Tsugi awoke in a dark, damp cell. His hands were bound to chains above his head and his feet to a heavy ball chain dangling below him.

“Ah! So you’re awake again.” A screechy voice chuckled creepily with approaching footsteps.

‘Again? What does he mean, ‘again’?’

Tsugi’s body stung. There was a tickling dribble traveling down his ribs. His vision came into focus and he saw that he had been lashed, creating open wounds that were bleeding and dripping blood. The blood soaked into his shirt wherever it touched. His armor was gone, same with his weapon and boots. All he had on were his trousers and dirty white tunic.

A loud cranking and Tsugi could feel himself get hoisted higher into the air, until he met the tall elf face to face. He had the typical features of silver hair and gray eyes, although Tsugi would say that this elf wasn’t as good looking as most elves. His face was really long and slender, his chin came to a point and the slits for his eyes were so thin that you could barely see his iris.

The elf grabbed a red hot iron from the scorching charcoal and turned it in his hands. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” The look in his eyes says that he very much enjoyed this act of torture. “What is your name child?”

“Screw you.” Tsugi mumbled exhaustively, trying to keep his heavy eyelids open.

The elf laughed evilly, “I love your willpower. The stronger it is, the more rewarding when it breaks.” He grinned from ear to ear and touched the hot iron to Tsugi’s forearm.

“Raaah!” Tsugi screamed through his tightly clenched teeth, squeezing every muscle in his body. The hiss of the iron against his skin, filled his nose with the thick nauseating smell of burnt human flesh.

The elf pulled the rod away and placed it back into the metal tray of red-hot charcoal. “What’s your name?”

“Bite me.” Tsugi smirked, glaring at the elf as he walked back to grab the whip.

“Oh, I’ll do more than bite you.” Lashes swung at Tsugi, splitting his flesh open, allowing the recently obtained yellow adipose tissue to protrude out of the wounds, dripping with dark red blood. As bad as the pain was, it was still nowhere near the pain his father put him through, with the razor sharp metal chains digging into his skin and ripping it apart. Though it still hurt, even the burning sensation was nowhere close to the storms he lived through.

“Isn’t it against the treaty to have humans locked up in your dungeon for no reason?”

“If we have a reason to, we can torture you for all eternity before killing you and it wouldn’t go against the treaty at all.”

“And what might that reason be?”

The elf put the whip away and pulled out the red hot iron again. “Murder.” He pressed it against Tsugi’s collarbone, searing the tissue and turning it black. Tsugi tensed and threw his head back but no scream came out of him this time.

“What murder?” He grunted.

“An elven warrior just happened to have mysteriously died in the middle of the woods the night you guys stayed in Anisherund.”

“What el…huuu!” A powerful punch to Tsugi’s diaphragm left him without oxygen for quite a while, with bloody saliva dripping down his lips. After a good ten seconds Tsugi sucked in a big gulp of air and coughed painfully.

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“Don’t tell me you don’t know. There’s no way it was a mere coincidence, besides your lot are the only humans in our territory right now.”

“How the hell could we have killed him? You confiscated all our weapons.” Tsugi spat the bloody saliva out of his mouth and splattered onto the elves shirt, angering him which brought upon a hard spinning kick to Tsugi’s face. Tsugi let out a thunderous laughter and spat out the blood in his mouth onto the floor. “That was actually a pretty weak kick. I’d say your punch hurt more.”

The elf lost all control at this point and whipped Tsugi continuously. Elated that he was the one to have broken the elf's ego, Tsugi laughed thunderously through the whipping. Which in turn caused more whipping and then Tsugi became a punching bag.

“Your punches are definitely stronger than your kicks. What? Are you not getting enough action in bed to work out those chicken legs of yours?”

‘What am I saying? Where did this come from?’ It was as if his mouth was moving on its own accord, lashing out insults left and right.

“Guess the only action you're getting is from your hands huh?” Tsugi’s laughter echoed through the dungeons.

‘Is this really me? I’m saying all of this? But I don’t even know what I am saying. Maybe it’s just from my subconscious mind.’

The pissed off elf grabbed the hot iron skewer out of the pit. “I’ll kill you!”

“Looks like I hit a nerve.” Tsugi smirked domineeringly.

“Ahhh!” He yelled and pulled back on the poker ready to stab Tsugi through his heart.

“Vamir!” A booming voice from down the hall froze the elf's movements. He stood there with his blood red eyes, his pointy ears were flushed with anger and his fist shook horribly around the hilt of the iron poker. His emotion overtook him and he chucked the iron skewer across the room before stomping out of the cell like a petulant child. “Sorry about him.” She was a beauty like Tsugi has never seen before. She was definitely way too old for him, and not to say love at first sight, but he was just in awe of her beauty and grace. Then again, perhaps it was just because he was looking at that elf that looked disgustingly horrible, according to elf standards anyway.

She approached Tsugi, waved a hand over him and all the pain subsided. What was bleeding profusely before had now turned into light copper scars. The burned scabs fell off his arms and crumbled, some landing on his head and shoulders while the others landed on the ground beneath him.

“Now, if I unchain you, you’ll behave right?” Her eyes were sincere and soft, drawing out a sense of comfort in Tsugi. “I can’t have you running amok, but I don’t want to keep you chained up if we’re going to talk either. So do I have your word?”

“And how do I know this isn’t a trick?” Tsugi glared at her intensely, thinking of ways he could kill her and free the others.

“I’m an elf, I am always true to my word. I don’t want to harm you, so please just don’t make me.” Tsugi studied her for a bit and nodded. She bent down and unchained his feet. As the shackles dropped to the floor, Tsugi kicked up his legs and wrapped them around her neck into a very tight triangle hold.

She struggled and placed a hand on either side of his thighs. She pulled them apart slightly, just enough to free her carotid arteries and windpipe. “Now, now. You either release me and calm yourself, or this will get very bad, very quickly.” A quick flash of anger in her eyes told Tsugi that she was very dangerous and not someone he should mess with. He slowly released her and lowered his legs back down.

She rubbed her neck and cracked it, tilting from side to side. “I will warn you right now. I’m going to free your arms. You try anything at all, and you will wish you never left home. Understand?” Tsugi nodded and she freed his arms, dropping him to the ground.

“So, what’s your name?” She sat on the ground in front of him. “Let me restart.” She rubbed her forehead and ran her fingers through her long gorgeous hair. “My name is Yumanea. The elf that was murdered was my mentor. What’s your name?”

“Enron.”

“Although that has a sense of truth, it’s also not the whole truth.” Tsugi could feel her aura surrounding him watching for the slightest suspicious movement from him. “I have a knack to find out the truth from people. Whether you tell me the truth or not, I will find out. It’s easier for you if you just tell me the truth now. It’ll save you a lot of pain.”

“I already told you my name.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, and why are you with people like them anyways? You know what they do to girls right?”

Tsugi’s eyes flashed fear. ‘How does she know?’

“No, they aren’t like that. Yamo killed the one that did horrible stuff.”

“All I’m saying is, you can’t trust them.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

Tsugi felt a sudden pain in his head. Memories flashed quickly through his mind, like a strong wind blowing through pages in a book. Even some memories that he didn’t recognize flashed by like a passing wind. It was as if someone had lit a trail of fire to all the little creases in his head as they traveled from memory to memory. His ears rang loudly and he could smell blood as it dripped from his nose, even his eyes and ears as he sat frozen still, but inside he was writhing and squirming in pain.

Forgetting to breathe, his mind started to fog with his heightened emotions. His heart was pumping blood through his body, but unable to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen in his lungs. There was a searing pain across his face that sent him flying.

“The kid can do hallucination magic!” A male voice yelled.