"We recovered Tatsumi. The state she was in was not good at all. She can barely speak and what sounds she makes are only screams. She has lost her left arm, and has seemingly gone blind. It's almost as if she is an entirely different person. I do not think she can ever return to her duties as Platinum Ranked 4, The Agni. As the team leader, I accept full responsibility for letting her get captured in the first place. Even if it means handing in my position in the Guild, I will do whatever I can to make up for this. I shall discuss this further when I return."
-A Letter to the Guildmaster, by [REDACTED]
An indescribable amount of time passed between what happened several moons ago and now. The cogs of time slowed to a snail's pace, the amount of light that illuminated the cell decreasing by the minute, with the winter solstice quickly approaching. No amount of rest felt enough for Daniel, every inch of his body crying out for release. Not even the water and food he was craving could alleviate that pain. So, he stopped wanting. Stopped needing. Stopped crying and stopped screaming. Daniel accepted death, welcomed it even, after all hell could not be as bad as this. Fire and brimstone was nothing compared to the dismemberment and branding and ripping and tearing and boiling and searing of his body. Hell always seemed a strange concept. Hell was originally a Lyrim belief, supposedly, the place where The Devourer, the Lyrim who almost killed their entire race, lay, and the rest slept soundly in the Norsund far up in the sky. We humans inherited it, and butchered its real meaning, for Hell was not a place you go to for doing a single bad thing. But a place for the very worst of all existence to reside. Living is punishment enough, so why bore yourself further with continued existence, when you can simply die. At least, that was the new point of view Daniel held.
Another thing that Daniel found strange was that almost daily he had his tongue cut, eye gouged, legs and arms removed, all among other things. However, the next day, whatever damage was done previously, was simply gone. Not in the sense that it was a hallucination or anything of the sort, for the pain still resided despite the repairing of the physical appearance, but that it was all real. And something which Daniel thought had to be related was the searing pain he felt while sleeping, like all the things he lost were being melded back together. Although he did not realise it at the time, Daniel knew what it was, since he learnt it in class. Spirit Healing. An Art belonging to the Spirit Node, where one's spirit take's form and repairs another individual, where each spirit bear a different appearance and healing type depending on the user; the most common being the fire spirit, whose healing was often attributed to the feeling of your own body being 'melded' back together.
Daniel had also begun to count, as advised by the man called Harold to keep himself sane. A sound piece of advice, that Daniel had secretly thanked the man for giving him, despite all he had done to him and the kind of man he was. Despite the denial by that man, only Harold could really tell that the boy was telling the truth and if he wasn't he would have broken by now, due to his experience in the field. Harold could only feel remorse for the boy he had to torture, remorse for a poor boy swept up in something he had nothing to do with. However, Harold could not say anything in fear of that man's wrath.
Daylight shone again in Daniel's cell, signifying that this day's torture will now come shortly, yet Daniel didn't even realise this, because he was so enraptured in the ceaseless counting he did. The man who now personally tortured Daniel arrived, along with the white haired boy behind him and Harold watching from afar. The torture came and went. Daniel didn't even bother speaking anymore. Just counting. Just keep on counting. For this day's torture, Daniel had his fingers removed from both hands as well both his legs. A few lashings from the whip followed, along with the threatening of people Daniel knew. He... knew them? In truth, the boy had forgotten the names he used to beg for back in the early days of being in this cell. Names were useless things, pointless attachments waiting to be cut off, which Daniel had already done. Not only could the names not help him, to his knowledge they hadn't even tried. The more names, the weaker he becomes. The more names, the more he wants. The more he wants, the more he grows insane. The more he grows insane, the longer the days shall feel. In the end, death only awaits so why bother making it not only actually longer but feel longer as well? Eventually the torture stopped, though Daniel didn't even realise it began, and the men departed. First that man, then the boy and finally the-
"Hey, kid."
Did Daniel hear a voice? Of course not, he was just counting.
"Hey!"
A whisper? No, it cannot be! He can't go insane now! The days are long enough already!
"Daniel!"
The whisper turned into a hushed shout and Daniel finally realised who was calling him. It was Harold. And for the first time since he initially started, Daniel stopped counting.
"..!"
Daniel couldn't speak. Oh yeah! He had his tongue cut out, no wonder. Daniel thought a nod instead should suffice.
"Good," the man called Harold said, relieved that he wouldn't have to raise his voice anymore and risk alerting that man, "The doors open, so you better tell the truth tomorrow!"
At the end, Harold had raised his voice in order to make it not seem irregular that he was speaking to the boy, but what did Harold say? That question was soon answered, when Harold closed the door yet quickly kicked a piece of something to wedge it open. It still made that crashing sound, but anyone who even looked at the floor could realise something was stuck. Except no one visited. When the man and boy turned around, they never turned back again and went to the right, never to be seen again until the next day. Daniel's arms were left unshackled since there was nothing really for them to hold in place, with the same applying to his legs, or lack of them in this case. Freedom? Something Daniel couldn't even consider, let alone comprehend. For the first time again since Daniel forsake his wants, he began to want again. Wanting to be free. Wanting to be back. Wanting to be alive. Wanting to be with- Who? Yet, the names refused to return. No names, but still a want. And Daniel vowed to pursue that want within every inch of his life in that single second he had realised what Harold was referring to.
And so, Daniel crawled. Leaping from his chair for the first time in Elase knows how long, the sweet cold, hard floor felt like a welcoming carpet with each little splatter of blood or bone or flesh feeling like a bristle of one. With every bit of his strength that he had left, he wedged his hands between the gap and pushed it open just enough to crawl through but just enough that it wouldn't make a sound when being opened or crawled through. Daniel had never bothered to pay much attention to the sight outside of his cell, and it was definitely nothing remarkable. Just a block of cells much like his own and a set of stairs going up which branched off of the corridor Daniel was in. Like a shrew, Daniel dug through the layer of dust that lined the floor, grunting in the pains of his injuries that he had forgotten to feel throughout his 'stay' here. A 'stay'? Oh yes, this was a stay. A stay means staying at a place for some time. Some time. Not forever, just some time! And his time there was finally up. While looking up to the stairs, Daniel could finally see his hair once more, those blond locks that he used to love fiddling with when he was bored turned greasy and no longer curled as they once did, patches of blood staining it also, and the untouched tips of his hair, turning white.
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The climb was hard and tiresome, using only the stumps of hands and legs to prop himself up from the floor at each step, the boards of the steps creaking and him groaning with each push. The door at the top of the stairs was grand. Beautiful and masterfully engraved, the white painted door suited more of a large mansion than a door to a cell block. But the door looked oddly familiar, suiting a type of door he briefly recollected in the past he can no longer remember. Daniel was rising higher up the steps and closer to 'freedom', time moving slower than it had ever been in his cell, with no need to count to keep sane, only the want to be free driving him forward. A pillar of golden light cascaded through the slight gaps in the door frame, whispering promises of the vast world outside to him, wishing him to succeed in his task and be free. And there he was, finally at the door, Daniel's head looking almost directly up to see the handle. A handle of pure gold. Daniel reached up into the light, resting his 'hand' on the handle. It was weighty. Weighty enough to make someone as weak as him struggle to push it. However, he knew he could. Daniel just knew he could do it, no matter what the consequences were. With a renewed vigour, and the weight of his entire body, Daniel stood up on the remains of his legs and balanced his entire body on that single handle, his hand bearing the weight of it all. Until he finally released. Released all the pressure on his hand and pushed downwards. Everything lay on that hope of pressing down the handle and opening it. The door handle eased downwards, creeping to that click of the door opening. How could anyone imagine that in their lives a single second would change their fate ineffably. Click. The handle was down, and the door swung open, pressured by the rest of his body that once lay on that single ornate handle.
It was beautiful. Simply extravagant and indescribable. The door opened up to a giant corridor, lined with gold and silver and tapestries and a soft, fluffy carpet on the floor which is beautiful in its own right. Gold pillars and grand archways accompanied and supported the slightly concave shape of it, where a long painting lined the top. It all seemed so familiar, to the awe-struck boy, who wasn't even marvelling at the beauty at the place but at the fact he was free of that place. Too familiar, even. But that didn't matter. For he was fr-
"Now, what do we have here, "an ethereal voice rang out from Daniel's left, belonging to a tall and smart man. No, it wasn't any man. It was that man, "I was just dealing with Hector for betraying me like that, and you come crawling out of that cesspit, dirtying the floors. How pathetic."
That accursed man was here, in that same crimson red suit, that same stone glare, but this time with a waterfall of blood streamed down his left side, where that man held a mutilated cadaver over his shoulder. The man let his grasp over the body waver, and the corpse flopped to the floor, its head rolling right in front of Daniel's face, upside-down. It was Harold's. Daniel made a futile attempt at screaming or even making a squeal, but he couldn't even do something as simple as that. He tried to shuffle away and back down the stairs whence he came, but a quick stamping of his thigh by that man prevented it. The cracking of bone and tearing of muscle sent ripples of pain through Daniel's body, however something he had retained from his acceptance of death back then in that cell was that resistance against it; and so he backed the pain into a corner of his mind, frightening it into submission, before tying it up with a small patterned napkin and bashing it till it was no more.
"Sun," that man exclaimed, although it did not sound like a shout at all, but rather an order at the same volume as any conversation, yet it still carried around the entire mansion, never losing its voice, "Come hither."
Sun.
A name so bizarrely familiar but so unrecognisable all the same. Whoever that name belonged to must have been acquainted somewhat with Daniel, the boy who was stifling his screams.
And with the command, someone descended the stairs beside where Daniel was pinned. A curious looking boy around the same age as him, looking down upon Daniel with a blank stare. His flowing white hair shivered unevenly down past his shoulders and eyes that pierced his very being yet looked as beautiful as the sea but with a statue of complete deflation and shame unfitting of his angelic appearance. It was pretty; he was pretty, very pretty, if you looked past the way the boy looked at that moment. What was even more surprising to Daniel was the fact that he felt like he had thought almost the same thing when seeing the boy and when seeing another friend. That friend who was his first true friend, with that glowing smile and mesmerising white hair, with a surreptitious glare, always up to mischief. Inured to the horrors of the world while always looking onward, hopeful. The name was returning now. How could Daniel have forgotten a name of that importance, after all it was the first person he knew who wasn't foreign to the land of Alandriel, acting almost like his saviour from this land. His name was-
"Sun, please be quick about it."
What.
"Yes, Inquisitor."
W h a t.
"The prisoner decided to leave his cell, and therefore he needs a punishment. A punishment I would like you to decide upon."
W h a t.
"Inquisitor, I believe it is clear that the prisoner has no intention of ever revealing the information to us, so I believe that he should be... relieved of his suffering. To be put out of his misery, I daresay."
W h a t.
"Unlike you to show compassion for a prisoner, Sun, but I shall allow it, for I agree with your assessment. If you shall, please get Ender from my study, I want him to patch the boy up, before he is put on one of those corpse piles, to be forgotten, but first, I will ensure he will not escape alive. Now, let's get to business-"
That man's leg crashed downwards onto Daniel's horrified complexion, leaving a dent in the back of his head, bashing it into the wooden floor and breaking the boards. Daniel's neck made a swift and deafening snapping sound, before the poor boy quickly fell into nothingness. An inescapable void. A void with no escape. No life, nor death. Just a despairing nothingness. In that void, someone died. And with that death, another being crawled out of it. A being born from nothing and everything all at once. An existence that wants nothing other than the sweat release of death. However, if the being didn't want a thing, how could it want death? It didn't. The being didn't want its life to end, but in reality the existence needed it. The being now wears the skin of a dead man. A dead boy.
In that void, a boy went in but another individual came out; for Daniel had died.