I was lying on a flat surface… I was injured…
Something in the back of my mind told me I was… But I was… Confused.
How could that be even possible?
I didn't have any memory of getting injured.
And I definitely did not feel injured.
I couldn't even feel the pain that accompanied injuries….
As a matter of fact, I couldn't feel anything in my body…
It was almost as if it wasn't there…
Well, I couldn't have been too terribly injured then, right?
Maybe I could simply stay lying there and be careful not to move, or breathe, or think, until someone came and helped me. I wouldn't have to feel anything… I'd be okay…
But no sooner had I thought that my mind registered the pain.
Hard.
A rasping cry ripped out through clenched teeth as my chest and head erupted with torment far greater than anything I had felt so far. It enveloped my entire being as my skull threatened to crack open while my ribs tried to skewer me from the inside.
I couldn't stop the sobs that spilled out from me. I was in so much pain. It was flooding my senses. Overloading them. My body writhed helplessly, my spine twisting and contorting the broken ribs, making me cry out loud.
It hurt so bad…
Why wasn't I dying already?
Calm down, I heard a familiar voice speak but it was so faint. So distant. And it had been months since I had last heard him. However, my strained brain was unable to comprehend the simple command that voice had given. Thrashing around will only make it worse. Take deep breaths, calm down and lay still…
"But it hurts too much…" I couldn't keep myself from whimpering.
Breathe. The distant voice instructed me gently. Focus only on that.
"How would that help?" my voice was weak, barely above a whisper. My chest and head hurt way past my endurance level. I tried breathing in slowly but every breath I drew was nothing more than a shallow gasp. "I should stop breathing altogether… It would make the pain go away faster…" I let out a shaky laugh which, I learnt not a second later, had been a very bad idea.
A fresh spike of pain burst in my chest. I cried out.
No! The voice almost yelled. Keep breathing. The pain will go away. Just focus.
I did as I was told. I drew a breath, slowly so as to not move my ribs any more than necessary. It was really hard work. Focusing like that. But fortunately it was something that required all my attention, so it distracted me from the pain.
I could still feel the tears dripping down my cheeks as I pulled in another lungful.
Keep going kid.
Kurogane-san. That voice made me think of Kurogane-san… But he was dead… and I was all alone… in a torture chamber in some unknown location…
Now count them… his voice instructed me.
I was already on breath two. I released it as gently as I could before drawing another one. Three… and another one... Four… and another… Five.
Wow, I was actually able to do it.
You can do it.
I drew ten breaths, then twenty, then fifty… slowly, as time went by, my body relaxed, the violent shakes down to occasional shudders. The hurting was lessening as well. My exhausted brain began drifting somewhere after the two hundredth breath. It slipped back to the times long gone.
To the times when I had truly felt happy.
Syaoran!
She was there, right beside me. Her lovely, radiant smile filling my heart with warmth. Her beautiful green eyes sparkling like the rarest and the most exquisite of all emeralds.
I wanted so badly to be able to tell her I loved her. How much she meant to me. How much I…
But I never got a chance to finish that. The sight of her kind face was replaced by the darkness of my prison. It was when I tried to wipe away my tears that I realized something.
The leather restraints were gone.
And it was dark…
Too dark.
I blinked my tired eyes a couple of times but all I could see was the darkness.
A sudden wave of dizziness threatened to crush me as I turned my head this way and that. But all I could see was… nothing.
Everything was shrouded in black.
Had I…Had I gone blind? Was that why I could not see anything?
Fear and panic was beginning to set in but luckily before I had a panic attack, I noticed a small silver sliver of light in one of the corners of the room near the floor level.
There is light outside the door, my sluggish mind concluded. I let out a sigh of relief but the pain made me rethink my decision. My body still protested whenever I moved.
I licked my dry lips as my brain pounded against my skull. I was thirsty like hell.
And I felt like total crap.
As if to distract myself from my current situation, my mind decided to reel back to what had happened before I had blacked out.
That crazy bitch had been laughing hysterically… there had been that crackling hum of electricity… and then there had been my own screams.
I still couldn't believe that I had screamed like that. How long had she lacerated my body with those rounds of excruciating pain for me to cry out like that? How long had she electrocuted me before I had finally succumbed? Why hadn't I been able to suck it up and endure it all with my mouth shut? Why couldn't I have withstood it all?
What would Kurogane-san have said if he had seen me bawling like a baby?
Kurogane-san…
I remembered the feeling of safety that had surrounded me for a split second before I had blacked out. It had felt so familiar. And warm.
Like Kurogane-san. I had even seen his red eyes filled with such sadness and regret… and guilt… watching over me. Patting me on top of my head, the way he always did to show that he cared.
But Kurogane-san never looked guilty. That was the only thing which made me conclude that it had all been, no doubt, a hallucination brought on by my brain as it had shut down.
A silent sob tore through me as I longed for that familiar sense of protection. The one that had been lost when he had died.
Everything had fallen apart after that. Nothing was the way it had used to be anymore.
I forced myself to get a grip and focus on the situation at hand instead of longing for something which could no longer happen. Somewhere along the way I fell asleep, this time in less pain than when I had woken up.
I opened my eyes blearily, focusing on the flickering light bulb overhead. The ache had dulled substantially during my nap. As carefully as I could, I rolled over to my good side. The side which didn't have broken ribs anyways. The swollen muscles around the shattered bones became alive with pain as I moved, but it was somehow bearable.
Well, that was a good thing.
I concentrated on my breathing yet again as I slowly and cautiously moved myself into a sitting position. I stilled for some time, unmoving so as not to cause any sudden pangs of aching or waves of dizziness.
As my eyes grew more focused and the world stopped swimming before my eyes, I noticed that I was alone in the room. What was going to happen to me now?
Time dragged on slowly, yet nothing happened. I zoned out, staring, unseeingly at the plain black metallic panel in the wall that served as the door. Not thinking anything. Trying not to feel anything.
Just sitting…
The scraping sound of the opening door managed to startle me so strongly that I nearly fell off the table I had been sitting on. The motion had caused my rib to poke me yet again, and badly.
I let out a strangled cry, immediately trying to steady myself and nurse my injured side at the same time.
As I had been left in the darkness for so long with nothing more than a dimly glowing bulb to illuminate the room, the sharp white light that poured in through the door was enough to make me screw my eyes shut.
I heard her soft footsteps approach me. A feeling of dread washed over me since I was unable to see what she was doing.
She stopped at a distance of less than a foot from me.
I held my breath, trying to get my eyes adjusted to the bright light so I that could see. She was smiling that sick smile once again. The one she had given me every single time she had clamped that clip onto the metal platform.
I wasn't even aware of her advance till her hand touched my face, gently cupping my cheek.
It was then that something inside me snapped.
"Get the F**K away from me!" My voice came out as a loud rasping whisper as I swung around, my arm connecting with her still smiling face.
She cried out as she fell to the floor, caught completely off guard by my sudden attack.
My mind had gone blank. I just couldn't stop myself as I dove at her, no longer aware of the pain erupting in my chest as I moved. The only thing running through my mind was…
Well, it was nothing. I didn't have any thoughts in my mind at all. I just wanted to cause her as much suffering as possible.
As I continued pounding my fists into her body, I fleetingly became aware of the light pouring in through the open door.
The open door…
She had left it open!
I punched her in the stomach one last time before getting to my feet. I staggered weakly but quickly into the brightly lit hallway. I was free!
I could get away from here!
I'd be able to see Sakura again!
I'd be…
Wham!
I looked around in daze as the pain exploded in my body.
What had happened? Why was I on the ground? Why wasn't I running anymore?
"I don't think so…"
The frowning figure of a pale face framed with silvery blond hair accentuating dark, menacing eyes was floating in and out of focus above me. I just gaped up at her, unable to move an inch. A strong mixture of hatred, dread and pain filled me up.
All of a sudden, at an alarming rate, her frown turned into a wide grin as she laughed heartily.
"My, my." She wiped non-existent tears of mirth from her eyes as she looked at me. "Not leaving so soon, are you? And we were just going to get to the best part. "
"…"
I could only stare up at her, my eyes burning with hate as I slowly but determinedly tried to get to my feet. The adrenaline rushing through my veins made it easier for me to withstand the pain. But it was definitely going to hurt like hell once the rush wore off.
Mindless of that, I charged forward, fist pulled back to land a punch in her gut. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to destroy the cause of everything that had gone wrong in my life.
Well the newest cause anyways.
I wanted to take her down... Annihilate her… Kill her…
But for some reason she was faster, much, much faster.
Before I knew it, she was behind me. A blink and her arms were holding me in place, applying pressure to my broken ribs as she pulled me into her chest. She was literally breathing down my neck. She moved her mouth next to my ear, causing an involuntary shudder to run down my spine. She pulled me towards her, harder. The ribs jostled, poking something inside me.
I cried out in pain; my lips were parted in a weak scream as my entire frame was shaking from head to toe.
I felt something cold, thin, metallic slide into my mouth, between my teeth and my right cheek. I froze in horror as she pressed the sharp edge of a knife against my flesh.
"Now, now… settle down…" Her voice was gentle, soft. The way she had whispered those words had sent a strange tingling feeling down my spine. A very bad kind of feeling. "You're just going to make things worse for yourself…"
Worse?
I wanted to laugh at that. I was near hysterics on the inside. But outside, I was frozen.
How could anything be worse than what I had already gone through?
Later on I would think back to this moment and decide that the gods above had taken this up as a personal challenge. To prove to me just how wrong I had been to think that I had been having it bad.
For now, I held my breath as I felt the blade dig in deeper.
She was going to slice my mouth open!
My traitorous body was trembling so badly…
I think I heard her chuckle darkly before she spoke in a soft venomous tone. "Now then, will you cooperate?"
Oh God! Why couldn't I stop shaking?
I was terrified. Never before in my life had I been so scared.
Why?
Why was she toying with me like this? I knew she was going to kill. I had known it from the second she had summoned that dark energy in her hand.
The metallic taste of blood in my mouth made my head spin. The blood pooled in my mouth before trickling down my chin when it had no more room left to fill up.
"How about now? Will you cooperate?" The knife was sliding in between the folds of the cut, threatening to slice it open more.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I gave her a small nod.
God! I felt so utterly helpless.
I hated feeling like this.
And I hated that woman for all that she was doing to me.
I hated what she had reduced me to.
But most of all, I was beginning to hate myself.
Slowly, she pulled out the knife, continuously pushing on my ribs to make me stay still. After that, she let me go, but not before bringing the knife to my throat. With a gleeful giggle, she led me down the hall again, back the way I had come.
The adrenaline was wearing off and I was beginning to feel the effects of everything that I had put myself through in the last five minutes.
I was still freakin trembling!
A part of me died with every step I took in that direction, yet I couldn't do anything at all.
I didn't have the energy any more. My muscles ached and my head pounded and my chest hurt and my mouth stung. And let's not forget the fact that I was scared as hell.
What was she going to do to me now?
As my incoherent mind tried to come up with possible scenarios, she gave me a slight shove in the back. Probably wanted to get to wherever we were going a little faster.
Well too bad for her because my motor coordination skills were totally messed up by now. I stumbled and collapsed to the cold, stone floor with a startled yell. As I had fallen, her knife had nicked me on the side of my neck, deep enough to draw blood.
I raised my hand to the new wound to stem the flow of blood as I tried to push myself back on my feet using my other arm.
Bad idea.
The arm gave out under me and I fell once more. This time face down.
I felt the tears stream down my face as I lay there motionless, trying to will the pain away.
Trying not to move.
Or breath.
I just wanted it all to end…
A/N: You guys probably want to come after me with pitchforks and flaming torches, right?
Hehehe… I'm sorry but I can't help it.
Anyhow people, the poll so far is a tie. I have an equal amount of votes for all three options, so you more of you guys are gonna have to tell me what you want.
Once again, you can tell me options via Review, PM or the poll on my profile.
Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. Tell me what you think of it, k?
-Nims.
Next up, it's Fai's and Sakura's turn to tell the story.
