Chapter 18

That began a very painful period for me. Hassan took great delight in torturing me until I thought I was going to go insane. She didn't use physical pain, instead she inflicted mental scars. Some of the key moments over the next three years remain etched in my memory.

She started her methodical demolition of my spirit by describing how Brenda had died.

"You only have yourself to blame for her death, Sean. If you had only listened to reason, if you had 'emerged' on Gael in the proper way, then she would still be alive.

"Her poor 'other-world' body was frail and couldn't withstand the forces your 'emergence' created. Her body splintered into a million tiny pieces. There wasn't a piece of her big enough to pick up, so thoroughly did you destroy her.

"How does that make you feel, Sean? How does it feel to be the one responsible for your lover's death? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

The worst part of what Hassan was saying was the massive wave of guilt that I felt for being the one who had killed Brenda. Of course, that's what Hassan intended. I would learn that she always chose her words very carefully, and for maximum effect.

She taunted me over Brenda's death every day for a year and I thought I couldn't take any more. I had just about come to the decision to end my own misery by killing myself. I had even decided how I was going to do it: by tearing out my own throat with my right hand.

I thought that things couldn't get any worse and that's when Hassan proved me wrong.

"How are we today, my little plaything? Are you well, Sean? You look well enough, not as well as your little trollop of a girlfriend looks though! I have to grudgingly admit that she does brush up quite nicely.

"She looked almost pretty when she married my brother, Aiden, yesterday. She certainly seemed deliriously happy on her big day.

"How quickly we are forgotten eh, Sean? Barely a year and already she has married another. Did you think she loved you? Did you? Ha, ha! You did, didn't you? I can see it in your face.

"She couldn't have loved you, Sean. She started cosying up to my brother almost as soon as she came here. You were definitely 'out of sight, out of mind' and she couldn't wait to climb into Aiden's bed! Now she's married and her belly is already beginning to bulge with the fruit of Aiden's seed."

Madness overtook me. I had reviled myself for nearly a year, thinking that my foolishness had killed the love of my life. I hated myself so much that I had been ready to kill myself. Now Hassan was telling me that it had all been a lie. She had taunted me with a lie for a year!

Forgetting my previous experience, I ran full tilt at the wall and crashed into it. The pain as I was thrown across the cell once more was almost a blessing. It was the first thing I had felt in nearly six months, as I had slowly begun to shut down mentally and physically.

"Tut, tut. That was very foolish, Sean. You should have learned your lesson from the last time.

"Let me describe the wedding for you, I'm sure you'll want to hear all the little details."

That's exactly what she did ... for three hours. Then she came back the next day, and the next and the next. I was forced to listen to how happy Brenda had been to marry the gorgeous Aiden.

Hassan delighted in telling me how much in love Brenda was with her brother. She spent hours describing what a wonderful couple they made.

"There is glow about her, Sean. Marriage and pregnancy seem to agree with her. Have you noticed how her eyes have little flecks of gold in them when she is happy?"

That comment was crushing. I could remember only too well what those little flecks of gold looked like in her brown eyes. Hassan was once more sticking in the knife and twisting it for good measure.

For another year I was regaled with stories of the domestic bliss that was the world of Aiden and Brenda. Hassan really enjoyed herself, when she began to describe how much of a fool I had been to ever think that Brenda had loved me.

"Oh this is much worse than what you did to me, Sean. You hardly knew me, so rejecting me was nowhere near as bad as what your little Brenda has done to you. She never mentions your name, it's as if you never existed. She lives for Aiden."

When Hassan described the banquet that Aiden had hosted for Brenda's birthday I knew that it was around the end of March. That was the first reference point I'd managed to get since I had woken up in the cell.

A year and a month had passed since Hassan had captured me and she showed no signs of tiring of her little game of mental torture.

"She danced and laughed the whole night through, Sean. Your little Brenda hung onto my brother as if he was the most precious thing in this world of Gael.

"She hangs on his every word. You can see that she positively adores him."

Her next words hit me so hard that I collapsed onto the floor of the cell.

"And their son looks like a mirror image of his father! They call him Malcolm, after my father. I would have told you about the birth before, but you know how fragile babies can be? He's three months old now and appears a healthy child.

"Brenda is besotted with him. She fusses over him constantly and he will undoubtedly turn out to be a spoiled brat. She breast-feeds him you know? I've seen her little breasts with their brown nipples just waiting to be sucked."

I could picture those same brown nipples and almost taste them in my mouth. How could Brenda do this to me? How could I have read her so badly wrong? I could almost feel my heart crumbling within my chest as Hassan spent day after day sharing new titbits about Brenda's happy life.

If I thought this was my lowest point I hadn't bargained for the capacity that Hassan had for inflicting pain. Two years had now passed (Hassan had described another of Brenda's birthday feasts) and Hassan began to feed me other juicy snippets for her own entertainment.

"You probably want to know that Brenda's mother has been struck down with cancer again, Sean. Apparently the 'other-world' doctors can't do anything for her and she has only months to live.

"Isn't it a shame that there's no one who can do anything for her? The poor woman. She believes that Brenda is dead and has mourned her passing. Now she's going to have to face her own mortality.

"Aiden has kept this from Brenda of course. He doesn't want her to feel the pain of losing her mother. So touching, don't you think? My brother really loves Brenda and she loves him.

"Oh and by the way, Sean. Your own mother passed away six months ago. Did I forget to tell you that? Oh, how bad of me to forget something as important as that.

"Your father isn't keeping very well either and it probably won't be long before Axon falls into our family's hands. How will that feel, Sean. To have both of your parents die while you are locked up here in my cell?"

My father's health was of little interest to me, but the death of my mother and the return of Linda Thomas' cancer were both hammer blows and once again I contemplated killing myself.

Throughout these two years there had been one thing that had at first acted as a painful reminder, but had gradually become my only link with sanity ... the ring that Brenda had placed on my finger.

When Hassan had convinced me that I had been the cause of Brenda's death, her profile in the stone was like a dagger to my heart. When Hassan had described Brenda's marriage to Aiden and the birth of their child I had almost torn the ring from my finger, but I hadn't.

She might not love me any longer, but I was still very much in love with her. Sometimes I would stare at the little stone while Hassan spewed out her latest taunts. At such times I even found a smile playing across my lips.

And then came the day that brought hope back into my life. Hassan made a mistake. She couldn't have known that she had made it, but it was a mistake, and it gave me hope.

"It's nearly Brenda's birthday again. I wonder what Aiden is going to give her as a present this year? He asked her if there was something from the 'other-world' that she particularly missed and she said there wasn't. Isn't that sweet? She has everything she's ever wanted here in Scania with Aiden!"

WRONG! That was just plain wrong, so wrong it couldn't be true. Brenda could never be happy in a world without machines and engines. My girl couldn't live her life without getting her hands covered in oil.

And if Hassan was lying about this, what else had she lied about? She had lied for a year that Brenda was dead. Was it all lies? Perhaps Brenda hadn't married Aiden? Perhaps there was no child? Maybe Mom wasn't dead and Linda's cancer hadn't re-appeared?