Forced into a sea of darkness, life was not kind. The crawling of skin, the cold touched on every part of the body, and the constant hissing of creatures close to his ears made the man normally so proud a weeping wreck. Had he gone wrong in life or had life decided to do it all from the start? Buck wanted so desperately to know so he could direct his hate towards the right people. His mind was feeling pressure like no other but he couldn’t get himself to break down. Something in him refused to let that happen, no matter how much he wanted it to.
He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to be forced into the torture happening in the darkness. His wounds had been created through the rough ground and were dragged the whole way down. It hurt so much yet the headache was getting stronger and stronger. Why wouldn’t it stop?
The pain was getting to a point of insanity, to a point where a mortal man should have fallen to his knees. Maybe that was the cheat Buck had at his side, his body already flat on the ground. There was no further place to fall both mentally and physically, his mind and flesh already at the bottom. He could only dig from here, yet that was taking its time, instead of just him being shoved against the hard surface, again and again, only furthering his brain damage.
You have lived up to your title of [Mad One]
For your actions and reasoning, you have been granted [1] Attribute Points!
… While the mental image was getting harder and harder to follow through with, Buck understood the pain wasn’t new. It was still there, it could still be felt. It was omnipresent, the only real thing he could feel anymore. The sensation of his skin was a mix of burning and extreme cold. He couldn’t really tell the difference anymore, though there was a good chance that he was losing health. Not that he could really check, his mind not up to the standard of doing such a thing. It all hurt too much. He couldn’t focus enough to do anything for anyone and much less making actual decisions.
‘I think you have lied there enough now,’ an older woman could be heard saying. At least Buck think he heard it, his ears having been filled with blood by now. He shouldn’t have heard much more than a quiet gurgling and a bit of white noise, yet here he was hearing full-on voices. If they had come back, it would have been another whole bout of trouble. ‘Get up.’
“Fuck off,” was the only real response Buck could make. The words might not even have been that legible to anybody, the sounds used to make the words being more guttural noises. Anything more complex than hissing was becoming harder at a rapid rate. “Leave me alone.”
With a small bout of strength somehow recovered, the pitiful Druid flapped his arms around. There wasn’t much space for it, sadly, a sharp pain being felt in his elbows by the time he raised them above his head. The slacking power that had held him down before did their best to drive claws into his skin again. At least it felt like it, the tearing of skin on his arms being a whole new batch of sensations he didn’t want to think about. So, he screamed at the top of his lungs yet again, unable to do anything else. Even though bloodied ears and a runny nose, he was still able to hear how it echoed across the walls. He hoped Aloy could hear them so she understood what she had caused him.
‘You have five seconds to shut up before I start cutting off your fingers,’ the woman stated, though Buck didn’t pay it much mind. He was too busy screaming until his throat went hoarse, waiting a minute, and then starting up the process yet again.
Something akin to a sigh was heard just as he lost sensation in one of his hands. Not the whole hand but a solid part of it, that being his right ring finger. Since he was already so close to the ground, the other fingers close to it could still feel the appendage, though a direct connection was gone. It had been cut off.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
That was a whole other bout of screaming which included Buck desperately trying to clutch his right and with the other, though that wasn’t allowed due to the harsh weights on his arms. The sharper points dug into his muscle as he tried to escape but even that was worthless, nothing happening outside of more pain. Buck just became a sobbing mess at that point, not really trying to escape anymore. Hours had gone by in the black area and he hadn’t achieved anything but hurting himself more. He would die and that would be it. He didn’t accept it but he knew it was futile. Crying was the only path he could take.
‘Do we accept crying as not screaming?’ the woman questioned, though… it wasn't too Buck. It wasn’t anywhere close to something that could have been said to him. ‘No? Okay.’
The pressure on his mind started anew as he was brought onto another onslaught of pain, torture, and a feeling of his mind being one step away from exploding into a grey mess. Yet throughout it all, he felt some semblance of control. It wasn’t due to him getting some tolerance for pain or the ability to ignore it. He just understood where it was coming from and was able to focus on that just a bit more. Buck didn’t scream as his nails felt like they were being pulled off again and again, and nor did he utter a word when his tongue swelled up and it became hard to breathe.
‘Are you ready to settle down now?’ the woman asked again. Buck couldn’t see her, his eyes were not able to pierce the darkness still. Even then he wouldn’t have been able to see himself, tears stuck to his eyes like glue. Yet any words in his throat had the same fate, never uttered. He barely even took in a breath, just lying there on the ground silently. He was as much a piece of the rocks as anything else, the broken skin over his body slowly getting the same hardened texture. They had been open for too long. ‘What a perfect answer.’
Through the blood-filled ears, the [Druid] was able to hear steps through the constant chattering. Even when all the ants were shouting and screaming around, those steps were as clear as day. There were so many yet they held a different quality than all the other ants. Was this… was this a human? No, it had to be. He had heard a human woman, that type of voice impossible to hear anywhere else. It sounded like somebody he had known so long ago. Buck knew what humans sounded like because of it.
‘He’s looking around now,’ the woman said, this time just as clearly not wanting Buck to hear it. But… who was she talking to? He could hear more footsteps than a human should have had so there was somebody other than her. Yet, they were as quiet as the wing or even more. He should have been able to pick them out, even though the glaze of pain he was being put through. Only the waves of energy as the Dungeon flickered around could be sensed. What was it even doing? ‘I suppose we could do that. Give me a moment to prepare.’
Then came the sounds of flesh being torn again. It wasn’t Buck being the source this time, the pain not being inflicted on him anymore. Nothing was touching him at all, actually, only the wound had been in any danger. Blood was still running out of him, though. His back was likely red by that point. The rocks beneath him weren’t being kind to him and a pulsing vein might have been hit along the way.
It sounded like bubbles were being popped, though the small spurts of liquid being forced onto Buck’s body could only leave him guessing. It stunk like rotting meat like what he expected a certain healer to look like, yet it was much too gooey to have been something like that. What could it have-
‘And let there be light.’
Like a wave of sensation, everything that was close to his eyes became closed off. The pressure on his arms was removed and Buck was allowed to exclaim obscenities as he shielded his eyes from the blinding lights above. When had he gotten inside a house able to have such things? And the power they had on them was more than anything felt before. Even with the eyes closed and buried in his bloody arms, the man couldn’t stop himself from seeing spots all around. It was without relation to pain.
‘Look at me,’ the woman could be heard saying as the lights just turned on. Buck was not much to listen to her yet could still feel the lack of his tenth finger. He didn’t want to lose another one yet he also knew the pain that would be gotten from stopping the shield in front of his irises. He would be blinded but he wouldn’t lose another appendage. Opening up his eyes again, the lights had clearly been muted slightly, yet the site ahead was unlike anything seen before.
It was another ant, though this one was much more grey in colouring. Standing with a disfigured head, it was in a class of its own just because of that alone. Yet what set apart, and simultaneously made Buck unable to utter a word, was the mass of fleshy tendrils that dug out from the creature’ back. They moved around the nearby floor and air as if they were with their own will, mere parasites on a host’s body. Buck, unable to do much else, looked to the left and puked, nearly falling into his vomit before he was done. Things were getting blurry.
‘Yes, I can see what is-’
Buck wasn’t able to do much else but fall against the rough stones on the ground as he lost the last bit of blood that was letting him survive. Perhaps getting up from his lying position had been a bad idea.