Chapter 202 Volume IV - Chapter 47: Enemy Captive
Darkness.
An endless darkness.
One I've never seen before, never felt before.
No... I remember... I remember this feeling. I found myself in such darkness before, long before. It was a void where I couldn't feel my body, I couldn't feel time, I couldn't see or hear anything.
When I came here before, I was scared. I was afraid I would go crazy, I was afraid I would lose my own self.
And now...
Nothing.
What I feel inside me is literally nothing. Sadness, happiness, anger, all kinds of things... Nothing.
Is that... normal?
With these thoughts, time moved forward.
Or not.
Finally, in all this darkness, I realized something.
A voice, a low voice. As if someone was humming.
The voice became more distinct as time passed. Because it was the only thing I could focus on, I didn't think about anything else, so after a certain amount of time... I could understand what it was.
It was a melody. It was a sad, gloomy but peaceful melody. It sounded familiar, like I had heard it many times before, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not place it in my mind.
As the melody slowly became easier to understand, I listened to it completely. The more I listened, the more peaceful I felt, and the more I listened, the more I realized that in this nothingness where I could feel nothing, there was a strange feeling sprouting inside me.
It was a feeling that was slowly trying to reach the surface from the depths of my soul. It was warm, comforting even. It seemed to move rhythmically with the melody. It was spreading slowly but steadily, as if controlled by it.
Eventually, the feeling became more pronounced. It was trying to seep into me... pulling me toward it. However, after a while... it suddenly paused. And with its pause, I noticed something else in the darkness, something that existed outside this melody. A light, a light that was slowly expanding and getting brighter and brighter.
I turned toward the light, without thinking... not even realizing that it was a strange thing in this strange space that I could turn toward it.
It was right in front of me, the source of the light. It was the only thing other than me that existed in this endless darkness. It was as if it was resisting the darkness, the silence, the 'nothingness' of this place.
I reached out my hand to it, I touched it.
Then, it also touched me.
The endless darkness suddenly lit up with a dazzling radiance.
*******
I want to die.
I want to die.
I want to die...
I didn't think about anything else as the liquid spread through my veins, literally dissolving my whole body slowly.
With tears in my eyes, unable to think straight, I looked at the people in lab coats standing in front of me.
One of them was looking directly at me. Even in all the chaos I was going through, I could pick him out, maybe the person I hated the most here.
Jared, Jared Huffab.
No... I don't know this person. How can I hate him when I don't know him?
I don't understand... What's happening?
It didn't take me long to forget my thoughts, though. I couldn't think of anything but him as the pain enveloped my whole body.
Slowly I felt myself changing. Slowly, but steadily, I felt myself becoming someone else.
*******
Finally, after a while, something different happened.
I felt as if the liquid was touching my heart. Its flames seized it, then it was drawn through my whole body and directed toward it.
It was happening for the first time.
Although... What was happening before so that I knew it was the 'first time'?
It's... pointless... strange...
Who am I?
I couldn't think of an answer to my question. With every second that passed, the pain was getting worse and worse, dulling my sense of self.
I kept struggling, I wanted to get up from the chair where my hands were tied and suffocate myself. Yet, I couldn't. I just waited, screaming as the liquid burned my heart, changing it.
So I felt that I had lost something, that everything inside me that made me who I was was slowly slipping away.
*******
This time the liquid changed targets again. And this was also the first time. This time... the target was my brain.
I felt something strange, something I had never felt before, a void, a void that slowly spread through me and swallowed everything in sight.
I lost count of the number of times I fainted and woke up as the liquid burned my brain, just like it did my heart. Maybe my throat had been torn apart by my screams because I couldn't scream anymore, but I kept going.
Even though my throat was torn, I kept screaming because there was nothing else I could do. Then... I felt something new, something strange sprouting inside me, things filling my mind that I had never known before. Things I shouldn't know.
The liquid spread all over my body again. Its presence became indistinct as if it had finished with my brain, as if it was slowly disappearing. But, after a short period of time, I understood.
The liquid was not disappearing, its presence was not becoming indistinct.
It had chosen another target, something non-physical.
*******
I felt my soul slipping away, like my heart, like my brain, it burned slowly but painfully.
The pain I had suffered before was nothing compared to this. I always thought I was used to pain, every time I came here I thought how much more I could suffer this time.
This was different.
This was very different.
I felt myself separating from my body as my soul was on fire. I felt myself dying and resurrecting over and over again as my soul was slowly disappearing. I felt the emptiness inside me growing wider and wider as my soul was slowly changing.
Eventually, the pain became meaningless. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was numb, maybe I was still screaming but I didn't realize it.
The flame that enveloped my soul, that changed it, slowly began to recede. This time the pain really did fade away. I was still awake, I had not fainted.
I raised my head and looked at the people who had been standing in front of me the whole time.
Then I felt something strange inside me again.
Or rather, I realized I couldn't feel it.
There was no anger.
There was no fear.
No sadness.
There was no joy, too.
There was nothing. I was just looking at the people in front of me, my eyes open, not shaking, just waiting where I was, not feeling anything inside me. As if I didn't feel anything except the emptiness that filled me after I disappeared with that flame.
Then something happened.
I understood.
I understood everything.
Or rather, I realized that I understood.
And with that, I heard a voice, a dull voice whispering in my mind. A different voice that sounded as if it was echoing, as if it was made up of more than one person speaking at the same time.
'You are awake, human child.'
*******
I found myself in the darkness again, thinking about the things I had seen as the light I had touched was slowly disappearing.
Then I realized that everything about them was slowly fading from my mind, the things I had seen, the things I had heard... There was nothing I could do but wait as each one was slowly being dragged behind something, locked away.
The light in front of me disappeared completely, most of the dream I was having was gone. All that remained were vague images.
Endless darkness surrounded me again in this void where nothing existed.
Minutes passed.
Hours.
Days?
Or weeks?
Months...?
In the darkness, suddenly, there was something again. Again, a light.
But it wasn't like before. It was not so attractive, not so bright. It wasn't something I could touch. It was also a dim light.
As my eyes slowly opened, as my vision slowly became clearer, I realized that I could feel my body again. I focused on the dim light I saw in the darkness, and then I realized what it was.
It was a lamp. It was behind a transparent panel on the ceiling.
I tried to move.
"Ugh..."
The moment I tried to try this, intense pain shot through my whole body and I moaned hoarsely, then I realized that my whole body felt too weak.
"W- what's happening..."
As my eyes finally adjusted to the dim light, I looked around and suddenly I was frozen in place.
I was in a small room with gray walls. There was nothing inside. No door, no furniture, no living being other than me... The only thing different was the light behind the translucent panel on the ceiling.
I looked at myself, I was wearing a gray outfit like the walls of the room. It looked like orange prisoner's clothes, only instead of orange it was a dull gray.
As I was slowly getting used to the general pain in my body, I closed my eyes and thought. Then, slowly, what happened entered my mind.
I stood with my back to the wall, trying to digest what had happened.
Ezareth...
I clenched my fist and clenched my teeth, getting angrier as her image came into my mind.
I will definitely find you, no matter what... I will make you pay for what you did to me.
I took a deep breath in and out, then looked around again, thinking.
I'm not dead... I was pretty sure I was going to die, but I'm somewhat alive.
Now... this is both a good and a bad sign.
The good thing, of course, is that I'm not dead. The bad thing is that I have a pretty good idea of where I am. I vaguely remember the door opening and the Southerners entering the room before my vision went black.
So... I'm a prisoner now, and most likely... I'm inside the Caleuche.
I threw my head back and hit the wall, not caring too much about the pain, and looked at my right wrist.
Just as I had predicted, there was a device on my wrist that seemed unlikely to come off. It was connected directly to my flesh, to my veins. Even if I tried to touch it with my other hand, it seemed to be one with my skin, I couldn't even feel any roughness. It restricted my mana, which was also the reason why I felt weaker than usual.
I lowered my hand and sighed.
Can I get out of here? Can I escape this machine of destruction with the most advanced technology on Lunerra?
It seems... impossible.
Am I going to be kept here for the rest of my life?
So I paused for a moment.
Why have they taken me prisoner in the beginning? The people held in Caleuche are usually important people, normal prisoners are sent straight to the South Holar.
Or am I already there...?
Then, at this very moment, I felt a pain radiating from my wrist to my whole body.
I quickly grabbed the bracelet on my right wrist, focused on the pain, and then I felt something spreading from where the bracelet was to my whole body. At first, I couldn't understand what it was, and then suddenly my whole body went stiff.
A much more intense version of the 'weakness' I felt enveloped my whole body, and then I collapsed, paralyzed.
I did not faint, but I was still unable to move my muscles.
At the same time, there was a sound in the room that I couldn't even understand properly. It sounded like something... sliding. Simultaneously, the room was suddenly lit up so that it was completely white.
I squinted against the light, and then I saw a door appear in the middle of one of the gray walls of the room. In front of this door were three people. Three dwarves in uniform.
They said nothing. They came to me and lifted me up, they took me out of my room, not even caring that I was being dragged, and I went out into the corridor.
The liquid that spread over my body suddenly overwhelmed me. My vision blurred, and before I realized what was happening, darkness descended on me again.
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