I felt a bright light shining on my face. It was so strong that even with my eyes closed I could still see it through my eyelids, making what should've been a blanket of darkness one would see when shutting their eyes a muddied bright red tint of nothingness. I tried to move, but my arms and legs were strapped down to a cold, hard surface. I could hear two male voices, they kept cutting in and out of my range of hearing, making me only being able to make out an incomplete version of what they were saying. The first voice was stoic and crisp, not a word seemed to be wasted for pleasantries. The second was soft and was accompanied by an odd metallic tapping.
"...what of that?"
"Well... no importance, but the chances of..."
"...shouldn't be a problem..."
"True, like the others... very well could result in..."
"Good... make it easier to..."
I listened to the dueling male voices with a mixture of confusion and a deep foreboding feeling in my stomach. The voices drew closer, finally allowing me to make out the conversation. I noticed that the second softer voice had a strange tendency to pause every now and then while talking.
"A moldable mind is beneficial to our cause... All we would need to add is a little incentive...to get the desired results."
"And incentive we will use, with this one and for the rest."
"Is the child ready for operation? I feel as if this one could be the breakthrough we've been working for."
"Soon he will be ready. I'm curious though, how has your progress gone with the rest of our experiments?"
"Well, unfortunately for some of the more recent ones have suffered some...unforeseen side effects. Many of the subjects perished quickly, the rest endured some, but too did not survive."
"Interesting. Perhaps our ways are not as refined as we once thought."
"That's precisely why I have been working on this newest form of experimentation... I'm sure it will prove to be very successful."
"May I hear of what you have in mind?"
"Of course, I'm sure you will find it... quite up to your standards in terms of effectiveness."
I heard the rapid metal taps coming to the table, and felt something hovering over me. I felt the intensity of the light fade and I slowly opened my eyes and allowed them to adjust. I wish that I hadn't however, because what I saw horrified me, freezing me on the spot with my eyes locked right onto the creature. The being was humanoid, and was adorned in a simple black cloak. He was suspended above me by six spider-like limbs. His face was uncanny,the most striking feature being his lack of a nose. The pupils of his eyes were solid black, there was no semblance of warmth in them. His eyebrows were black black, contrasting heavily with his blonde hair, and the eyebrows were in such a way that they seemed to not be made of hair. His arms just limply hanged at his side and his head rested on his right shoulder. Above all however, I noticed that his mouth was not a real mouth. It was that of a puppet.
"You see, I...wait... he seems to be awake brother."
"Is he? Hmmm, well we could always just go on anyways. You can explain the finer details to me afterwards."
"True, quite true, him being awake could have some curious effects... I'll go get the correct equipment..."
The puppet man moved out of my line of sight, and soon the sound of his metallic legs disappear completely. I couldn't believe what I just saw, it was a living wooden doll. But how, how could such a thing exist? I was jolted out of my thoughts by the sound of a door being opened, with it came the tapping of a wooden cane. I then heard a deep, raspy voice talk to the other man.
"My lords, there seems to be a minor hiccup in our plans." The man said. "It seems that the elder council finally found out about some of our work and have made their intentions to imprison us quite clear."
"So they caught up with us didn't they? They accomplished that faster than I had thought they could, but no matter. We're fully able to deal with the 'threat' of imprisonment from those fools."
"That was less concerning to me, but there is a bigger threat to use than the village."
"What would that be?"
"My source told me that they're going to try to enlist the help of a Shrine Maiden to help detain us, and it is possible that they already have."
"A Shrine Maiden? This poses a more serious problem. I can deal with a small village, but Shrine Maidens are different, I'll need more time to prepare for such an outcome."
"Agreed. What shall we do sir?"
"It is imperative that we make the first move, we cannot allow them to act as they have and not suffer any consequences. We will go down to the village and act accordingly, don't bother taking any survivors from that village, we don't need any extra manual labor. After that we will leave, if they did contact a Shrine Maiden then there is a chance that we could be found out. And we cannot allow this type of situation to occur."
"Understood."
I heard the man leave, but I could hardly focus on this. Everything I was hearing, it put a horrible dread in my stomach. This man had just ordered for a complete wipeout of a village, how could one do something like that and speak of it so trivially? This man didn't care for life, that was obvious to me. It made me shiver to think what might be planned to happen to me.
As if an answer to my question, I heard the metal tapping of the doll's legs again. Soon the horrid voice of the doll man reached my ears.
"I have everything I need, I opted to leave any medication behind. After all we are in a rush... A little lack of proper etiquette is warranted here in my mind."
His face entered my vision, again forcing me to see him. I noticed this time as he talked that the only semblance of emotion that visibly appeared from this man was the movement of his eyebrows.
"The side effects of such trauma might be a bit extreme... But that certainly hasn't stopped me in the past."
The man had an air of unpleasantness, something about him was innately abhorrent. The way he spoke made me feel like he's done many horrid things... and it was very likely that he is going to do something just as horrible to me.
"Well it's time that I stop waiting... I am on a time crunch after all."
"Go ahead brother, I will meet you after the operation is over."
I heard footsteps and the closing of a door. Then I saw the doll man reach over to something and pull back something. I froze when I saw it was a saw. It was serrated in such a way that one could call it sloppily crafted, for the way it was made would make it much more difficult to cut. But from the look the man was giving, I feel like this was purposely done. He must have noticed my face, for he spoke about the instrument.
"I know that this tool seems like a particularly unsafe... but in the right hands it can work wonders. I've operated on so many people that I've become very skilled at using it..."
He started to bring the saw slowly down to my face.
"Compared to past patients you have a very good chance of pulling through the initial stages of this... Not nearly as many of my patients die within the first couple of minutes of operation as they used to...In fact I've even had some survive after the initial operation... Who knows, maybe you will be the lucky one to live longer than a week."
The saw was mere inches from my face. This close up I could see a dark red hue near the serrations, I could tell that the saw hadn't been cleaned very well since its last usage. I could feel my whole body shaking. The closer the saw got, the more the terror inside me grew. I feel like crying, like screaming out for help, but I know nobody will come for me. I looked pass the saw into the eyes of my captor, and I felt cold. The formerly dead eyes were filled with a sick joy. He had stopped getting closer with the saw and seemed to be in a trance. But as soon as I noticed it, he snapped out of it.
"Sorry for the stalling, this is my favorite part of this process and I've been at a withdraw as of late so please excuse my unprofessional conduct."
This time the doll man didn't stop the saw from reaching my face. I felt the cool metal touch the base of my forehead.
"You may want to brace yourself, things tend to get messy here."
The pain that I felt in the next couple of seconds was searing, it felt like nothing I could ever imagine. I couldn't take it, it was too intense. I could feel the blood flowing off my face and the cruel metal cut into me like nothing. My own screams of agony sounded alien to me, I had never made noises so extreme before. Soon my torment reached a fever pitch, and I felt my consciousness fade until everything went black.
