Chapter 204 Volume IV - Chapter 49: Wishing to Die
Breaking was not the only thing that happened to my fingers.
Slowly, one by one, starting from the outermost part, he tore off all my fingers. He peeled off their skin, and as my cries echoed in the room, I never gave him what he wanted.
Not that I didn't, I couldn't.
How long has it been since I stopped holding back my tears? How long since I started screaming from the pain?
I didn't know, yet I tried to at least keep my consciousness in one piece while it was happening. It was one thing, at least the thought that made me keep resisting it.
The same thing happened to Celine.
It was this thought that made me endure this pain a little bit, that made me at least remain 'myself' even if I screamed.
At least at first.
The dwarf asked me different questions as I let go of one finger and moved on to the other. I couldn't answer any of them, even though I wanted to, I couldn't. As the level of pain increased with each finger, countless thoughts ran through my mind.
When will he let go?
Can I bear the pain?
This is just the beginning... What will happen next?
There was one more thing that kept me going, or at least trying; Absolute Mind.
As each of my bad, meaningless, or unnecessary thoughts was slowly cleared from my mind, I experienced something I hadn't experienced in a long time. I entered a cycle.
As the Absolute Mind tried to erase my negative emotions and thoughts, new ones were added on top of new ones.
My mind cleared, and the world became meaningless for a moment. Then I felt the pain, the thoughts flooded my mind again and I repeated.
When the dwarf finished with my last finger, he poured a potion over me again, and the metal thing I was attached to glowed with a faint shimmer. I felt some relief, especially with a warmth enveloping my fingers.
I was being healed.
The dwarf pulled up a chair across from me. Then he picked up a steaming cup and looked me in the eye.
"You're quite an interestin' fella. Normally, for over ninety percent of those who come here, this would've been enough. They'd start chirpin' right away."
He took a sip from his glass. But after a slight grimace of dissatisfaction, he put his glass aside and turned back to me.
"Couldn't quite figure out what sort of person you are. Sometimes you ponder on somethin', then you go all soulless. You scream and shed tears from pain, then back you go into your thoughts and go soulless again."
As the pain in my fingers slowly faded, the light behind me began to fade.
Then the pain returned unexpectedly.
My fingers had not healed. Each one looked misshapen, and the pain was all the sharper because the healing process had been interrupted.
I held myself back from moaning, the presence of the Absolute Mind was still there.
"Anyway..."
The dwarf stood up, then walked back behind me.
When I was alone with the gray wall in front of me, more voices came from behind me.
The torturing dwarf was deliberately making noises with his tools, this time trying to choose what to do. It was making me more nervous. He was scaring me even more.
That was his intention. I knew it, and frankly, it was successful.
"Aha, I found it."
This time the sound was not a sound of friction. It was the sound of something churning. It was a liquid.
The dwarf came in front of me and then, with a smile on his face, showed me what he was holding in his hand.
It was a white plastic bottle. Inside was a yellow liquid.
"Ever been hooked on somethin' before?"
Ah...
"This thing's really somethin', ye know..."
He took the cap off the plastic bottle and then, without even waiting a moment, he poured the whole bottle into my mouth.
I tried not to swallow, I tried to spit it out, but he held my jaw still with his hand. I swallowed almost half of the bottle, then the dwarf threw the finished bottle aside.
Soon my vision began to blur and the world began to spin. I heard the dwarf saying something, though I couldn't understand it. The gray walls suddenly began to bend and open like the petals of a flower. And behind them, a sky appeared, a beautiful blue sky.
Yet it was all very short-lived. I felt something inside my head, inside my mind, a literal wall.
The drug was really strong, so it took a long time for the Absolute Mind to react. Eventually, it was activated, though. So the lush green grass that had just begun to sprout on the metallic ground withered away. The deep blue sky gave way to gray walls again. Then the body of the torturing dwarf slowly materialized in front of me.
For a moment we just looked at each other. Then the dwarf frowned, finally realizing that something was not right.
"Hmm? Why are ye here?"
I didn't answer, just stared blankly into his eyes, and the dwarf approached me.
"Yer eyes were supposed to be unfocused. Interesting... That thing guardin' yer mind, is it workin' even for this?"
He looked disappointed, really. Muttering, he moved back to the floor behind me.
"I'll have to try the others if this ain't workin'... This was the best one, but ain't nothin' to be done."
When he came in front of me again, this time he made me drink another liquid. It didn't cloud my mind. It didn't seem to have any ill effects on it. I wasn't sure what it was, but I didn't want to know.
After giving me the drug, the dwarf went behind me again.
When he came back, this time he was holding a whip covered with sharp thorns.
*******
I gritted my teeth against the new wound in my chest, trying to think of other things as my hot blood trickled down my body, my mind dulled by thirst.
How long have I been here, for example?
No... no. I need to think about something else.
It shouldn't be about this place.
When will he give me that medicine? I feel like I'm dying... I need it.
No, no, no... Not that either.
Something else... Something else...
I had an image in my mind, a figure.
What is Clara doing now? She's probably going to school... being a normal, ordinary girl. That's the way it should be.
I felt another wound, this time near my shoulder. I groaned again, not trying to hold it in, just trying to think of something other than the pain.
"Are ye gonna tell now? Ah, and by the way, if ye try lyin', I'll know. So don't even bother with that."
I opened my mouth, and then my mouth closed by itself and I smiled slightly.
I can't tell even if I want to...
Isn't that... Isn't that unfair?
"So ye need to come round a bit more, it seems."
The dwarf glanced behind me, then sighed.
"Anyway, it's been a while."
He came close to me again and looked at my body for a while. Then he tensed and punched me hard in the head.
*******
I realized I was being made to drink something.
Despite my dry throat, despite my stomach that felt like it was on fire, I let myself drink the liquid without thinking whether it was water or not.
I couldn't recognize what it was at first, but then I remembered where I was and my eyes widened as never before. I tried to cough, rejecting what passed down my throat, but I had already swallowed a large amount of it.
Coughing, I turned my blurred eyes in front of me, trying to see who it was.
There was someone different from the dwarf from before. His ocean-blue eyes made me feel for a moment that I was looking at Julian. However, with his short stature and broad shoulders, this thought instantly left my mind.
Without saying a word, the dwarf moved behind me to where the different tools were and left me in the unknown again. Then I felt a momentary pain in my neck, brief, but enough for me to realize what it was.
It was a syringe.
After a while, I felt myself getting warmer, I stood still and gasped for breath. The copious amounts of sweat that came with it were an added bonus.
My body temperature continued to rise and sweat continued to pour out of me. And then the dwarf from before was in front of me again. He smiled slightly, raised his hand, and touched my stomach with his index finger.
He just touched it. With the tip of his finger, briefly. Yet it suddenly made me shiver. Then, suddenly, an extremely intense pain shot through my whole body and I screamed involuntarily.
I felt the place where the dwarf had touched me being scorched, the organs under my skin being grabbed and torn apart. Not only my body trembled, but also my vision. Sounds blended together, even my own screams became meaningless.
Was it possible for any living thing in the world to suffer this much pain?
"Heheh."
Happy, he pulled his finger back and touched my shoulder this time. And this time, on top of the previous pain, my shoulder started to burn and ache. I felt like I was being split into atoms, I lost track of how many times I fainted and woke up in a short period of time before I realized that this 'pain' was the only link between me and the world.
It was only a few seconds, only a few seconds.
The dwarf quickly withdrew his hand. Then he smiled broadly and moved quickly behind me again.
Something suddenly flashed in front of me and my tear-soaked eyes widened. Slowly I looked down at my stomach.
There were many scars on my body from the passage of time. Yet I didn't care much about them. The moment I saw the gaping wound on my stomach, I experienced something I had never experienced before.
My whole body trembled with a pain I never thought I would feel in my entire life. I screamed, the pain was so intense that I couldn't even scream, but I didn't care. Absolute Mind had stopped working, it had reached its limit and was no longer trying to keep me calm.
So the pain was much more intense.
"Tell me, tell me, come on?"
I wanted to.
I really wanted to.
I wanted with all my heart to give him what he wanted.
And yet, the moment I opened my mouth, I felt as if a hand was covering my mouth, blocking me, and then the owner of the hand covering my mouth was standing right behind me.
I heard a low chuckle, almost inaudible, and its owner was not the dwarf in front of me.
As my tears spilled onto the floor, never able to escape the pain, I wished for something I never thought I would wish for in this life.
I wished to die.
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