Bars By The Sea

Casablanca, North Africa | July 11th, 1943 | 8:17:P.M

He awoke to the sound of crashing waves, cheerful chanting, and live music. His head once again throbbed, his skin awkwardly trembled, and his vision was hazy, but he could tell that something was different about his room.

The space was no longer small, nor pitch. His mattress was upgraded to firm, although it was still stained with various hues of blood. His bathroom utilities were gone, but there was a small folding table set upright beside the cell door that had a loaf of white bread, and a pitcher of water resting on its surface. The floor was still sandy, in fact significantly more sandy than the previous room, and perched ten feet up the back wall, were six moonlight-soaked, iron-wrought bars.

He had a window.

The view was too high for him to see out of, even if he stood on top of the table, but the silver sheen of the moonlight was enough for him. The demons of his solitary darkness had been gaining in strength, and were on the brink of causing the complete collapse of his mind. The glowing bars reinvigorated his resolve, and kept the devils chained to the darkened corners of the room.

Starving, and dangerously dehydrated, he hobbled over to the table. Rejoicing that the bread was not crawling with ants, or swarming with flies, he tore bite sized chunks from the loaf, and began feasting. The bread was stale, and extremely dry, so he used the water to help soften, and moisten the chewing.

With a clean plate, he lifted the pitcher from the table and slowly hobbled back to the mattress. He dropped his sore body down, leaned his aching spine against the warm stone wall, and enjoyed the warm water while he tried to identify the Moroccan instruments being played by the beach band while trying to recollect the blurry chain of events that landed him in this upgraded room.

The harder he thought back, the further from the truth he got. So he continued to drink the water. He needed all the strength he could muster. Mentally, and physically. Being as dehydrated as he was, the water only intensified his pounding headache, highlighting one spot in particular. The backside of his skull.

As he caressed the fine hairs with the tips of his shaky fingers, the sour memory of being dragged down a long corridor flashed in his mind. Followed by a blonde man fixing the buttons on his pants, and a hard whack to the back of the skull. The same spot he was currently massaging.

The more he drank, and rubbed, more of the missing pieces began fitting into place. Flashes of himself being tied down to a steel chair inside of a dark room filled with electronic equipment, monitors, and fancy men in officer uniforms scrambled around in his brain, until they started falling into a timeline that made sense.

First, he was taken from his previous cell, and dragged down a high-walled hallway that had no roof. Second, was the rough looking blonde man who was fondling himself. Third, was the hit to the back of the skull. And fourth, was the electrifying interrogation, which now explained the strange tingling sensation in his skin, he underwent for information regarding his children.

It was going to take a whole lot more than surging electricity to get him to divulge any information regarding his children. But time was running short, and the human body can only endure so much until the heart ultimately fails, shutting down the organs and severing brain function.

He needed to find a way out, or else the sand, and moonlit bars would become his tomb.

A faint rustle of boots shifting against the coarse grains of Moroccan sand caught his attention. Focusing his ears away from the ocean-side concert, he fixated on the sounds coming from just beyond his cell door. He could have sworn he heard a voice whisper his name, but there were many voices chattering inside of his head, plus all of the distant singing and conversing made that theory quickly dissolve.

Then his cell door opened.