When pain is a constant, it becomes invisible. Unfelt. Until the moment you move, and then neurons fire, connections are made… and it all slams back.

In an unstoppable wave.

He made the mistake of moving and that wave almost took him under. His breath caught in the cage of his chest, locked in by the agony that exploded through the side of his face, the mess where his eye had been, and—

He stopped thinking about it. Cut off the thought there. Dead. Instead, he concentrated on his toes. It was all about the toes. The very end of the tips of his toes. He concentrated on them, relaxing them—the toes—from the tips to the first joint. That was all he had to do. Relax that tiny little part of his toes.

When they were relaxed, both sides, he concentrated on the part up to the next joint. And the next. By the time he’d reached his ankles, the agony had baited down to a dull roar. To mere pain. Pain that could be dealt with. Ignored. So he concentrated on something else. On relaxing his body joint by joint. Mindfulness… or something. Strange what thoughts washed up while he tried to clear his mind again. By the time he reached his knees, he could think again.

Making sure not to move, he completed the routine up to his hips. Stopped there. There was no point in going past the hips. He had at least three busted ribs, and burns in stripes down his left arm. Pointless concentrating on something that actually did hurt when he was trying to ignore the pain.

So he cast his attention outward. To the cell he was in, cold metal, hard bench… the constant drip-drip-drip in the corner. From what he’d seen of the ship, it was a fairly new model, certainly new enough not to have this grotty little cell with the obligatory water drip in the corner to drive the prisoners mad.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? The noise that he couldn’t get away from. The constant drip-drip-drip like a hammer driving a nail through his skull. He had to appreciate the skill of a set designed by a master torturer to soften their victims up before they even put their tools to flesh, even while he wondered who he was to recognise it for what it was in the first place.

The problem for his unseen opponent, was that he’d stopped listening to it—the drip-drip-drip—as soon as he’d devined its purpose. The same as the cold, the blaring lights that bored into his remaining eye… they were all tactics easily seen through.

He caught the frown before it full manifested, and limited it to undamaged half of his face. But there was something beyond the confines of his cell. Something beyond the cold, beyond the light, beyond the drip-drip-drip.

The ship hadn’t moved for days.

A ship like this was like a shark. An unseen predator lurking in the depths of space waiting for the right moment to strike. For the right moment to burst from the depths and the darkness. But like a shark, it needed to stay on the move. Swim or die… or, be eaten by a bigger shark.

Locking the pain in the back of his mind, into a tiny box where it could yammer away to itself all it liked, he sat up. It took a moment for him to catch his breath, but then he swung his legs off the hard bench and stood. Turned to face the door. Tilted his head so he could see it clearly.

His jailors had started to get careless a few days after he’d arrived. They’d stopped locking it three days ago.

He took a step toward it. One. Then another. Movement begat movement, begat easier movement. He must have blacked out at some point, because then he was there. No matter. His body was still operational even if his mind had decided it was a part time job.

He reached out a hand and put it on the door. The metal was cold, rough. There was even rust on this side. He snorted and shook his head. Remembered why that was a bad idea when a pulse of pain almost drove him to his knees. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the door open and stepped through it. His mind clear, certain.

He might not remember his name but he knew one thing… Everyone on the other side of this door was his enemy.