Warning: Not for faint hearted fellows.
The stairway led down into a suffocating darkness, each creaking step swallowed by the oppressive silence below.
As Arawn descended, the air thickened with rot and rusted iron, the scent of dried blood and something far more putrid clinging to the stone like mold.
The moment his foot touched the cellar floor, a new world unfolded before him.
Chains lined the walls like grotesque decorations, clinking faintly with unseen movement.
The flickering light of half-melted torches cast long shadows across the damp stone, revealing cells—no, cages—barely wide enough for a grown man to stand upright in.
Blood stained their iron bars, dark and dried in some places, fresh and dripping in others. The scent alone was enough to curdle the stomach.
Arawn moved cautiously, each step echoing louder than the last, as if the walls were mocking his presence.
His hand instinctively brushed against the wall beside him, grounding him in the dim murk.
’This place... it’s igniting the wrong kind of memories,’ he thought, jaw tightening. ’Should I even keep going? This isn’t good for my sanity. And I doubt this world has therapists.’
But his feet didn’t stop.
Because something deeper than fear pulled him forward.
And soon, he began to see them.
Through the shadows, faint silhouettes emerged. The flickering torchlight revealed faces—pale, hollow, lifeless. Captives. Prisoners.
The chained and forgotten. Some were old, frail bodies slumped like broken dolls. Others were young women, bearing bruises and wounds with vacant eyes.
But most were children.
Small. Silent. Still.
Their ages ranged from barely four or five years old to perhaps ten at the oldest.
Their tiny bodies were marred by deep wounds—not surface scratches or shallow cuts, but gaping, deliberate mutilations.
Some had flayed skin on their arms. Others bore open gashes across their backs. And yet, none cried.
Their eyes had long dried out of tears.
There was only numbness now.
Arawn’s breath caught in his throat.
A familiar heat surged through his chest, crawling up his spine and threatening to boil over.
His vision blurred for a second—not from fear, but fury. Memories clawed at the corners of his mind, threatening to drag him backward into a pit he had clawed his way out of.
’Keep calm. Keep calm. Keep calm. KEEP CALM, ARAWN—!’
With a grunt, he slammed his fist into his own cheek. Pain bloomed instantly, copper flooding his mouth as his lip split.
It grounded him—barely. But the fury still throbbed beneath his skin like a beast rattling its cage.
Slowly. Deliberately.
His hand trailed along the stone wall again, the cold grounding him with each step forward.
At the far end of the cellar—at the epicenter of this hell—a gaunt man stood hunched over a bloodstained table.
His frame was wiry and crooked, limbs too long, like a spider in human skin. He wore a patchy apron soaked in crimson, the fabric stiff with layers of dried gore. Fresh blood dripped from his sleeves.
But it was his face that enraged Arawn most.
A twisted grin stretched across his cheeks, lips pulled so wide it looked carved. His eyes glistened with a mania that made him instantly punchable—strangle-worthy.
In the dim light of the torch behind him sat a young boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen.
His white hair was matted with blood, his crimson eyes staring forward, unblinking, unfeeling. His expression was blank. Hollow.
Arawn knew that expression.
He had worn it once himself.
The boy’s face was mangled—cut and bruised beyond recognition.
Strips of flesh were missing from his cheeks and arms, as though pieces had been harvested from his body.
His limbs looked fragile, not from starvation, but from extraction. As if the very muscle had been peeled away over time.
And still, he didn’t flinch.
The gaunt man crouched before him, humming a disturbing little tune as he placed a thick iron nail on the boy’s last remaining clean fingernail.
Then, with the swing of a bloodstained hammer—
The hammer struck the nail with a sickening thud, plunging it deep into the soft flesh of the boy’s finger.
And in that moment—something inside Arawn snapped.
Like the breaking of a brittle thread holding back a storm, memories surged forward in a tidal wave of agony.
His breath hitched. His pupils shrank. His entire body went rigid as a jagged pulse of pain exploded in his skull.
His hands shot up, clawing at his temples.
A scream built in his throat but never made it out.
It was swallowed by the avalanche of memories slamming into him—each one heavier, sharper, crueler than the last. His knees gave out, crashing against the damp stone.
His fingernails raked across his face as if trying to tear the memories out—ripping skin, drawing blood that streaked down his cheeks in warm, stinging rivers.
But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
His fingers only dug deeper, as if pain from the present could drown the torment of the past.
| A room, dimly lit by a swinging bulb, its creak the only sound. A scar-faced man loomed over a small boy, no older than eight. Without warning, the man’s boot slammed into the child’s stomach.
The boy crumpled instantly, a wet gasp escaping his lips. Blood mixed with bile sprayed from his mouth as he curled into a trembling ball. |
| A smoky room. Laughter, thick and cruel. Gangsters lounged on leather sofas, their bellies bloated with liquor and pride.
A scrawny boy walked in, barely able to carry a tray stacked with cigarettes, a lighter, snacks... and a missing ashtray.
"What the hell is this?! Where’s the ashtray, you little shit?!" one of them barked.
He lunged forward, grabbing the boy by his hair and slamming his face into his knee. The crack of cartilage breaking echoed in the room. Blood poured from the boy’s nose, splattering the tray.
"Sor...r.r..y..." the boy stammered, dazed and dizzy.
Another man chuckled, lighting a cigarette. "Don’t worry, boys. We’ve got a living ashtray now."
He seized the boy by the face and pressed the burning end of his cigarette into the child’s eye.
The scream that followed wasn’t human. |
| A damp warehouse. Reeking of grease and fear.
A short, bloated man waddled forward, his breath heavy with meat and sweat. He held a hammer in one hand and a pouch jingling with nails in the other.
"You still can’t do a job right, huh?" he sneered. "Four years here, and you’re still useless."
He sighed dramatically, as if burdened by the failure. Then he grinned—a toothy, twisted smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
"It’s time for your punishment, runt."
Without warning, he forced the boy’s hand onto a wooden block and began driving nails through his fingers. One by one.
The hammer sang its cruel song with each blow. Blood gushed with every strike, the scent of iron thick in the air.
But the boy never cried.
No tears, no whimper.
Only a dead stare locked onto the man’s face.
A stare so chilling, so unblinking, that the laughter in the room eventually faded. |
Arawn gasped for air, his nails now drenched in his own blood. His face was a mess of torn skin and crimson trails, but he didn’t care.
Pain was good. Pain was grounding.
The memories were real.
His memories were real.
His breath came in ragged bursts. Lightning flickered across his body as amethyst sparks began dancing across his arms.
His mana flared—not with control, but with raw, untamed emotion.
His vision sharpened once more—and settled on the scene in front of him.
The gaunt man, still crouched with a hammer in hand.
The young boy, bleeding and broken but expressionless, as if life had long left him behind.
And that hammer, still warm with blood, still hovering over the boy’s trembling hand.