Shorter than usual, and more of a filler, but eh.

Cade didn't remember the torture. It was all a blur. All he remembered was the aftermath, which was more painful than the actual torture.

    He remembered Leo dragging him back to his cell, throwing him in. He rolled across the floor to the opposite wall, into the shield that had ended up in there sometime before.

    The door slammed closed behind him. Cade gritted his teeth, his arm shaking as he clutched his head. He had suffered no physical injuries. He wasn't stabbed, or burned, or anything of the sort.

    Instead, he had been tortured mentally.

    He wasn't sure how. He had been knocked unconscious when he was found, and when he woke up again, the pain had started. It felt like something in his mind was being ripped off, slowly but surely, and being pulled like a string, unraveling his brain. He remembered screaming his throat hoarse. He remembered struggling against a dozen hands holding him back. He remembered feeling helpless as excruciating pain ripped through him.

    Now, he laid on his side in his cell, his vision blurry, shaking as his head throbbed. The feeling was still there. Like a string inside his skull, and tugging—constantly tugging, pulling. No matter how much he felt his head, there wasn't anything odd physically. It only made his helpless feeling worse. There was nothing he could do to make the pain stop.

    After laying there for a few moments, he saw a tiny whirring drone in front of him. Its red eye stared at him, somehow sad and sorry.

    A smaller, fainter hologram appeared.

    Don't speak. There's a new window in here, and that guy Leo is standing outside. Are you okay?

    Cade shook his head. Almost sassily.

    Humor. That's good. How bad is it?

    He mouthed, Bad.

    ...

    Shaking, he whispered, "I-it still hurts, but I'll live... Go hide."

    Nowad looked like it wanted to protest. Then it nodded, and flew silently to the toilet.

    It took ten minutes for him to be able to get up. The pain never ceased, and his body shook, but he just gritted his teeth, and stood anyway. The metaphorical string seemed to yank as he stood, and he stumbled, using the wall as support. He stifled a gasp. Blood rushed up to his head, making him feel lightheaded on top of everything else.

    Moments later, he finally started walking. He went to the window, and leaned on the bars, looking out. Indeed, the guy Leo was standing guard outside, not immediately outside the window, but visible from inside.

    Cade tried to speak—admittedly, he was curious. He wanted to ask some questions, even if they wouldn't get answered and he might get another session of torture for bothering Leo, but they didn't seem like they were going to kill him just yet. Instead, however, he started coughing, his throat dry. The coughing didn't really help. He must've screamed himself hoarse while he had been tortured.

    It took a while for it to die down, but once it did, and he looked up, he was surprised to see Leo leaning against the wall next to the window, his arms folded, looking at Cade.

    Cade stared at him, a little startled. Leo's blue eyes met Cade's green ones. A moment later, Leo unfolded his arms, producing a glass of water from nowhere, and pushed it through the window bars.

    "Here's some water. Your next meal doesn't come until three hours later. Hang in there."

    Cade blinked, confused, but took the water anyway.  He swirled it around in the glass, peering at it, then sniffed it. No discoloration, no strange odor or scent. It seemed like normal water.

    He didn't trust Leo—so far, he wasn't given the best impression of people in this strange, creature-filled place. But if he thought about it, Leo hadn't really done anything to make Cade distrust him, nor anything to make him trust him.

    Plus, Cade felt incredibly dehydrated. If he didn't drink the water, he wasn't sure if he could survive the three long hours until the next meal.

    So, he took a few small sips, forcing himself not to gulp it down all at once. The cool water felt like heaven.

    In between sips, he asked, "Leo, right?"

    Leo paused, a little startled, then nodded. "And you're Cade. No need for introductions, then. Practically everyone here knows your name, due to your importance."

    "I'm flattered." Cade took another sip, trying not to show his alarm and surprise. "If I may ask, why am I so important that I am tortured and trapped in this cell?"

    "The Plan," Leo answered. "Because you're important to the Plan."

    "The Plan," Cade echoed. "And...what's the Plan? Is it with a capital P?"

    To Cade's surprise, Leo blinked, and let out a small, amused snort, which he quickly covered up with a cough.

    "Actually, I think it is with a capital P." Leo took the empty glass back from Cade. "Would you like some more water?"

    Cade hesitated, before nodding. "Um...sure, if you don't mind."

    Leo threw the glass up, catching it, then shaking it. Cade watched with confusion, until he held out the now-full glass to the brunette again. His eyes widened.

    "I'm hallucinating," Cade concluded.

    Leo smiled slightly. "No you're not. It's just a bit of magic, is all."

    Cade felt a sharp tug on his mind, and he rubbed his temples. "...Magic, right. This feels like a fever dream."

    "It's not, I assure you. I know it's hard to accept, but this is reality. Are you going to drink the water I'm giving you or should I take it away—"

    He quickly grabbed the glass before it could be taken away, and started taking small sips again.

    Leo couldn't be that bad of a guy. Sure, he seemed to support Cade being kidnapped, and tortured, and being used as bait, and... Alright, he was pretty bad of a guy. But at the same time, his friendliness and his attitude was not what Cade expected. He told himself that he had to be on guard around Leo, but he couldn't help but make light conversations. Leo was either slacking off in his duties, talking to Cade like that, or he knew what he was doing, and had a reason for it. It seemed more and more like the latter choice, but what reason was there?

    They kept talking for a while. They had nothing else to do, and Cade didn't want to risk Nowad being seen, so he kept the conversation flowing.

    He couldn't tell how long they talked—just about random things and stuff going on in what Leo called the human world.

    But after a while, there was a low, reverberating, hollow bang! from behind Cade, like a bell. He jumped, looking behind him. The noise clearly came from the toilet, as it was the only thing that could make a noise like that. He saw a small red light flash, then disappear, as Nowad hid itself, but there was no doubt that it had caused the noise.

    Cade still tried to cover it up. "What was that?"

    Thankfully, and to his surprise, Leo answered. "Probably a bat in the sewage system. It's gross down there, but for some reason they like it. Quite a ferocious bunch too, as they went through a lot of evolution and mutation to be able to live there with the giant rats."

    Cade turned slowly to look at Leo.

    "Yep. Giant bats and giant rats." Leo peered through the bars at the toilet. "The sewage system is lovely. They're too big to escape through the toilets though, so don't worry."

    It was actually very worrying. If they were too big to fit in the toilets, then they must've been massive. Cade didn't like to think about that. He was usually fine with bats and rats. He used to have a pet rat named Jerry. But giant, ferocious ones that crawl around in the stinky sewage system? No thanks.

    After looking back again to check on Nowad—who blinked once to signal that it was fine before hiding again—he turned back to Leo, continuing their earlier conversation.

    His guard was up, he convinced himself. He wasn't going to trust Leo completely. He was just making another friend in this dark, lonely place. You can't go wrong with having a lot of friends.

    Surely.