Carter’s already unsteady feet collided with the guard’s torso, causing his right leg to buckle as momentum carried him forward. He struggled to regain his footing, but could do nothing as he stumbled forward fast.

Seizing the opportunity, Mansour moved as quickly as he could. He forcefully grasped Carter’s head and both accelerated and redirected its journey towards the cell’s side wall.

Carter’s skull impacted the brickwork with a sickening crack, sending him to the floor. The sound seemed to fill the room, and Mansour recognised the sensation of bone giving way.

He had experienced it before. Killing with his bare hands. It was the nature of a war against a better equipped enemy. And it was something he had hoped to never feel again.

That thought brought Mansour to a halt and, for just an instant, he forgot where he was. The danger he still faced.

It was the very worst thing he could have done.

The blow sent Mansour backwards, his world spinning inside his own head. A huge hit that somehow turned everything simultaneously black and orange. His senses recovered quickly, soon enough to realise that it was Server Three who had hit him. But his control over his own limbs did not. Before he could lift his hands he was punched again. Weaker this time. But with the effects of the first blow still reverberating, it was just as debilitating.

The third punch – another right – finished the job. Disorientated from the second blow, Mansour did not see it coming. So he was unprepared for the sheer devastation of Server Three’s final overhand right. The world went completely black. And for a moment Mansour was confused by the feeling of the wall somehow sliding upwards against his back.

It took a moment for him to understand the reality. It was not the wall moving. It was Mansour. And that movement only stopped when he hit the floor.

He was done and he was helpless. Incapable of climbing back to his feet.

Not that he would have the chance. Server Three’s right knee smashed into Mansour’s nose just an instant later. The sound of cartilage caving under the strength of the blow was sickening. Worse was the explosion of agony as the back of his head made contact with the hard brickwork behind it.

The impact separated Mansour from his senses, and so he felt no further pain as he slumped against the wall and began to take kick after kick after kick. Aimed at his body and at his head. His face was quickly a mask of blood as the kicks became stamps.

There was no hope. There was no escape. These men were there to kill him, and they would not stop until he was dead.

Or until someone stopped them.

At first Mansour thought that the final kick had killed him. That Server Three had succeeded where everyone since the Syrian Army had failed.

It took him several seconds to realise that he was wrong. That the room was now filled with screams and shouts that were not his own. With movements he could make out through the dripping blood that coated his eyes. And with the returning sensation of excruciating pain that came from his injuries, as full consciousness returned.