"In eternal darkness, all one will ever see is their own heart. They will see it beating, slowly at first, but it will increase in rate, speed, and volume. Before long, they will want to rid it of its life, and keep themselves grounded. But hardly does it ever work - and thus, they will be left to chase after their own tail and to reconsider themselves on their own."
Gryffon's eyes narrowed at the message, confused at first as to who the female voice could be when the ground made itself known to the tribute once more. It vibrated and rippled, shaking him off balance for a moment before it seemed to rise up and echo loudly within his ears. Gryffon's hands flew to his face to cover his ears, but every two seconds the pulse reoccurred and hollowed his chest out, as if he wasn't hearing it with his eras but rather his mind.
It was a slow boom every time, like a cannon within his center, coming from his lungs, to his heart, then his head. For several seconds he just stood in front of the recently shut door, staring into the void that stretched out beyond him and tried to muffle the beating sound as each cannon sent a chill down his spine. He stood firmly, doing his best not to question the pulsing, but it grew harder to decipher what thought belonged to him and what was just a vibration sent to him from the ground.
One more hollow thmmmp made his whole body shake and halted his breathing. He gripped at his throat, gasping and panting, pleading for air, but all he did was tighten the collar with his fingers. Gryffon couldn't let go at first, and when he did, the hollowness took over again and sent him forward. His knees hit the ground first, and just as it did so, the black tiles rose up above his head. He stared as the floor stretched and reached yards above his head, surrounding him in a narrow tube made of black glass.
Gryffon's eyes grew wide and he parted his lips in a cry for help, but nothing could be heard over the boom of the pulsing that followed. One moment ticked by, and at the second, the next pulse reverberated through the building and decorated the tube with cracks. The moment the following pulse hit, the tiles shattered and sent shrapnels of glass flying in all directions, embedding themselves into his skin. Immediately, his hands released his neck and flew to his arms, trying to unpin the shards of glass from his body. The first piece he pulled out burned his fingertips, and with a jump, he saw a sort of green colored liquid pour from the small wound and onto the floor.
He let out a groan when the liquid trickled down his arm and touched his skin. Slowly, it surrounded the other shrapnels of glass, and it seemed to . . . to melt them. While it did so, Gryffon's heartbeat quickened, and with every other beat or so, he groaned or whimpered, a sudden burning sensation warming his body up.
It hurt, and he knew it did, but he couldn't move to shake it off. If he moved, he'd spray more of the green stuff and cause it to touch more places, make it ache and burn and sting more - it would make him move faster, and cause him to lose his way again. But . . . it . . . it was like having bugs with needle-like legs crawl over him . . . And . . . When he turned his palms over to face him, his eyes widened with pain. "Fuck!" he snapped, his lip quivering. "Get - get off"
Gryffon shook his hands as he tried to shake the little crawling beings off his fingers. He leaped to his feet, pulling at his clothes in attempt to knock the insects off as he watched the dull blood-like liquid morph into hundreds of little bugs - long ones with hundreds of legs that reminded him of centipedes. They all scrambled in Gryffon's direction . . . They all targeted him.
Their presences became known to him on his arms, legs, even his head! It was like they moved by dragging their feet over his skin, burning long, winding paths into his body with their own. Gryffon let out a cry before collapsing back onto the ground. His fingers were like claws as he scratched wildly at his skin, desperately trying to unhook the bugs off his body, but the more blood he drew from himself, the more "centipedes" appeared to eat at him.
"Goddamnit!" Gryffon screamed as his body stiffened and gradually stilled with his shoulders hunched forward and his head on his knees; his hands shakily made their way to his head and massaged it, at the same time trying to remove the critters from his hair. His mouth parted as if stuck in a shout for help, but nothing could be heard as far as he could hear. All Gryffon felt were the bugs nipping at every inch of his body, each bite growing hotter as every silent pulse traveled through the ground and ticked his time down. He closed his eyes and forced out heavy breaths, as if panting or gasping for air would kill the mutts.
Instead of focusing on them, however, Gryffon convinced himself to concentrate on the uniform feeling of the pulse, enjoying its constant beat more than there stinging sensation that crawled over his skin currently.
The moment he grew ignorant to the fire the centipedes sent through his body was the moment the pulsing grew faster, more desperate, and began to match his heightened heartbeat. Faster, and faster still, his heart and the ground beat in unison. Something clicked and suddenly, the ground stopped pulsing, but he still heard the cannon, still felt it. It was like it was coming from himself, but no matter how much he searched for the pulsing sound, it didn't come back. Angry and frustrated, Gryffon let out another bellow, finding it to appear soundless once again.
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
Gryffon's pupils dilated as he listened, his breath coming out quicker with each beat, which each thump of his heart. He waited for the sting, for the burn, but over the sound of his own drum beating, he couldn't tell if the critters had abandoned his skin and left him alone or not.
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
No . . . No. Stop!
His eyes flashed open, a great brightness flooding into his vision as well as a burst of heat hotter than the flames the bugs installed earlier. Red edged his view, and his entire body felt like it had been fried.
Thmmp!
Thmmp!
Gryffon shifted his weight, but rather than getting to his feet, he fell back again with a grunt and a gasp.
Thmmp . . .
Thmmp . . .
His leg . . . Oh no, his leg felt numb . . . The bugs couldn't have - Gryffon froze at the sight of his arm in front of his face, and just barely contained his scream of terror. His skin was . . . melting. The bugs had melted his skin . . . They had melted his skin and now he was stuck there!
Gryffon, in whatever way he could, tried to turn onto his side but ended up just flopping onto his chest. How could this happen? Why would it!? Get burned, stripped, and melted by stupid little BUGS, of all things! The stupid little insects . . . They were going to be the end of him . . . Oh, god, no, he wasn't ready to die, not like this! It would be completely idiotic!
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
The beating didn't stop; if anything, it just hastened and knocked him into a desperate frenzy. He didn't want to watch, but it was hard not to stare . . . His flesh slowly peeled off his arms, exposing his throbbing muscles that ached to move but couldn't. As strips of his skin coiled onto the ground, his muscles began to unfurl, dropping down onto the floor whilst forming a pool of sloshy blood and pieces of his corpse.
His fingers elongated and lost their form as the flesh undid itself and left his bones to loosen their joints and come apart and dip down toward the floor. Gryffon couldn't understand what was happening or why . . . Why did the Gamemakers choose him for this to happen to? Couldn't they have chosen anyone else? Someone that held some actual interest? A Career maybe? But no, it had to be him . . . It just -
Oh god - god, no . . . At first, there was no pain. Just experience. He just watched himself disentigrate and rot, like a spirit within a dying body. But when he looked down, into the clear ground of the Castle, he saw his face's reflection. The world gradually turned upside down, his vision becoming heavily distorted as his left eye sank further down his face just barely held by the vessel attached to it. The twin craters on his face grew hollow and black, his skin melting through where his eyes used to be whereas the rest of his face just sank down, using the power of gravity to quicken the process of abandoning its owner.
The moment a piece of gloppy flesh fell from his face onto his reflection, Gryffon felt the pain. The thumping ceased and ripped him apart with the silence of his scream. His jaw - now barely bones - parted and twitched in a nonexistent plea for help, for someone to put him back together. The flame had died down to nothing, but now - now it flared with everything; there was no morphine to dull the pain. His body was no longer numb, it was completely and utterly exposed.
He writhed in place - or rather, places - in order to distract himself from the inexplicable pain, but nothing helped. No matter how he tried to think or how he tried to move, the agony remained to unscrew him, to dig down deeper and cut him open from the inside out to keep him open.
Bits and pieces of him twitched here and there, chunks of his muscle moved or crawled, veins and arteries continued to pump blood, as he tried to move. His fallen bones and the broken portions of him moved, too, as if still controlled by his mind and his joints and muscles and commands, but nothing was left attached, nothing that he could see, anyway. For all he knew, he was nothing but a living conscience in the arena. Maybe he had never been real, maybe it had all just been a dream - since his birth. Maybe it was just a whole big joke . . . A fake reality to turn him around and bend and break him.
That didn't sound too bad. At least the fact that he was dying would be easier to accept then.
But that's when it stopped.
That's when his body pulled back together: sinews pulled at sinews, skin sewed itself back into its original form, his intestines rewound themselves, his muscles packed themselves up and rearranged into recognizable builds, even his bones fixed themselves under the layers and layers of protection his body provided. And just like that, he was back to normal. Nothing had happened.
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
Gryffon's breaths came as gasps and he could swear he felt tears brimming along his eyes. What the hell had happened? Did he just . . . decompose just to be put back together again?
He felt a shiver go down his spine, and for a minute or two, he just sat there, glaring at the glass beneath his body, replaying the reflection of his face over and over. His face had sunken. His skin had dripped to the floor. His nose and ears and eyes were no longer on his face. His mandible had been exposed, and just really half of it hadn't been cracked.
Was he just dreaming? Had he fallen asleep at the door of the Castle?
Or . . .
Gryffon pushed himself up to his feet, shakily keeping his balance. He was trembling, his entire being seeming to be covered in sweat and fear, but still, he couldn't see a sign that anything had happened.
What the hell was wrong with him . . ? The only answer could be "everything" - there was no other logical explanation.
Slowly, oh-so very slowly he started forward again, following a single black line that lead straight ahead into the castle's grand white walls. Everything reflected something , everything was a mirror or glass. There was no other material inside the building that he could identify.
Gryffon heard a growl come from behind him, or so he would have if his ears weren't still ringing. Everything was just another pulse, another beat, another hollow sound that echoed into his head. There was nothing but glass walls and ground around him - no possibility of a threat. No, of course not. What sort of beautiful castle would that be?
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
The growl came again, but this time more as a purr than an imposing threat. The motor-like hum got closer, but no contact was made; physical or mental, there was no connection between the muttation and Gryffon yet. There was no need, everything was calm. It was just black and white - everywhere, always.
No color.
Pitch darkness and silence - what perfect combinations.
Gryffon loved it! Of course he did, why wouldn't he?
Why wouldn't I? I'm quiet . . . I was told to be quiet, not to waste up space . . . I'll do as I'm told . . . I won't get in trouble. Gryffon ran a hand over his face, hating to feel that his fingers still shook, still trembled with dread at what he might find next, or maybe it was the memory, but the weakness remained the same: he couldn't make choices for himself.
The castle was confusing. He couldn't tell if the hall ever ended, there was no room for space dimensions. As far as Gryffon could see, the black line still existed, leading his feet down the reflective hall.
He hit a hard surface suddenly, a strangled "shit!" making it out from behind his gritted teeth. What? What was this?
Gryffon pressed his palm onto the surface and closed his fingers into a fist. No . . . Dead end. He was dead, that was all that could mean.
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp
Thmmp!
The pulsing grew louder and more violent, overwhelming his head with its powerful appearance. At the groan he allowed out, a sort of rumbling shook him and his thoughts, and almost instantly the room became shrouded in mist. It was crisp and fresh, much like the clear orchards in fall. The scent soothed him, but the water that pounded on his back quickly overpowered his positive opinion.
Gryffon whipped around only to get water down his throat, in his eyes, and up his nose. Its only purpose was to blind him to everything, and hell, it was going to work.