Pain.

If there was one thing that Glenn could feel more than anything else, it was that.

Pain.

His left hand felt like there was a searing hole pierced through it, and his head was in a similar situation, throbbing with increasing intensity with each passing second. Thinking was a challenge, so opening his eyes? That was too much to ask.

He shifted to the side, wincing when he realized that there was something wrapped around his wrists and ankles, weighing them down. Something heavy and cold, cold, like steel. How…what…?

Glenn coughed and pushed through the pain and exhaustion, opening his eyes only to find pure darkness. A shiver went and his heart missed a beat as he wondered if he lost his eyes at some point, for his surroundings to be so dark.

Another second of consciousness reassured him that no, he wasn’t blind and that yes, both of his eyes were still there.

‘How did I end up here…?’ Glenn questioned, his headache making it much harder to remember what happened recently. His left hand was itchy, burning with discomfort and torture, but Glenn had to admit that he was starting to get numb to it. It was just like a mosquito bite now, only…only it was an arrow that pierced his hand.

Right, an arrow. These suspicious, robed guys attacked and knocked him out…did they capture him and put him in a cell? Why?

Glenn grunted as the pain suddenly intensified, shooting through his body like a tidal wave of suffering. He leaned back against the moist, cold stone behind him, shivering as a few drops of water fell on his face.

The place he was sitting in was damp, with a mixed scent of dirt, blood, and piss. There was no wind, no sound aside from the occasional clanking of chains in the distance and the scurrying of rats.

“...!” Glenn opened his mouth to call out whoever imprisoned him, but no sound came out of his mouth. His eyes widened and he tried again, trying to scream the hardest he could, but his efforts were fruitless. He could feel the sound pass through his throat, but once it came to the last step, it disappeared, as if by magic.

‘Magic…’ Glenn gritted his teeth. Yes, this was probably it. His attackers also restrained him with these thorny vines that came out of nowhere, which was also magic, probably. He tried to pull on his chains, but the steel bit through his flesh and stopped him from doing so.

‘Fuck…’ Tears welled up in his eyes as he heaved for air.

‘Why? Why is this happening to me? What…what did I fucking do to deserve that?’ Glenn despaired, grimacing and screaming silently in pain each time he moved for the restraints kept on piercing through his flesh. There probably were some small teeth or dents in the restraints for it to be so painful.

Glenn gulped and clenched his eyes shut, crying silently. He never asked to come to this world. And now, he’s mute, his left hand is pierced, and probably waiting either for torture or death. Where was Diamanes when he needed him?

…Diamanes?

‘Shit!’ Glenn called out to the entity a few more times, but only the eerie silence of his cell replied to him. His heart froze as he considered one option that might relieve him from this pain, from this torture, from this hellish world. His teeth chattered as he forced his tongue through them, trembling and hesitating.

The faint sound of footsteps in the distance stopped him from making his decision. The sound grew clearer with each step until it stopped in front of Glenn’s cell. The latter held his breath, staring in front of him like a man staring down death.

The sound of a key entering a lock echoed in the cell, followed by the creaking of heavy steel moving. A crack of light appeared in the darkness, growing wider as the door to his cell opened. Someone came in with a candle, a robed guy with a pale hand and a face hidden under a black hood. Thanks to the light, Glenn realized how small his cell was, and how terrible his condition was. There barely was enough space to lie down, and both walls could be touched if he reached for them while in the cell’s center.

The individual who came in pulled back his hood, revealing a scarred face, covered in uneven cuts in some mysterious pattern. His face was gaunt and his eyes were dark, with even darker circles. His eyes were wide-opened, unblinking, giving him a crazy expression. He shoved the candle closer to Glenn’s face, who winced as the heat made his eyes water. A drop of wax fell off the candle, sizzling as it touched Glenn’s skin.

“!!!” Glenn opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out, like before. The scarred-faced man didn’t seem too bothered by the suffering of his victim and instead pushed the candle closer to his eyes, trying to find something within them. Glenn turned in horror to his jailer, wondering what kind of hell was about to befall him.

The man suddenly drew out a weapon, something similar to an ice pick. He glanced down at Glenn and shoved the ice pick in his right knee, crushing it entirely and pinning it to the floor. Glenn’s heart missed a beat as the pain became unbearable, and he screamed silently for help, his cursed throat unable to transmit his cry. The jailer’s smile grew wide, and he slowly reached for something else under his robe. He pulled out a thick syringe and forced Glenn’s mouth open, shoving the syringe down his throat and pouring its contents in.

Glenn was forced to swallow as tears kept on flowing down his cheeks. Once the jailer was done, he pulled back the syringe and put it away, before watching Glenn for a few minutes. The latter was gasping for air, his throat dry and sticky due to whatever that thing he was fed was. He puked some of it, but he didn’t have the time to be thankful that the dark liquid he spat rose and went back into his throat of its own volition.

It was thick and tasted like metal, a very viscous mixture that was almost like… Glenn’s eyes widened as he reeled back in disgust and horror. The jailer’s grin grew when his prisoner understood what he had been fed. Satisfied, he ripped out the ice pick from Glenn’s knee and kicked him in the stomach, stopping him from breathing.

Gasping for air, the last thing Glenn saw was the jailer’s fist about to hit him in the face. He almost lost consciousness, but a throb appeared in his stomach, moving strangely. It went in his head first, and then in the rest of his limbs, digging through his veins and arteries, carving a path for itself. Glenn foamed at the mouth, the pain becoming too much to handle, his body trembling uncontrollably. It did not take long until darkness pulled his consciousness away, freeing him temporarily from the pain and suffering.

***

It wasn’t his stomach grumbling hungrily that woke Glenn up, nor the rats running over him and checking if he was dead. It wasn’t the drops of rotten water nor the scent of piss and shit either. This time, it was the growing despair and anxiety, gripping at his chest and clenching it tightly.

Why did he wake up? Couldn’t he spend more time asleep?

The old iron door to his cell swung open and his jailer appeared, bearing a candle and a wicked grin. Glenn gasped and cried, pulling on his chains despite the teeth piercing through his flesh, trying to do anything to escape this reality. Out of despair, he bit down on his tongue, aiming to sever it, but his jailer appeared to notice and hurriedly stopped him. He pried his jaws open and shoved a dirty, piss-tasting rag in his mouth to stop him from doing that.

Glenn’s eyes rolled back as all hopes of being free disappeared away like a candle’s flame in the wind. The jailer grabbed his left hand and looked at the hole pierced through it, before shrugging and turning to the other hand. He glanced at Glenn, before proceeding to break each of his right hand’s fingers, taking an evil pleasure with each snap.

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Once he was done with all five fingers, he pulled out a new syringe and shoved it down Glenn’s throat once again after taking out his gag. Glenn didn’t even try to fight back, his mind broken and his body weak. The pain from the first time came back once again, navigating through his body like a vicious snake and burning everything on its way, twisting him from the inside.

He foamed at the mouth once again, trembling, as the jailer laughed and kicked him down, before finally leaving him be. Once again, Glenn lost consciousness and abandoned himself in the comfortable darkness.

He didn’t dream when he slept, for he never truly slept. He was so tired and yet so in pain, hungry, and thirsty, that he couldn’t even think about escaping. There was no way to escape. No exit. No miraculous plan that could save him in this situation. He knew that. Diamanes was gone.

Perhaps he was just hallucinating from the start. He tried more than once to spit out the rag in his mouth, but he didn’t even have the strength to do so.

There were no buckets or spots to relieve himself, and Glenn couldn’t move anyway. So he just did it on himself.

Days, nights, and weeks passed, he couldn’t tell. A second could be an hour, and a day could be a minute. Everything was the same in this shitty hole. Even his jailer seemed to struggle to find new ways to torture him. Often more than not, Glenn could feel himself succumbing to a fever, dreaming of things that didn’t exist, or that maybe did, illusions of the freedom he so desperately needed.

Pain. Wake up. Suffer. Drink that bloody stuff. Suffer. Collapse. This was his life now. How long had it been going for? He still had no idea. His voice had still not come back, nor had Diamanes, so Glenn kind of gave up on them like he gave up on life. He was just a bag of meat enduring one punch after another. One positive thing after all this time was that his left hand wasn’t hurting him much anymore. Glenn probably had to thank the tolerance to the pain he was gaining from this.

Scarred-face was the only jailer in this prison, it seemed. Glenn had given him a nickname, in the hope that if he could find the bastard in hell, he could kill him again. With each visit, Scarred-face became better at his job, filling his role with perfection with more insane abuse, and twisted ideas that couldn’t possibly come out of a human mind.

And yet.

Researchers on Earth found out that humans can adapt and get used to anything, be it pain, drugs, or murder. The more they did one or the other, the more they’d grow numb to it. The first time was the hardest, but repeating was the key to making it easy.

Glenn had read something like that in a book that he had been forced to read, before all this mess, when he was still living on Earth like a normal human: "Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him." This quote had stuck with him, being the only thing he remembered from the book. Strangely, he couldn't help but think of it today.

It wasn’t hard to believe the author’s words before, with all these stories of human resilience and adaptation, with the classical story of “the hero who rises through pain and struggles to become, well, a hero.”

Heh.

Now that he was experiencing hell itself, Glenn could say with certainty that this was some fucking bullshit.

What didn’t kill you made you stronger?

He’d rather be dead than strong right now.

But.

Even…even taking his own life was impossible.

Glenn considered that…maybe he was starting to become crazy. He was starting to imagine the walls of the cell, the moss growing in the gaps between each stone brick, and the pool of blood, shit, and piss laying under him. He could almost see it, no matter whether his eyes were opened or not. He could swear he was starting to hear faint whispers here and there, mocking him and tempting him with promises of freedom. But what was the use of listening to whispers of something that didn’t exist? Could they kill him? He couldn’t kill himself, what guaranteed that they could?

The shadows were moving in his eyes, dancing at the rhythm of the whispers, warping and twisting…

“Accept us, Glenn…”

“Only say the word…”

“We’ll do anything for you…”

Shut up.

“Death is right over the corner, Glenn. Just say the word…Make a deal with us…”

Shut up. Shut up, shut up!

“Just accept us, and become more than you are, you weak wimp…”

“You wretched failure…”

“We can become your strength and make you more than this piece of garbage…”

Glenn gritted his teeth and roared silently with hatred, shutting down the voices for a moment. He couldn’t speak, but he could still hear his own voice strangely.

‘Shut the fuck up! I don’t even want to die anymore! Shit! You fucking…non-existing illusions pieces of shit! Fuck off!’

The whispers reeled back in shock, apparently surprised that he could reply to them in such a vindictive manner. Glenn was starting to have enough of all this bullshit. Maybe he would try some last, suicidal escape attempt, just so that he could rip off the Scarred-face bastard’s face or something. He would do it with his teeth if he had to. The pain of his restraints biting through his teeth was nothing compared to the growing anger and hatred in his chest, burning with a fire that could consume everything. Fear, pain, and despair…all melted away in front of Glenn’s fiery rage.

“...Wow, isn’t that a pleasure for the eyes. They really fucked you up, Glenn,” Another voice suddenly spoke in the cell, earning Glenn’s sneer.

‘Yeah, whatever you fucking hallucination. Go back to the fucking hole you crawled out. Fuck this shit.’

Diamanes laughed, startling Glenn and making him suddenly question the whispers. Wait. Was Diamanes’ voice also an illusion? Or…or was it not?

“No, no, please, keep on believing that I am an illusion. Hey, who knows, maybe this is all fake? Maybe this is all a simulation, who the hell knows? Blue pill or red pill, Glenn?”

Glenn gasped for air as tears fell out of his eyes. He silently sighed in relief and leaned back against the stone, unable to speak a word. After a long while, he spoke in his mind, his throat still as silenced as ever.

‘...Which pill is the one that will allow me to get out of here and bash Scarred-face’s skull in?’ He asked without much hope. Despite the complete darkness, Glenn could still see it.

Diamanes’ wicked grin.

“Fuck pills. Let’s rip apart some bastards.”

Glenn could only agree. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but frown at his left hand.

‘Where the hell were you while I was getting…’ He grimaced, finding it impossible to continue his sentence.

“Remember when I said I would grow back if you cut me off?” Diamanes said mockingly, “Well, I did exactly that. I grew back up and fixed the damages that damned arrow made.”

Glenn paused as he realized that indeed, his left hand wasn’t painful at all anymore. He believed he had grown numb to the pain, but… what if he just healed?

“Anyway, you fucking smell. How much time have we spent down here?” Diamanes asked with a disgusted voice. Glenn gritted his teeth.

‘Too fucking much.’

Diamanes moistened its lips, “I certainly believe that. I can taste the filth in my sacred mouth. Urgh.”

Glenn shook his head, ‘I need to get out of here.’

Diamanes laughed mockingly, “Well, just leave then?” Glenn slowly bit down on his lip, finding it very hard to deal with the entity without his usual patience.

“Sigh, don’t worry, I have the means to help you and get rid of the Silence Curse on the same occasion.”

‘Do whatever that means,’ Glenn ordered coldly. Diamanes laughed evilly and invited Glenn to try and move his left hand on his neck. Glenn complied and ignored the pain as he pulled on the chains. The second his palm touched his hand, he heard a suction noise and felt like something that had been stuck in his throat for a long time just disappeared.

“Tastes like shit, but a first meal is a first meal. I guess it’s still better than an arrow in the teeth, heh,” Diamanes jeered. Glenn heaved with difficulty, actually terrified at the idea of even trying to speak. He coughed and forced a sound out, his eyes watering when he did succeed. He didn't know when exactly, but the rag had fallen off his mouth, finally leaving him free to either bite his tongue, or...

“Ahhhh..!” Glenn’s voice was hoarse, not used to talking anymore. It had been so long…He felt like he needed to learn it all over again.

Diamanes grinned widely, his white teeth gleaming with a strange hue in the darkness. The sight was strangely comforting, as the only happy thing that happened to him in this damned place was this damned, unwanted, evil demon’s awakening.

“You’re welcome, dear contractor. Now, should we get out of here?”

The corner of Glenn’s lips curved upward in a predatory manner, his eyes resolute and a little insane. Whatever demon Diamanes was, he would shake his hand ten times over if it meant he could get out of his fucking place.

“Cough…cough…”

And make this fucking jailer bastard pay.

“...Let’s…cough…let’s leave this place.”