Stolen Silence

I thought the darkness was something I could leave behind, that the weight of my past was just a series of memories I could lock away. But everything changed the night I was taken—a quiet drink at a bar, a stranger with kind eyes and a wedding band, a few sips of something bitter and sharp—and then, nothing. I woke up trapped, buried underground in a suffocating room of cement walls and steel. And I wasn't alone.

There he was, the boy who'd once held my heart, now bound to the wall, a man aged and broken by the years. Jude Langston, my first love, my oldest wound. Seeing him here, chained and weakened, was like stepping into a nightmare. His face was gaunt, his eyes shadowed by pain I couldn't understand, and that awful, ragged cough—it haunted the air like a dark omen. I realized then that Rory, the man who’d taken us both, was playing his own twisted game. He’d kept Jude for years, slowly breaking him, and now he’d brought me here, offering me like some grotesque gift to rekindle whatever we’d left behind.

But being close to Jude again, touching his skin, feeling his warmth—everything I thought I’d forgotten came rushing back, our bond, tangled and haunted, deepening with each moment in that cold, damp cell. It was wrong, terrifying, but in the darkness, he was the only light I had, the only person who knew the pieces of me I’d hidden from everyone else. And even though my heart screamed that it was dangerous, that I should protect myself, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for him, from finding solace in the one person I never thought I’d see again.

Our lives in that cell became a pattern of stolen moments and whispered promises. The secrets grew, multiplying in the shadows, and I could see that he was hiding something—something that would hurt me, something I was scared to face. But Rory’s presence loomed, his threats constant, as he fed us scraps of food and empty promises, keeping us alive but always dangling the threat of death. Each time he came to visit, each time he unlocked that heavy metal door, I knew he was watching us, studying us, taking pleasure in our desperation.

Jude is wasting away, his health slipping as fast as time drips from one day to the next. I watch him suffer, feel his strength ebb, and I know I’d give anything to keep him alive, to survive just long enough to find a way out. I can’t lose him. Not again, not like this. And every moment between us, raw and vulnerable, is a reminder of how far we’re willing to go for each other in the darkness, of the lengths we’ll go to keep the other breathing.

This isn’t love. It’s survival, stitched together with broken promises and stolen breaths. And yet, somehow, it feels like the only real thing left in this world.