If yall are wondering why this took so long even after November, I had some difficulty mustering up the will to write this. I wasn't feeling very well and instead, I spent some time writing some wholesome stuff that comes after this whole shithole. I'm feeling better now, so yea. This is finally done yipeee
btw, since the previous chapter isn't finished, ill just tell what happens at the end very quickly:
Ren defeats polter, and immediately runs away and frantically searches through the back cellars, desperately hoping for closure. And then he's overwhelmed by witnessing what he's determined to be his old cell, and the memories of all his past torment is rushed break into his brain.
It started off with just a sting.
One that drilled in deep and stayed. The point was rough and gritty, grinding against his tissue. He didn't think much of it, he didn't think he possibly could. His entire reality just splintered apart, it would take an eternity to process all that happened. The dungeon, the halls he had crumbled on, torn apart. His vision became nothing but a white blur. He wondered what he had looked like at that moment. What the ridiculous, hellbent expression welded on his face was. He wondered what the happenings of the outside were, from silent dunes to the rumbling of snowstorms to the lushness of the jungles.
Morons.
The sting was overtaken by blades piercing into his chest and sliding through his ribcage and up his skull. Grenades combusted at his legs, shrapnel tearing through his femurs and sending a slurry of viscera and bone shavings. His flesh was cleaned right off the bone and his legs narrowed into sticks and quickly snapped in half. A cannon was launched at his stomach, punching through his spine instantly. He watched as his intestines squelched and uncoiled, flying out along his vertebrae segments like confetti at a party. He watched as all his organs slowly spilled out and tumbled under him. First his liver, then his stomach, pancreas, kidneys, and spleen. With bullets fed down his throat and his brain crushed into a pulp, he finally had some sense knocked into him.
ㅤ
Nothing was coming for him.
ㅤ
Nothing.
ㅤ
He felt as if he had spent his entire life in a lifeless, motionless cage of naivety, instantly torn apart by an outside of hell. Nothing but hell. An overflow of twisted, miserable knowledge bored into his mind instantly. Every single aspect of torment burst out in a fit of depravity and left his mangled head drowning in the mud.
He tried lying on the floor.
He tried to think of what the others were doing.
But nothing helped.
They clawed at him and would never stop.
So he began to recite everything.
ㅤ
THERAPY
ㅤ
He cried. He howled. He sung. Nobody was there to save him. From traversing wretched lands to bathing in paradise, bloodshed to victory, he still never knew what was buried under his feet right at those moments. Without knowing, he would've never experienced such things with such a high caliber as he did. But now he remembers. He remembered that day. The day he was thrown into a chamber left to rot, and the next day, and the next.
His first hour. The moment they wrangled him with chains and dragged him into the asylum. He remembered his muddy leggings rip and tear as he was pulled across the concrete to the door, and thrown in against the cold blackness. The room was pitch black, with a single mattress at the corner. He didn't know what was going on, he didn't know anything. There was nothing to do, they locked the door and walked away. He stared at the darkness, it was too dark. Everything, absolutely everything within that room, was completely, utterly devoid. Devoid of existence, devoid of life.
Something was wrong.
Even at the first hour, he sensed something was wrong. Something, anything. He turned to a silence, a dragging, terrible, horrible silence. He paced around the walls, trying to find anything that was the cause. And a pace turned to a run, and he ran and ran and ran, slamming himself against the stone, beating his fists in naivety. But there was no sign, not even a sliver within the dark. It was black, all black, not a glimmer of the bedframe, not a trickle of a leaking pipe. He was alone, completely alone. There was nobody to find him, there was nobody to save him.
M҉U҉D҉
He fell onto his knees, the darkness rushed closer, gleamless ink ran through the mortar and ever so quickly, thinning out his space. He crawled his way to the center of the room, dug his head into his arms, and wept. It was a time devoid of sense, of sight or touch, smell or hear. The darkness couldn't sympathize with him, it wouldn't no how much his wind was in war. There couldn't be anybody he could find comfort from, nor anything. But something, something would've been there. Stalking him within the darkness, just barely out of sense. It was there, it had to have been, he could notice it fleeing from the mind by every second, fading in and out of his presence.
It's alright. Everything is alright. I'm fine I'm fine. They said they're helping me, I'm fine. He remembered saying to himself.
His fingers dug into his head so hard blood trickled down in thin streams. He remembered he still had hair, as he slowly tore his strands out. The only thing that filled the room was inhale and exhale. With every passing second, he breathed faster and faster, the rotten, stale air shredding his lungs apart. Yet he only felt as if he was losing himself. With every breath, he eventually ended up losing air, a migraine struck his brain that sizzled him out of gaze, there was nothing to see anyway. Losing breath as he was losing his mind, he felt the area trying to crush him into nothing, the room was tearing itself apart and swallowing him whole.
It was oblivion, he was staring into nothing. Pure darkness.
Yet he still comforted himself, saying it's okay, repeating it's okay. He could not trace how many hours he had spent within that very room, saying it was okay until he didn't even know what that meant anymore.
Then there was light. A soothing, yellow light illuminated the hallway as the locker door creaked open.
"*(kzzt)* Hello, and welcome to Eidolon Behavioral Therapy, where we subject your -*kzcht*- to several stimuli." An old speaker hissed and popped near the corner of the room.
He was strapped to a thin metal chair, with a small desk under his arms. The room was narrow and cramped, with a tinted window framed against the wall, too dark to see who was behind.
"Beginning therapy session...*(k'chk)*...*(k'chk)*...Hello, and welcome to your first session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy! A spell will be cast upon the room and you must endure the rigorous challenges given *which test your muscle strength, aerobic capacity, and flexibility."
The instructions were fairly simple, though they did not quell the delusion. The speaker began a countdown before it announced the first stimulus. At first, he did not feel a thing. They did not say what spell would be cast upon him, nor what it would do. He was entirely, sitting in an empty room, completely silent once again. At least, AT LEAST, there was a tiny bit of comfort, for he knew there were people behind the tinted window. He began to crave an answer, he could not stand the dead silence much longer.
After a stale minute, he felt a strange tingle against his skin. A tingle turned into a sting. A sting turned into an entire ache. He felt his entire body start to freeze solid, the air seemingly pushing him against himself, squeezing him thinner and thinner. It was horrible, the air becoming stone hard as it slowly crushed his limbs, wrenching his tissue as he was contorted in his seat. The spell was crushing him apart in immense pressure, squeezing so hard he began to bleed from all orifices.
He felt his body lose weight, and his skin turned purple, as he remembered himself floating up into the air, silently screaming in a bleeding throat. It took him so long to realize what this was, the immense pressure crushing him in the deepest opens of the ocean. He felt his entire body iced in a frigid casing, his eyes stained red and popping out. Before he believed he was about to die, the spell disappeared. He fell onto the table with a large thud, as the speaker announced:
"Thank you for participating in your first session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy! Now...an accountant will guide you back to your cabinet. Goodbye, and we will see you tomorrow!"
The way they said tomorrow, at that time, he felt nothing of it. But now, it was truly hilarious to him.
It was his first day, and he was already dying of it. They sent him back to his cell, back into the gaping darkness, to which he cradled himself and longed for the end. It was pure silence once again, yet he had only a little comfort at his side that time, for he assured himself it was okay. Still, something was genuinely wrong. Every time he came back to the cell, he felt something wrong. Something wrong grew worse and worse, day after day, and he could not be tired of it. It was forever breathing down his neck, reaching in so close yet so far, and he could never grace it. No matter how quickly he turned around, no matter he fast he ran, trying to catch it. It was just not there. Day after day, he was teetering to the edge. Balance was becoming harder and harder to keep. More and more, pebbles were placed at his feet as the path curved farther and farther.
The next day was around the same, and the next, and the next. He had not slept for the four entire days he had been there, and his body felt no tiredness. For some reason he could not grasp it, it seemed as if his body did not need sleep anymore. Perhaps it was a spell, he did not know, but he wanted to. He wanted to so much. His longing melted his brain more than the fact he had not slept in four days. He remembered writhing in his cell, commingling in dread of intense longing, longing for answers. He was longing for answers long before he had woken up in that forest. He was, quite literally, trapped in a maze of delusion, a maze that spanned miles wide with not even a clue to the end. Yet, they assured him they were helping him, and he could trust that, for what could he ever trust at that time? Nobody. Yet he trusted them.
They sent him back to the therapy room, though it was different this time. A strong stretcher in the center of the room replaced the desk.
"Hello, and welcome to your second session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy! *kzzt*- Your instructions are to begin the session by laying flat on the stretcher provided. Through the specialized tubing, chemical gases will be released into the room, which can induce certain tolls on your body. You must attempt to last as long as you can, ask for the procedure to stop if you are at your limit."
He walked forward to the stretcher, before freezing and staring into the tinted window. He then asked, "What is this? What am I doing this for?"
"Please proceed with the session." The speaker responded.
"Please! Please...tell me what is happening..." He replied.
"Please proceed with the session," The speaker repeated, "Or you can be reprimanded."
He hung his head in dread and proceeded as the automated voice said. He lay down on the stretcher and waited for the session to begin. A loud hush came from the tubing as the gas was pumped into the room. He felt his tendons slowly tense up, as the gas tingled his skin in a vile way. He was only focusing on his delusion, the way the voice restricted questions, the way nobody had ever said a word to him. Everything was wrong, from the silence to these torturous sessions, absolutely everything was wrong. The days repeated again and again, yet every single time something changed. The wrong was changing, morphing to different things, changing so quickly he could never know what was off.
Then, he felt himself in agony. His skin crinkled up as he felt the gases strangle his lungs. He couldn't bear this pain and screamed as he would. There was nothing new to this sensation, nothing but constant agony. Agony he felt through every moment spent down there. He thought he would've already died from it, but he hadn't.
M҉U҉D҉
He felt the wrongness coalesce the next day, stitched together with horror and sculpted into a pure monster in his cell. Several emaciated bodies sewn together trudged the ends of the room, with old skin like cracked stones and gangrenous bruising at the ends of its many fingers and toes. He was not surprised, he believed he felt relieved. To see something wrong finally appear in front of him, the fact that there could be an answer. This wretched demon stumbling in uncanny from across the room did not answer anything, but he finally knew something was wrong, and that that something could be questioned. Though, he was hopeless. He climbed to the wretched figure, pleading and begging for a response. He touched its ill limbs, weeping in desperation as he put his head on its leg. But it simply shrilled an unfelt emotion of disgust, as if he was more disgusting than the corpse amalgamation, and scurried away into the darkness, disappearing and never returning.
He began to cry. Crying hot tears that splatted loudly on the brick pavement. For a single second there, he felt comfort against the monster. Knowing that something outside the cold, calculated dungeon experimentation existed, could only bring comfort at that time. And just like that, it slipped away. Any semblance of him having anything dashed in an instant. To think that a sickening monster was the only possible thing that could've brought comfort to him, made him laugh at how hopeless he was.
It was true, he was disgusting. Hopeless and disgusting. Disgust reeking from his delusion. Disgust reeking from his longing. Disgust reeking over his tears. Disgust reeking over his agony. Everything about him was disgusting.
A few days after, they chained him down on a rusted chair built up of scrap frame. A single light flickered above as the exercise was performed. He remembered his first exercise, how could he not? Two men in robes walked in with an old man who looked as if he'd been starved for days. He was practically a skeleton, with barely anything over his bones and no hair whatsoever. infected wounds were lashed across his back with maggots sprawling over the rotting blood.
Without waiting, one of the men pulled out a shotgun and blasted a slug right through the old man's skull. Gore and brain matter coated the room and stained his legs red. One of his eyeballs stuck to the ceiling and his jaw tumbled to his feet. His decapitated body still squirmed on the ground like a fish still moving with its head severed, before his ribs and arms twisted off their joints and dropped dead.
Laurence screamed and cried and locked shut his eyes. The chair made an obnoxious screech when he shook and tried clawing out like a rabid animal. The second man lurked behind him, took out a hatchet, and dug it into his collarbone. He hacked and hacked until Laurence would open his eyes, then tugged his by the hair and forced him to stare at the mess they made.
Half of the room was painted in blood and chunks of flesh, the old man's eyeball dropping from the ceiling and landing on his thigh.
Then they sent him back to the cell for another few hours. He remembered burying his face in the mattress and crying and crying until his tears were bloody and thick. He slammed his head against the wall until his forehead and knuckles were purple. He tore up his rags until they were unwearable and collapsed on the ground. Even on the first day, his body felt like it was rotting from the inside out. His will to exist is already near-extinguished.
There was no escape. Light was not a sign of hope, a means to an end. For there was no end. The men in robes were lifeless, not speaking a word, they never spoke anything to him.
They pulled him back before he could fully deteriorate.
He realized it. These tortures, the 'therapy sessions' they call them, were not physical torture at all. They were made to take everything away from him. The more agony inflicted him, the deeper he's buried in delusion, is only to be used to crumble him apart, cut him into pieces until he's ground to dust. To many people, experiencing this torture over and over would likely end with them feeling nothing. He had understood the procedure, but he could not understand why he was still going, still feeling, still alive.
His sense of time was drained to a migraine mush, though he knew he had been stuck like this for more than a hundred days. After a hundred days spent feeling the same varying calibers of pain, it was practically a daily dosage now. But he could not understand through a hundred days they made him feel the same varying calibers of pain, and he still felt it. From day one to day one hundred, each session of pain could be felt. It did not dull, it did not rise, and the pain inexplicably stayed the same.
He did not understand, but he knew something. The pain stayed the same, and that sameness was pure poison.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH!...NO...N-NO...AAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHH...HELP!...HELP...help...damnit...please...AAAAAGHHKKK!"
They drugged him, dismembered him, and reaved him of any semblance of a human, but he felt the same. He remembered the long hours when they chopped off each finger and toe, only for a spell to grow them back so they could repeat the torture a thousand more times. He remembered when he was exposed to instant flashes of crimson and corruption, as he felt his control of his body slowly being taken away from him. He remembered when three men dissected him alive, tore open his chest, and plunged their gloves into his steaming entrails, as his head was chained to a metal box to fend off the screaming.
He could notice the sessions getting worse and worse over time, but never in a single instance of those times where he remembered he felt nothing; absolutely nothing, purely dead inside. He never felt that. No matter how many times they tortured him, he still screamed. So within the endless pain, he began to hate. The sickening expression of glee the speaker's voice spoke every day, was mocking him.
Hello, and welcome to your fifth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your thirty-sixth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your forty-second session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapyㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
Hello, and welcome to your twelfth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your thirteenth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your eighty-ninth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your two hundredth and forty-eighth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your one hundredth and sixty-sixth session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your one hundredth and twenty-fifth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your three hundredth and second session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your two hundredth and ninety-ninth session of Eidolon Behavioral TherapyㅤㅤㅤHello, and welcome to your three hundredth and twenty-seventh session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy
Hello, and welcome to your three hundred and sixty-fifth session of Eidolon Behavioral Therapy.
There was no torment that day. Two robed men dragged him into a different cramped room. In the dwindling light hung up on the roof, a chair stood there. He sat onto the chair, as they grabbed leather braces fixed onto the frame and locked his body and arms against the metal. He heard a flurry light light-clapping footsteps in front of him as another figure emerged from the darkness. They wore a sharper hood and a more ornate robe, with porcelain beak peering out the fabric shadows. The figure seemed to inspect him, his starved and mangled body, and stayed silent as they approached his side.
One of the robed men pulled out a case and unlocked the polished metal rings, opening the base with a needle neatly sorted inside. The beaked figure took out the syringe and touched the glass vial where a shimmering blackish-purple liquid was kept inside. He flicked open a tiny lever that opened the needle's nodule, and inched his hand toward his neck. And then it happened, the needle pierced the first layer of his skin, then the second, then to the deepest. And he would be changed, forever.
He walked alone that day. Back to his cell, he willingly opened the door and threw himself in.
It was bitter, bitter, bitter cold.
He fell weak to his knees as if the pressure of the entire world was weighing him down. He was fighting against an unrecognizable force. It was closing in, the more he pushes the more he becomes immobile. It has sunk into his form, crushing him into a waxy mass. No matter how hard he fights, there is always a time he can no longer. But something, something still lived against the cleaving tundra.
The blizzard cleaned everything off the face of the planet. The snow piled feet above him instantly, crushing him in further and further. His skin froze senseless as the jagged ice slashed his tendons apart. Yet he kept digging, digging, and digging until his fingers bled black and purple. The winds formed in blades, their mere force punching his face slack. Something, something in him wouldn't accept the damnation. Something in him forced him to dread, to cry, howl, and sing for help. There was nobody to save him, yet still, he screamed and screamed and screamed for help. He couldn't accept his fate.
Because they wronged him.
He was laughing.
Nothing was entertaining about this, there was nothing funny. But for some reason, he was laughing. There were no monsters in his cell that night. There was nothing but a sad, hapless laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed until he could taste the blood mixed in with his tears. He laughed until his throat shrilled in pain. To think there was ever an end? Moronic. He was damned there to suffer an eternity. There was nothing funny, yet he couldn't help but laugh at how absolutely stupid he was. He clawed his horns and tore his rags, wailing, screaming for an answer. But just like before, he was cast out. Nobody was coming to answer his call. Nobody was there to hear him scream. Nobody could help, and nobody would dare to.
He smashed his knuckles against the concrete until they fell limp. He screamed and screamed and screamed. He cried out in shame, cursing the heavens, then wept on the floor, coughing as his insides slowly decayed. He felt his bloodstream boiling, throbbing, and coursing through pitiable poison. He felt his stick-thin bones dry and shatter, his caved-in stomach slowly melting. He was reduced to unfeeling ash, he couldn't hold himself much longer.
"SOMEBODY...ANYBODY PLEASE!" He screamed once again.
Yet nobody came.
"ANYBODY...PLEASE...I CAN'T...PLEASE..."
"I can't die."
They would not let him, he would not let himself. He could not die. He was given life and he could not take it. He was bound to this prison, bound to this torment, bound to this hell, and he could not die. This endless dread was a maze with no end, and he kept trying to find the exit to no avail, he had lost sense of all time and all of himself. This endless dread was a maze with no end, and he kept trying to find the exit to no avail, he had lost sense of all time and all of himself. This endless dread was a maze with no end, and he kept trying to find the exit to no avail, he had lost sense of all time and all of himself. Every day repeats itself, it was pure madness to his brink, his mind was distorted beyond saving. Burned, blazing, stumbling across the room, no sense, only madness. He could barely think, there was nothing to be thought of. There was nothing for him, every day repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
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over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤover andㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
over and over i'm drowningㅤㅤㅤover and over and over drowning drowning over and over drowning ㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning over and over and over drowning ㅤㅤㅤ over and over i'm drowningㅤㅤㅤover and over and over drowning drowning over and over drowning ㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning over and over and over drowning ㅤㅤㅤ over and over i'm drowningㅤㅤㅤover and over and over drowning drowning over and over drowning ㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning over and over and over drowning ㅤㅤ
drowning drowning drowning drowning drowning drowningㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning drowning drowning drowning drowning drowningㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning
over and over over over over over over and over and over and over drowning drowning drowning drowning drowning drowning ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤEndless, truly endless was this.ㅤㅤㅤdrowning and drowning drowning drowning drowning drowningㅤㅤㅤHe cannot escape itㅤㅤㅤdrowning
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHe was drowning without end. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdrowning over and over and over and over and over ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤHe cannot run from it.ㅤㅤㅤdrowning
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤThere is no saving himself.
"AUUUUUGHHHSHSHHHHHKKKCHCHHHHHH...ㅤㅤㅤ...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...ㅤㅤㅤㅤ...AUUUUGHHHHH"ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤEvery. Single. Day.ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤEvery. Single. Minute.ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤTeetering to his brink, yet never falling.
ㅤㅤBreaking and breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking.
"AUUUUUURRRGHHHH...ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ...AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGHHHHHH...ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ...AAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUCHHHHHHHHKKK."
But never broken.
Then, he felt that no matter how hard it is chased after, it could not be described under any circumstances. A paralyzing, vague feeling practically trapped him inside a still casing, he was entirely frozen in a crucifix-like posture, straight and thin like a wooden plank, and upon him was a door. He saw four sickly fingers squeeze themselves out of the rippling frame and yawed open the passage between worlds, stretched there was an endless expanse of coldness. The maw of an eternal beast, the gateway to what is known and cannot be known The Void. Unearthly hues of spectral whites billowed out its throat as mass and time jawed before him. He could feel his body ascend beyond the corporeal form, his matter was plucked apart and molded into an inexplicable mess.
His senseless, frozen form began to slowly drift towards the door, gracing the membrane and sinking into the coldness before he could even realize it. The first few seconds were paradise, the sudden wave of nothingness cleansing him like skinned out of an old molt. It was pure, unfiltered relief and relaxation, surging through every aspect as he stared at the black canvas of the expanse in front of him. The next second was all nine hells, as he was rendered of every part of his being like strips cleaned off a butcher's blade. His soul and body were dismembered and desecrated in an instant, as he was released from his casing and sent tumbling into The Void.
He was losing everything. Desperately trying to cling hold of thought and memory, he recounted himself but found nothing but what was nothing, pure void. Every passing second his memories were stolen away and siphoned from him like a leech bloated from one's blood, licked clean until he was nothing but an empty shell. If he were to die there, he was to die empty, drained of anything he ever knew.
Worse yet, there would not even be a corpse to retrieve, for any atom of himself would vanish within the warm bowels of this abyss. He fell to his knees on a floor that did not exist, hearing a chain of squelching footsteps alongside him. Hanging his head in senseless depravity, he raised himself to face the reaper who had come to collect him, or even possibly the ghost of the death dragon. But reapers and dragons could not exist in The Void, he thought as he raised his eyes to face no fanfare, but a pale figure stalking the darkness.
He would've thought no light could reach The Void, but standing before him was a thing so pale and bright it was blinding him. It stood in front of a thick broiling sea of caustic vapor flowing in ribbons around his sunken legs. He was no longer floating within the expanse but entrapped in a waxy mud. The mud. Gales of the caustic vapor twirled around him and streamed themselves into smell, a horrific yet mesmerizing smell. But the pale figure showed no response as he stood motionless like a monolith within the mud. He could spot a pair of ivory horns protruding from the sides of its head, spanning wider than its shoulders. Profane in nothing but white, several arms clawed themselves out of the figure's nascent blight and reached their digits to him. A single hand placed itself on his chest as a word billowed out the expanse shot across every direction.
M҉U҉D҉
Everything was delusion. He couldn't tell if he was thinking, something else was thinking, or anything was thinking at all. His existence and his words bent to be another's or not even being spoken. He couldn't tell if he was thinking different things at all, whether every thought could differ or he was thinking the same thing for the rest of eternity. Was he even real? Did he ever exist or will he ever exist or did his thoughts make him real but that meant he would be real but he wasn't but he was if he were thinking but he was thinking if he was real but realness couldn't be real real couldn't exist if he was thinking but he was thinking of realness but realness couldn't exist he wasn't real is what he was thinking but he was real of he thought but thinking to be real but real real real unreal not realness not real he couldn't he couldn't he could not not real he couldn't he wasn't real but that meant he would be real but he wasn't but he was if he were thinking but he was thinking if he was real but realness couldn't be real real couldn't exist but that meant he would be real but he wasn't but he was if he were thinking but he was thinking if he was real but realness couldn't be real real couldn't exist repeating repeating repeatIng rePEaTing rEPEaTING R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉I҉N҉G҉ R҉E҉P҉E҉A҉T҉
M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉
M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉ M҉U҉D҉
M̷̱͚̄̿̋͛͆̋̈́͝U̷̧̡̝͇̥̲̼̰̝̫̞̪̦͎͉̳̖̫̝̗̥͑͛͆̓̆͒̕Ḑ̸͖̥̌̉͋͊͆̓̉͌̈̄̑̐͑͛̒͗͌̕̚
It repeated the word a thousand times as if it was taunting him.
His blood has stained his eyes to near blindness, though through a blurry vision, he could see it.
He was existing and not existing, all at once. The pain coursed through veins tethering both worlds from slipping away, one the pain ached across every part of his body, the other the pain ached through a vast expanse of nothingness. The void still ensnared part of him, clinging to his body and forcing it through dimensions incomprehensible to any of his kind. One second is built of matter, an existence nonexistent the next. He bit down his last rations of his mind, but time was no longer a concept within this paradox.
His mind could not permeate through multiple worlds, he was divided down the middle, with the opposing coldness slowly seeping into the other. He could feel it, the doorway to the coldness that was now a part of himself, the fingers against the crevice slipping away so quickly but so slowly. He saw as the curved and damaged thinnings of its fingernails faded into the darkness, and he was left with an empty line, imperishable, unchangeable.
He never wished for anything of this, so why was it he who deserved this treatment? What did fate have against him, why couldn't he just live the life of any other person? His life, anybody's life was an empty canvas, for whatever bullshit and chaos they may paint over it. It was his, solely his canvas, that was set with primordial laws. This world was devoid of laws, it was a world immune to the restriction of basic rules.
Morality and humanity couldn't be achieved, for there was no other side to blame but themselves, anybody would cannibalize their kind to make ends meet, and they would burn their entire country down for a minuscule drop of sadistic euphoria. Yet he had no choice, never in his life did he plant that paintbrush onto that canvas and make his own strokes. For what could black paint make when his entire canvas was cold, hopeless, darkness?
He questioned, why couldn't he describe that face he saw, as the line faded out and he lost every last bit of himself.
Kicking, screaming, shouting, sinking. Pain was a concept of the mind, simply a sensation activated by the nervous system to make people seek help. So why could he feel pain, when he was dead? He wasn't living, this couldn't possibly be called living. Defaced, he was not a person, not an identity separated from the crowd, not even the crowd either, he was an embodiment of pain, nothing but pain. A hole appeared at the center of his chest. Not any fleshly wound, but a warping, cosmic hole that sank into his reality and latched onto him. The barren brick cell, the prison he had spent almost a year in, with only seconds evening out the long silence. As an internal voice laughed out the countdown, he could only think of the twisted, malevolent, yet beautiful world, that he would never look at the same afterward.
Happy New Year.
He didn't quite grasp what was happening to himself, not that it would be himself at that moment, his being was lost and this was not even a ghost. The hole, the warping hole inside him was the last thing he would ever see from a year of torment, his head forced into his chest as he was pulled inside-out. His tendons began to protrude outward, shifting up and overlapping his skin, which began to sink and dissipate across the dermis and shrivel up in areas still intact. He could no longer stand up, for the joints against his arms and legs fell apart and bent the other way, twisting and turning before bruised shades of red and purple choked out. His stomach and chest began to bloat, shaking furiously as his arteries blew up and popped.
His expanding skin and muscle began to crush him whole, bloating until every orifice leaked a thick sanguine smoothie. The blood flowing freely across his organs couldn't handle the pressure, the tendon too layered for it to exit. Through every thin crevice of the bloated mess, blood gushed out like a burst pipe and left glazed on the stone floor, sloshing down in a waterfall and welling up a deep red puddle around his body. The expanded areas soon flattened and began to peel off his bone, slapping strips of jiggling and almost gangrenous flesh.
He soon came to realize his entire body had begun to be covered in this necrotic decay, a glistening violet light wreathed him as he writhed against the world. The giant chunk of meat missing from his torso revealed a cavity holding his entrails, steaming warm as he vomited paste of his organs. It was almost like every cell in his body was screaming, shrilling in agony, gangrene began to sizzle and form a leathery, bubbly black skin. It was odd.
He was most certainly dead at that point, though that pain was still writhing in his soul to his bone marrow. The pain was everywhere, even growing to outside his body, tainting the cell and the dungeon in that pain. The pain was surely the greatest, most horrible pain he had ever experienced in his life, though he could not die of it, even if he was genuinely dead. What was the greatest, most horrible pain he had ever experienced in his life if he had nothing to lose?
He now completely knew why they did this to him. All that torment was for a purpose, to make him feel so much pain, so much agony, that he gives up on everything. With that soulless, emotionless boy they could proceed with their experiment. He had heard about Rapture, he had heard about in The Third Massacre, how this damned city took the remnants of Cthulhu down into the depths. Was he now part of that?
No.
A Raptured was alien, with no sense of human in their appearance, nor their blood. They should have been animals at that point, but he wasn't. He looked at his still-very-human body, how a third of the skin was flayed off and another third was covered in a grayish-blue infection. From the dim candlelight reflecting upon the blood puddles, he could see his head was leached in the blue, growing a pair of horns with mangled mandibles over his lipless mouth and noseless nostrils. His cheekbones were rigid blades, climbing a rough line to his ears which were now tiny stubs, hidden behind the horns. He had grown another pair of eyes, all four enlarged in sharp, blighted yellow with thin pupils. He was a monstrosity, though he could assume this was not the monster they desired. The process did not work, even if he had lost everything, even if everything was breaking beyond repair, he would never be fully broken.
No matter whatever bullshit those sick fucks did to him, he was nigh unbreakable.
EXISTENCE CURSED ME WITH LIFE. THEY CANNOT DEFY EXISTENCE, I WILL LIVE.
In the morning, or what he expected it was, they opened the cell door once again and pulled him out. Even with their faces hidden under the hood, he could notice they were confused and frustrated. Nevertheless, they did as they did every day and dragged him out into the cramped hallways. He had mapped out the building in his mind, those several hundreds of times he was dragged through there he could expect every variation of the path, which room they were taking him to and why. To his surprise they didn't enter a room, rather something was held right in the hallway. The robed figure with the porcelain beak approached them, then stared at him with disgusted eyes. And he heard something he hadn't heard in a year, an actual human voice.
"What blasphemy is this?! What happened during the process?"
"We don't know...all signs show the mutation would've been stable..."
The beaked figure scoffed, "Yet another failure...whatever...pull him away and put him down."
It was a loving embrace. It was beautiful, he couldn't reimagine the bliss in all its awe, that heavenly joy couldn't possibly be recreated greater than those fleeting seconds he felt directly at that hallway. He opened his arms with glee as the men pulled out their pistols, in bright polished metal, and aimed the barrel to his head. He could remember laughing, not in insanity, nor mocking how pitiful he was, but in true, overwhelming surges of joy. This would be death, eternal death beyond saving, he was to die, and end everything. Once. And for. All. The moment those bullets are sent propelling into his skull and through, he would be cleansed of all his torment. In the front: mercy incarnadine. A fate tainted in blood red, tainted in torment, tainted in grief and loss and anger and terror and illness and wrath, a fate bound to end here and now.
In the back: Choirs. Heavenly choirs serenaded him, as the gilt palms of release clutched his head softly. He was free, finally free. They bathed him in a water crystal-clear, faucets streaming gold out their ends and dousing his body in a mystical glimmer. He couldn't imagine what would become of him, whether it would even be anything, but all he knew was that it was over. He no longer needed to feel how miserable he was, he no longer needed to think about how miserable he was. The stairways to bliss formed their empyrean steps in front of him, a regal text engraved across The Primordial Light read, "You're Free."
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And since when did he ever get good things?
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There was nothing. Not blood, not even a wound. He didn't know if it was a dream or not. It felt like a hallucination, just another of the many he saw every day. But this no longer felt unreal, he could truly feel the pain as equal to the pain he had felt in the real world. Yet this was no ordinary pain, no gut-wrenching or mind-depraving, no intense and visceral agony he had become used to, no. It just felt somber, and it felt like all the hopelessness he had felt across a year piled up into a second.
He couldn't weep or scream or laugh, he couldn't do anything but...kneel. This was his life, whether he liked it or not, it was real and it was happening. So why couldn't he accept it? It was like a wall, forcing all his lament on one side, and absolutely nothing the other. Something within him just could not accept it, he wasn't to die here, he was to live.
And it felt...strangely miraculous for a moment.
Lacerates. Dozens of them, sprawling and wriggling out his skin like maggots. The tentacles hardened into spears and thrusted themselves into the walls. A cultist's head was reduced to a sanguine past, that fell sloppily onto his ornate blue robes. The other fell silent, dropping the gun as his eyes widened in terror. He frantically scurried away, dashing past the door in a spasm and obnoxiously screaming for help. Ren pulled his limbs out the Lacerate spears, cutting himself part in the process, and lumbered across the hallway painted red.
From the distance he heard the slight buzzing of an alarm, followed by rapid footsteps through all directions. He was burning, his soul, his body, every aspect of his being, burning in a wildfire. His mind was overwhelmed by an insatiable bloodlust, hot steam whistled out his cuts and he roared in fury. He was a machine, a machine to slaughter and nothing else. It didn't matter how hard he would be gored. It didn't matter how many times he would be at the brink of death. He couldn't die. His body was forged in blade-steel, his blood was of his war. He was a gaping, yawning maw, and they were only deplorable matter.
Soldiers in smooth steel armor crowded at the ends, cultists quickly departed their offices and duties. It was a hideous noise, constant barking and yapping, though it was nonetheless human. This was the most human thing he had seen yet, and it would be so much more human if he painted the walls with human. He tore off the cape of the eviscerated cultist and hid his head around the ragged clothing.
He was ripping them apart. Severing their limbs, bisecting them across the waist, their bullets did nothing. Even if they punctured his skull, just in a few seconds there was nothing. He smiled as their shining armor fell onto the floor, streams of blood and mulched flesh trickling down. He laughed as he spewed their entrails from the empty cavities of their neck and pushed their jaws concave into their throat, he laughed even harder once the remaining screamed and cried and begged from the insanity.
And with one final tentacle, not but one person stood at the hall, now caked in the blended mixture of bone and tendon. The tremoring cultist whimpered and quickly stumbled away, and he slowly followed. He trudged across the winding halls, glistening red coating every part of him, his pupils dead of life, yet every limb shook and quivered. He felt his body burden through each heavy step forward, intertwining with the panicked screaming of the cultist, yet he couldn't refuse his bloodlust.
Because nobody could refuse themselves. He let himself become this, if he had already killed dozens, he was willing to kill hundreds. And the screaming and whimpering of the cultist only boosted that lust, like the tantalizing aromas of food wafting around him. Tentacles dragged out his back, out of his fingers, and out of his body and head. He ended at a final, wooden door, where he could hear a large thud and small cursing from the cultist.
He ripped open the door to find the cultist tripped against and table and sprawling and knocking out bottles in a klutz. He screamed in terror once again as Ren stalked forward, desperately crawling on top of the table, bawling rivers of tears. Ren's mangled, wretched claws inched forward, gracing the ends of his hair. Instantly, from his fingertip, a razor-tentacle popped out, and cleanly drilled into his head. He grabbed the cultist's head and began to tear off the skin of his face, tentacles crawling into his mouth and extending through his nostrils, through his eyeballs. The cultist's motionless corpse was raised from the ground, and with the snap of a finger, every tentacle caved in the head and popped it like the shrapnel of a grenade.
And then...there was a sting.
One that drilled in deep and stayed. The point was rough and gritty, grinding against his tissue. He didn't think much of it, he didn't think he possibly could. His entire reality just splintered apart, it would take an eternity to process all that happened. The dungeon, the halls he had crumbled on, torn apart. His vision became nothing but a white blur. He had been reduced to nothing. And what he became, the line between what is deemed as a person was blurred to nothing. He was divided by what it meant to be a living, human being...and a sack of meat and bone.
No questions flowed through his mind as no overwhelming fear conjured up and toppled above him. His body was assaulted with atrocity, every organ, muscle, and bone in his body was in pure agony, yet that no longer mattered. A single movement of a patch of hair or the clouds of dust that danced to him sent his body into a stinging and burning paralysis, yet that no longer mattered.
Is this...where I end...? But, I don't end...No...I never end...
The tendon in his legs was razed and reaved apart, spliced inside out. He tried crawling with his arms, slowly clawing away at the floor but they were too brittle and broken to even move an inch. The pain grew and grew until there was nothing left. Pooling under him was no longer lifeblood, it was firm and sticky and wet...again, it was mud.
It has been so damn long...and yet I still lose everything...
Not with words, but he could describe the utter dread he experienced. He wanted to scream out every last bit of agony and make the entire world listen, though that would be a fantasy. His body was crushed to a pulp, his skeleton degrading into rot. The rough stone floor ground and burned through his skin, every bone in his spine was cast in deep lashes. All he could do was stare, stare at the vexed brick walls around him. And his scream soon became a somber melody, and the realization that there was no use, fueled it greatly.
The rancorous tsunami washed agonizing waves across him, yet he couldn't bring himself to care. He couldn't do anything, nothing to let this agony disappear. And the somber melody soon disappeared too. It was just him in this chamber, nobody to come, nobody to help.
And he collapsed. And at that time, he could feel it. The feeling of falling asleep...and never waking up. And for almost five years he believed that. And for those five years, nobody could've known how miserable he had been. He could remember himself rotting away in the smallest, deepest cellar within the dungeon, never to wake up, never to find anything for himself. Nobody would know something of him.
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And even through oblivion and back...
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The fathoms still reach much, much deeper.