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Time didn’t matter in a place like this.
The only thing that could keep you even remotely sane would be if you were lucid enough to count how many times you were shocked, or when they fed you barely edible food.
Thorn knew this routine all too well.
He would get fed every 5 hours, in between he would get asked the same questions over and over again, and every time he didn’t answer, he got 3 electric shocks to his side, neck or chest.
He had been stripped of the top half of his armour almost immediately, so he was strung up by two huge metal chains attached to metal cuffs around his wrists nailed to the ceiling, his feet were much the same, they had kept his boots and lower half of his armor on however they were also chained to the floor. They had put a muzzle on him as he would spit, bite and snarl at his captors when they tried to touch him.
He had stopped screaming long ago. He just let them do whatever they wanted to him, it’s not like they would get any answers anyway, and it’s not like anyone would actually come looking for him. He was going to die here, and he was okay with that, however he wouldn’t let them break him. He’d die on his own terms.
Of course they never treated his injuries, it was designed to hurt, to break spirits, wade down resolve. However Thorn really didn’t have a will to live anymore. He had no perception of how long he had actually been there. He stopped counting after four weeks.
He had forgotten about the people back on Coruscant waiting for him. Forgot about Fox, Thire, Stone, his men. All he thought about was how he was going to die.
The worst of the pain, the one he was always reminded of when a shock rod dug into his abdomen, was from early on in his capture. At that point all he had on were regular old binders, just on his hands, his legs weren’t even bound. It was during the time when they didn’t consider him a threat and so security was loose around him. He had managed to memorize the guards schedules and so when they were switching shifts, he managed to slip through the bars, and make it out into the hallway.
He looked around and saw literally nobody there with him so he just picked a direction and ran.
However he had unfortunately ran straight into a huge group of droids coming down the hallway. At this point they had been starving him for a few days and though he was used to feeling this kind of fatigue, afterall he usually didn’t eat anything all day back on Coruscant, but they had been giving him ascertain kind of sedative that was making his head feel a bit woozy.
So when he went to turn around sharply and run the other direction, it messed with his dizziness, he lost his balance and fell to the ground. The droids walked over to him and looked down at him. He knew he was screwed.
They had dragged him back to his cell and that's when they had strung him up to where he currently was.
That day he endured the worst kind of pain he had ever felt. And he had felt Force lightning strikes before.
His torturer, a T-series tactical droid, held something out of view of Thorn's peripheral vision and even if he wanted to look further he couldn’t on account of Dooku holding his jaw, forcing him to look him in the eye.
“Maybe this will teach you obedience, clone. Don’t cross me. Burn him.”
Thorn had .1 seconds to process what that meant before he felt the hot press of what felt like molten lava being poured onto his skin. It continued like that until Thorn couldn’t take the pain anymore and he let out a shout of pain. However, it didn’t stop.
In fact, it didn’t stop until Thorn had actually passed out from the pain.
He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened but he was sure that they had branded him with something. Something that made sure that even if he went back to the Republic, he would always have a physical and visual reminder that he was property of the Empire.
And even though it had been a while since that incident, he hadn’t tried escaping since.
Also he knew that whatever drugs they kept giving him that would make him dizzy, also made him nauseous and that resulted in him not having an appetite.
Despite this, he would finish all of his food that they gave him.
They would force him to eat it, and if he spit it out, they would shock him until he vomited up nothing but stomach acid, then shock him again for making such a mess. Shocking and branding weren't the only torture methods they inflicted on him.
Sometimes they would leave him alone for hours, with ear plugs and a blindfold on. He would have total hearing and sight loss. It caused him extreme distress the first few times. He’d scream his voice hoarse, he would wriggle around but nothing would happen.
They would also give him dirty water. Water that wasn’t properly purified but they would open his mouth, force it in, and then keep his mouth closed. Forcing him to either choke on it until they released him or he would have to swallow it.
He began to lose feeling in his hands and feet before long.
He was never let down from this position unless they were moving him to a different torture chamber, so he quickly began losing feeling in his nerves.
Despite not liking to admit, especially to his captors, he was scared.
He was scared, he really wanted to see his brothers again, wanted to see Fox again, wanted him to tell him that everything would be okay. He had no idea what was going on on the ship he was on. He tried to stay awake for as long as possible to hopefully grab onto any little piece of information about the outside world that he overheard through his completely bare, completely sealed off room.
War may have prepared him for a lot of things, and even though he had been specifically trained how to deal with being captured by the enemy, he never thought it would be like this.
Nobody told him he would literally be branded by the Separatists, be forced to go through hallucinations of brothers, and just the thoughts of thinking that “you should die/you’d be better off dead.”
He had so many physical reminders of just what exactly he had been through.
Scars from huge cuts and lacerations, electric starburst shock burns, dilated pupils, the brand of his neck and the irreparable damage to his psyche.
On the day when he loses all hope. He sometimes wonders what life would be like if he just cracked. If he just gave Dooku all the information he wanted , would Dooku take the information then kill him? Would he let him go? He knew he would never do that but days when the hours stretch on, the cuts are longer and deeper, the food and water bubbles in his throat, and the burns burn just a little harder. He wonders.
He knew the next questions would be, “how should I punish you next? Trooper.”