“Welcome back!” Yamo’s eyes lit up when Madam Maligun slowly blinked her eyes and moaned in pain. “We were just going over explaining your organs to Enron here.”
She was sweating and very pale. She was close to death being tongueless with her chest wide open on the table. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she started to seize uncontrollably. Yamo grabbed Tsugi’s hands and pulled his hands out of her body cavity, holding the blades of the scalpels into the air.
When her seizure stopped, Yamo let go of Tsugi’s hand and they continued like nothing happened. “That right there is the heart, lungs, stomach, spleen…” Yamo continued to point out every organ in her body, they cut her intestines and pulled them out, setting them onto the table. Yamo explained about the reproductive organs and then moved to how the heart pumps blood through the body. She was awake for most of it, but her heart began to beat really fast and soon stopped.
“Oh no you don’t.” Yamo reached his hand into her opened chest cavity and placed her heart in his hand. He slowly pumped her heart and pushed blood through her body. “Tsugi, you see how I’m slowly pumping in the heart like this?” Tsugi slowly nodded. “Take her heart and I want you to follow the same rhythm.” Tsugi grasped it and started pumping, by listening to his own heartbeat. “Perfect, just like that.” Yamo blew air into her lungs and they filled, pushing against Tsugi’s hands slightly. Yamo removed his lips and lightly pressed on her lungs to remove the air, before refilling them.
Her heart started to pump on its own and she opened her eyes, slowly breathing on her own again. Her eyes quickly darted around the room, still in shock as to what was going on.
“Welcome back.” Yamo smiled again. “It’s alright. Just stay with me. You feel the pain right? Pain means you are still alive, okay? So just focus on the pain and stay with me.”
All through the night, Yamo continued to instruct as they dissected each part of her body. Tsugi felt like he was in a daze, overfilled with information, but he burned every piece of information into his head. Tsugi lost track of how many times they resuscitated her, but eventually Yamo just let her go.
They skinned her and went through every group of muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. Finally after getting to the core of the bones, Madam Maligun was nothing but a pile of flesh and bones on the table.
“Alright. You okay bud?” Yamo looked concerned, staring at Tsugi’s droopy face which was overloaded with so much information that smoke was practically coming out of his ears. He chuckled and nudged Tsugi with an elbow, while wiping the blood from his hands. “I know it’s a lot of information, but I know you can handle it. With time, it’ll become easier to understand.”
Tsugi glanced up at Yamo’s smiling face, droplets of blood splatter here and there on his face, his apron splattered with blood and his hands were covered in it. Tsugi looked down at his own hands and saw a mixture of wet and dry crusted blood all over his hands, buried deep in his nail beds, and dripping to his elbows.
Volgan had started to throw all the chunks of Madam Maligun the giant bucket on the floor, and dragged it into the next room. When the door opened, he could hear loud roars and screeching that woke him up from his daze. It sounded like something one would only hear from a nightmare.
“Oh! Come on, I’ll show you.” Yamo led Tsugi to the next room. “Meet our garbage disposals, Phythin's.”
Two giant creatures that were two times the size of Volgan were kept in a large enclosure. Their muscular front half was giant and bulky, with huge humanoid like claws; their head just as enormous with a hard under-bite that jutted out with two huge bottom canines sticking up; their eight eyes were pitch black, with four on either side of their head; their nose flared wide like a horse; their ears small like a mouse; their lower body was a lot smaller and resembled bow-legged human legs.
Volgan threw the chunks of meat into their enclosure and they fought each other, getting to the pile of meat and devouring it like they’ve been starved. Although, it did not seem to be the case, according to their muscle tone. Their growls and ferocity was so powerfully scary, yet intriguing at the same time. It sounded like one of them would definitely be ravaged to death, but they turned out fine, with not a single scratch on their tough hide.
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“This is Gino and Shu.” Volgan held out a chunk of bone through the gate and the creature approached, gently taking the offering from him. Tsugi’s eyes widened at their gentleness, when he just saw how scary they were just seconds before. The creature pushed its big head into the gate and Volgan placed a hand on the bridge of its nose, petting it right between the eyes on either side.
“I take it you are someone who likes creatures, right Enron?” Yamo looked down at Tsugi, who nodded with his mouth gaped open in awe. “Come here.” He led Tsugi over towards the iron bars. “Just stand here, don’t stare at them, just wait. Once they are done sniffing you out, and if they push their head against the gate like that, then you can pet them.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then you better hope you are faster than they are and move away.” Yamo’s words drew fear into Tsugi’s eyes. “I’m just kidding.” He chuckled nervously. “No, I’m not.” His words turned serious. “But don’t worry, I’ll be right here, so they won’t be stupid enough to do anything.”
Tsugi felt nervous when the creatures approached him. He stood very still and stared at the straw bedding on the ground. Loud sniffing, huffing and puffing, blowing a big breath of air that smelled like iron into Tsugi’s face. To his surprise their breaths didn’t stink. They, too, had a weird scent to them, it was almost like a sour stench, but yet flowery smell.
They both pushed their heads up against the iron bars and rubbed into it like cats. Tsugi’s eyes widened in excitement and he raised his hands to pet them. Their skin was smooth yet ridged like scales. As Tsugi petted them, they let out a soft purr like a kitten would.
“Wow. They purred for you.” Volgan was astonished.
“Jealous?” Yamo smirked and leaned down to Tsugi. “It took him three months before they finally allowed him to touch them. And another three for them to purr like that.” Yamo smiled looking at Tsugi, who was now grinning from ear to ear, lost in his own world with the creatures at the moment.
It was like Tsugi had put them into a trance with his soft touch. The creatures dropped to the floor by the gate and were suddenly fast asleep.
“Jeez…you just never cease to amaze me.” Yamo’s eyes lit up like fireworks. “Every time I think my luck has run out, you just keep proving me wrong, kid.” Yamo pulled Tsugi in for a side hug. “Come on. I am sure you are absolutely exhausted. Go shower and hit the hay.”
They went back up the long flight of stairs and Yamo opened the folding wall.
“How’d you do that by the way?” Tsugi’s been meaning to ask, but kept forgetting to.
“Oh that?” Yamo shrugged. “It’s just a secret enchanted door. The door is the only thing that’s enchanted, everything else was built just like you would normally build a house. Then you enchant the door and put a password on it. The door will only open for the right password and the people that are allowed to enter, by placing their hand on the wall. It prevents people from entering with just the password.”
Tsugi pressed his lips together, raised his eyebrows and nodded to show his understanding. Tsugi headed to his room and grabbed some clothes before going to the bath. They had actual running water which allowed Tsugi to shower instead of having to soak in the bloody water. The water hit his skin and turned a murky red color, as it dripped down his body and down the drain that led outside into the sewers.
Tsugi entered his room, not realizing how long the sun had been up, but he could hear the lively chatter of people taking to the streets. Overcome with exhaustion, Tsugi collapsed onto his bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Raging thunderstorms haunted Tsugi’s dreams again. He was running for his life, but his father had caught him and broke his bones, one by one. He would wake up from it like a hallucination and it would happen again and again, like reliving a constant never ending nightmare.
Dread was the only feeling left after what felt like months of continuous torture. His body ached, and he had lost all hope of survival. He didn’t remember anything that made him happy, only torturous nightmares.
-“Don’t fail.”
The words rang in Tsugi’s ears and he awoke, drenched in sweat.
“Young Master Enron.” Fay was walking toward him with a bowl sitting on top of a tray. “Master Yamo had requested that I make this for you.” She bent over the bed and held out the tray to him.
“What is it?” He was hesitant and glanced between the bowl and Fay.
“It will help you sleep better.” Tsugi was so exhausted and was still in dire need of sleep, but a part of him still didn’t trust them. “Oh, my apologies young master.” She took the bowl and took a big gulp out of it before handing it back to him, to show it wasn’t poisoned.
He hesitantly took the bowl from her, gulped it down to the last drop, and placed it back on the tray. She nodded politely and walked back out of his room. He laid back down and slowly drifted off to sleep.
For the first time in his life, he had a good and peaceful dream. It was a dream where he was running through the field, laughing and playing with Mare, Xeni, Ruzo and all his friends. Even Gino and Shu came running out of the woods and played with them. Tsugi felt absolutely nothing but joy.