy creature trying to chew her belly. She was completely powerless and in a pathetic condition, with nobody around who could help her.

Her starved body and the burns on her arms were already hurting her, and now this rat biting her made her tremble. She felt that she would perish. The pain made her dizzy, and she was now in a semi-conscious state, unable to apply her brain anymore to whatever was going on around her. She had almost surrendered herself.

Ella just closed her eyes and started praying to the moon goddess, pleading with her to help her out of the situation that she was in. The images of her siblings, who were dependent on her, completely kept appearing before her. The only ray of hope that she had now was a miracle from heaven sent by the Moon Goddess for her protection. She had believed in her since her childhood, so she left everything to her.