Chapter 207 Volume IV - Chapter 52: Becoming an Ugly Person
I tried to make out my surroundings as I reconnected to the metal thing I hadn't seen in a long time. I involuntarily squinted as I stared at the usual gray wall. Then, when everything was ready, a new torturer I had never seen before came in front of me, pulling a knife from behind my back.
"Hello."
It was a plain-looking dwarf with a smiling face, a woman.
The smiling faces were the worst.
When she raised my head, bringing the knife close to my chin, she looked me in the eyes. Her smile widened, then she pulled a syringe from her pocket and hit me on the neck.
It was the same as before, so I knew what I was up against. I tried to prepare myself, or at least I did.
However, the dwarf, after pulling the syringe from my neck and throwing it aside, brought the knife to my hand. She placed the knife on my finger as if she were cutting a fruit and turned back to me.
She stood there for a moment, her smile widening.
My finger?
Finger...
Ah...
My eyes widened. The dwarf widened her smile in response. Then, without even waiting a moment, she brought the jagged knife down on the ring finger of my right hand.
The pain from the syringe was compounded when the blade sliced my finger open. And I screamed from the top of my lungs.
My throat was burning, saliva smeared on my chin, but I didn't care.
I looked at my finger out of the corner of my eyes and felt sick to my stomach when I saw it dangling, clinging to my hand with only my skin. Absolute Mind stepped in, as it always does, and calmed me down for a brief moment. Still, when I saw my finger again, I felt nauseous again.
When the dwarf grabbed my dangling finger and pulled it away, a much more intense pain enveloped my body. As I watched my blood run down my finger and fall to the floor, I vomited as I realized that I could no longer feel it as I saw that there was a void where my finger should have been.
"Come on, come on... I'm really curious, unlike the others."
I couldn't say a word as a hand, which she couldn't see but I could feel with every fiber of my being, covered my mouth.
After a while, she gave me more of the drug that had increased the pain. She approached my left hand, and with the same dull knife, she struck hard on my pinky finger.
As my screams filled the room and my tears flowed unceasingly, I felt the Absolute Mind overstepping its limits again and again, losing its effect and then coming back again after a while.
My thoughts became confused, and when my pinky finger was completely detached from my left hand, I vomited again over the fact that I had lost another finger.
Then the dwarf lifted the finger she had separated from my body and looked me in the eye.
Sje just stared at me for a while as I moaned, clenched my teeth, and tried not to vomit. Even though I couldn't see her properly because of my tears, I saw her lips curl up and she threw my pinky backward, rolling it on the floor like it was nothing.
"You have beautiful eyes, gray irises are not common."
He slowly brought the knife closer to my right eye, then smiled again.
"If one of 'em were to be mine, no harm done, right? I'm collectin', ye see."
"N- no..."
I turned my head to the side but she stabilized it with her left hand. I tried with all my strength to turn my head, ignoring the pain in my fingers when she held the knife in front of me.
"N- no!"
Then the cold metal entered my eye.
The right side of my vision turned red and then dark, accompanied by intense pain.
My screams filled the room once again.
*******
I was thrown into the dungeon... again. The only thing that kept me from passing out was the pain as my hands were chained again.
My hands felt like they were on fire because of the three missing fingers. The other fingers that had been skinned again were not healed this time, they were still bleeding. They would get infected and hurt even more.
My right eye was burning too.
I never imagined that I would lose parts of my body to torture. I never thought they would go this far.
It was hard to accept being injured, but not impossible.
But to lose a part of my body? To feel that it was no longer there... To know and see that my finger, which I used to be able to move without any problems, was gone.
This was just the beginning. Little by little they were going to go further, little by little they were going to take parts of me. I knew it, it wasn't hard to understand.
A question slowly appeared in my mind. It was the usual one, yet more intense than the previous ones.
Why?
Again, thoughts began to fill my mind. I thought I had gotten over it, I thought I was used to it. Now, the Absolute Mind was kicking in again, but I didn't care.
I sobbed, cried again. Snakes, centipedes, and spiders tried to get close to me, but I kicked them away. Some tried to sink their teeth into me, some succeeded. Some of them tore a few pieces of my flesh from me, like my missing fingers and my right eye. Then they chewed them and retreated back into the darkness.
"W... w- why?"
Why?
Why am I in this state?
I... I don't understand.
Why should I suffer?
Why should I be tortured?
Why should I be 'punished'?
Why... just why?
I...
"I..."
I don't understand...
What did I do? What did I do to deserve this...?
"Hick- H- Help..."
Why am I alone again?
"Please... eugh!- Pl... ea... se..."
I don't want to...
I don't want to anymore...
I tried to bite my tongue, but I didn't even have to be restrained. My jaw, my weak body, lacked the necessary strength.
Why... Why can't I just die?
As my vision slowly darkened, I felt the connection between me and my world fading away. Yet I didn't resist, I let myself go.
Fainting was good. It would take away some of the pain.
At least... At least it was when I wasn't dreaming.
*******
As I stood on the lush green grass, I looked meaninglessly at the sky. The deep blue sky, covered with clouds in places, gave me peace with the sun beating down on my face.
I turned around, looked around, and found a few people standing side by side.
In front of me was everyone I had met in this world. My friends, people I had only spoken to once, people I had threatened, and so on. They were smiling, standing where they were, but they were there.
I took a step toward them, involuntarily. Then... they all disappeared in an instant.
I paused, a cold feeling came over me and I shivered. I ran to where they were, I darted from place to place, I looked for them, I looked for where they were, but I couldn't find a single one of them.
Finally, somewhere far away, I saw two people.
A sudden smile appeared on my face and I started running towards them. As I got closer, I saw who they were, Sue and Clara.
They were both looking at me, smiling, just like the others.
I tried to go to them, I tried to stand next to them, even if I was in a dream, even if it wasn't real, I wanted to be with them.
Yet as soon as I tried, the expression on both their faces turned sour.
"H- ha?"
I didn't understand, I paused and tried to comprehend what they were looking at.
Finally, I saw my own body, my torso covered in all kinds of scars, my missing fingers. As the right side of my vision faded into darkness, as I was literally shortened by my weakness, they both turned their backs to me and started to walk away.
"N- no, come back... come back!"
I ran after them. They were walking slowly, yet they seemed to be several times faster than me. As they moved away from me, disappearing behind a hill that blocked my view of them, all I could do was struggle and watch them go.
Finally, when I was the only one left on this huge field, the grass surrounding it suddenly turned yellow. They started to burn, because of me; I was the center of the flame.
I knelt down, punching the ground as tears fell.
"C- come back... come back... please..."
My vision was blurred by my tears. I punched the ground again as the flames enveloped the whole area, painting the sky red.
The red that surrounded me slowly distorted. The darkness slowly enveloped me and the blurred vision began to fade.
When my eyes opened and I found myself in a dark room, in my own hell, my mouth dropped open. For a moment, I felt nothing inside me, I didn't want to do anything as an emptiness, like nothing I had ever felt before, enveloped my body.
My mouth closed on its own, and despite my infected wounds and my body collapsed from the poison, I continued to look ahead for a few hours. A few hours of staring blankly, meaninglessly ahead.
Or was it day...?
I thought nothing, forced my mind to think nothing, ignored the pain, ignored the trained animals prowling around the room, and waited.
There were no questions. No thoughts. There was no pain. There was nothing, I was alone, alone with my own loneliness, and strangely... It didn't feel bad.
It didn't feel good, either. Maybe that's why I was just standing there doing nothing. It didn't feel good, yes, but it didn't feel bad.
There was just... nothing. And it was good.
So I just kept going, even if I kept getting poisoned, even if I kept getting bitten, I just kept looking ahead and waiting.
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