A/N: This is when the T-rating come to use. Sorry for those who felt sick or have a heart-wrenching moments after reading this chapter.
Chapter cover: Cyan flames intertwined a white-haired woman who has a gentle smile on her face while Lea looked forward; her eyes closed, her shirt has a picture of reversed Four of Clubs.
...
Lea stood alone in the pitch black world. She saw nothing, nothing but black.
Not again…
A child's giggle reached her ears. Lea felt her heart being twisted. She remembered she used to laugh and smile so easily – until that day. She clutched her shirt, feeling bitter at her fate.
Why? Lea asked herself, tears flowing down her cheeks. She trembled and hugged herself.
It was painful. The torture was painful. The checkered room, the old, wooden chair. The mask, the metallic stench of blood. The snip of the scissors. Fingers falling into the empty bucket.
She remembered her fingers, being cut – one by one – into the empty bucket. The struggle, to get the number of times her fingers cut from zero – every time. The sensation of her fingers regenerating. It was the only way she could retain her sanity that time.
Once the torturer was bored with physical torture, he went for her mind.
One day, he brought a mother and her child. She felt her eyes widened with shock. She stared at them, then at the torturer and knew; the torturer had lied. She was fucking naïve that time. The promise meant nothing.
Hostages.
He asked her to choose, one will live – another will die. It was an impossible decision. No, there was a choice – Lea corrected herself – I could have killed the torturer before he killed them.
'No. NO! Please…let them go. I beg you! Do anything you want with me, but not them!'
Her cries and pleas fell on deaf ears.
Weak. Lea's inner demon echoed in her head.
She remembered the mother mouthing at her; to choose her son. She shook her head so violently, biting her lips until they bleed. The torturer had his eyes bulged with insanity and he laughed at her agonizing indecision and screamed at her to choose for his patience had run thin.
The child was crying, Lea wanted to comfort the child, but she was forced to watch, and make a decision.
'I choose-'
'Too late.' The torturer hissed. He pulled the mother's hair and rested the scissors at her throat. The mask the torturer wore showed his lips. He smiled sadistically at Lea before cutting the carotid artery away.
That was the first death Lea saw. She watched as the lifeless body fell onto the ground, her eyes were wide with fear before her death.
The mother's blood splattered onto her child. The child screamed, marked with his mother's blood, until Lea felt her eardrums were about to burst.
That was not the end. Despair seized Lea. Her breathing became even more ragged than earlier and she cried at her own helplessness and her naivety.
The child scampered towards Lea with the torturer on his heels. He was just an arm's length away when he was struck down. The torturer had thrown the weapon to the spine, not even a millimeter away from his target. The child fell down, but somehow managed to find the energy to crawl towards Lea.
The child she had bonded days before – again, he trusted her to keep her promise. She had protected him once, why not again?
Lea read his thoughts all from his body language. He touched her left foot and looked up, his eyes pleading for help. The shadow of the torturer loomed over them. Lea looked up with fearful eyes.
As if the child knew his time has come, he whispered one last time: 'Thank you, big sister.'
It was faint but her enhanced senses picked it up. With a heavy heart, Lea watched the second death with blank eyes.
He had a future ahead of him. He could be anything if I saved him.
But I didn't save him.
The foothold underneath Lea began to crumble.
I am so sorry. So sorry. Please forgive me. Please, please forgive me.
She fell to her own despair and guilt, before screaming I am sorry again. Her voice can no longer reach the dead. The boundary between the living and the dead was set.