The tension was palpable, Plume stood up only to move away from them. Still, Sunny could swear that he has seen them exchanging glances, not the kind where Plume would be a victim. They seemed...both sorry.
Sunny was on his guard, after all…trying and trusting Ashe had proved to him not to be an option. She was constantly lying.
He respected her for that in a way… Just like you would be on your guard against an unarmed man, as his name is enough to let you know that he was dangerous whether he had a weapon or not.
And to make it worse, Sunny hadn't calmed down yet from his previous outburst.
[Sunless]:"Talk ? So you can lie to me ? Again?"
Ashe didn't even care to answer his accusation. She simply moved toward him.
No… She didn't move.
She appeared in front of him.
Her hand on his shoulder, she pushed him on the bed. Looking down on him with a cold stare.
[Ashe]:"You're right. I'll talk, and you will listen."
The air around him became heavy as steel, having trouble breathing. It was like he had a pressure on his chest. And yet, Ashe stood strong in front of him.
A perfect example of her words.
To have the strength to impose one's will.
And then, the world around him turned to black. Nothingness was his master and savior, one that he could only embrace as a finality of all things. Before light, there was nothing and after it, there will be nothing.
But the cycle was about to start again…
From nothingness birth a sound… Something small but overwhelming. That something was scratching against some piece of metal. Then one became two, then four, then eight. Followed by the smell of piss and still water eating away corpses that were left unclaimed.
Even without light, he knew.
He was at "home", Sunless was back in the sewers.
The same spot he had used during the gang's war, hoping to be left unheard and unseen. Without thinking, his body had returned to his old habits. To breathe so slowly that one might think that life had abandoned him. To do anything to not move, because any gesture might result in a sound, and any sound can and will result in being spotted.
And he knew far too well what would happen if he came to be found.
Still, the sounds coming from outside kept growing louder and louder. As if a swarm of rats were trying to break in to take everything from him. His meal, his flesh, his life…
[Ashe]:"You…"
The voice was resonating, not within his mind but in everything that surrounded him. Every wall, every piece of junk that served as his bed. Like a god speaking to his apostle…to punish him.
[Ashe]:"You think that you can tell us how to do things? You don't seem to understand your place in this situation, Sunless. I think you have forgotten something important, so let me help you remember…"
Sunless was trying to understand but body was taking over his mind. Fear was overwhelming control. Trauma awakened as the first footstep was heard. Distant at first but it grew closer, just like before.
His mind went blank.
His breathing quickened.
He had to run.
Because the shadow of Death was about to claim his next victim. The weakness, the fear, the pain… His hidden door was pushed wild open with his tremored hands. No words were spoken on his side, his tongue paralyzed by the outcome yet to be.
[Ashe]:"This is what awaits you if you don't follow the path we had prepared for you Sunless."
Leaving this time without his ration, he couldn't care less about food. All that mattered for him was to escape that ending that kept haunting his nights. So he ran. As if his life was in the line… And the chase began once more. The human-shaped hounds were pursuing him. Because fate couldn't be changed and his was to be used, broken and left behind.
-"GET BACK HERE, YOU DEEPSHIT!"
Everything was about to repeat itself, as any other route was blocked.
A wall had fallen down.
People were blocking the way.
The road had been flooded.
He was forced to repeat the same course of action, to dodge the same trap…to feel the same pain as his heart began to tighten from exhaustion.
[Ashe]:"How dare you to judge our ways of dealing with Nephis when you can't even handle yourself correctly ?"
The sewer wasn't infinite, and his time was about to run out.
-"I SWEAR! I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE! YOU SON OF A DEAD BITCH!"
The number of corners left was like a countdown for him.
[Ashe]:"Don't force my hand. I can make you feel the rest, Sunless. Just accept our help. Accept my help."
Three corners remaining.
[Ashe]:"The sooner you accept the truth, the faster you'll be out of here. And I'll make sure that you'll never have to go back to that place ever again."
Two corners remaining.
His pursuer was getting closer.
[Ashe]:"You'll be with your sister, far from us, and far from every danger."
Her voice seems to be…trembling ? As if she-
One corner remaining.
He felt his weak body crumbling from within.
[Ashe]:"You don't have to be in danger…You…You don't have to die Sunless."
Her tone was changing word after word, becoming colder and colder. From something comforting to something that sounded almost like an unspoken death threat. It was as if she was blendi-
No corner left, he saw a flash of light coming with thunder. And still, he kept running… Because something in him was refusing it. Every bone in his body was screaming at him that accepting it would be the easiest choice to make.
But nothing was easy in this life, and if it was…it was destined to end badly.
Hard times build strong people.
Weakness can only bring weakness.
So he kept running, even if he knew what was in front of him. Rain was pouring outside, and he soon got the chance to be blessed by this watered coldness from mother nature.
People were waiting for him outside.
People were reaching for him inside.
He was surrounded.
[Ashe]:"Is it what you want? To join your parents in a meaningless death? Like a rat? You had one job, it was to fucking listen and you can't even do that."
He didn't even dare to share a word, his eyes analyzing every possibility to escape that hell. Because the matriarch's voice had lost its warmth. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
So for the first time, Sunless had to try to break free.
All that wasn't real.
It was just a dream or simply an illusion.
He felt something around his mind as if it was covered by a shell. He visualized himself punching against it. For each punch, a lighting was born, as if it tried to break the sky itself.
[Ashe]:"YOU DARE ?!"
Her voice sounded like an earthquake.
And yet, he couldn't try anything else as the first strike connected with the back of his head. Followed by his ribs.
Arms.
Back.
Head.
Arms. Something cracked.
Head.
Ribs. Something cracked again.
Victimized on the floor, his body was breaking down. Fractured bones broke, blood vessel exploded as his skin started to gain shade of red, blue, purple and black all over it;
His cries of pain were lost within those of the sky.
[Ashe]:"YOU DARE TO REJECT MY OFFER? IF YOU WANT TO DIE THAT BADLY, I'll DO IT MYSELF! HERE AND NOW!"
Her voice wasn't even hers anymore, morphing to match one of those who destroyed him once. One of those trying to kill him right now.
The pain…He couldn't even feel the rain on him anymore.
His mind was trying it best to escape.
And yet, the pain never stopped.
Unlike his cries that became silent over time.
It wasn't long before he got to feel it.
Death's hand reaching for him.
And yet, in a murmur…Leaving his broken figure…
[Sunless]:"I…don't to die…Mom…Please…Save me....Jea-"
CRACK
The sound of his neck cracking was the only answer he got.
Nothingness came to take him…
But it didn't. Because, without realizing it, he was standing once again under the rain. Surrounded by the same things that made him forget that he was a human being. His legs had already given up, falling on his knees as tears ran down to be mistaken for raindrops.
[Ashe]:"I said here and now…but I never said for how long."
Then it started once again… Drowning in his own blood because of a punctured lung.
Then again…His head smashed open with a crowbar's blow.
Then again…Bleeding out on the deep-red colored mud.
Then again…His heart gave out because of the pain.
Time has lost its meaning… His identity had been reduced to nothing. As the cycle repeated itself, the boy named Sunless died over and over. His own body changed as if it had forgotten what it was supposed to look like. His skin crackled as if something from beneath it was trying to escape.
Nails and fingers far too long. Teeth sharper. It couldn't be described as human anymore.
If he couldn't break out of this torture, the only option left was to kill Ashe.
And without knowing how or why, he felt like he could. Right here, right now, he felt like he could kill her.
A beast shaped by the horror of the Outskirt, and refined to be the manifestation of every bad thing in there. Fueled by pain, hate and madness. He visualized a hand reaching for her throat. How he would pierce her with his nails…his claws.
He saw it.
He-
Everything turned to black once again.
Surrounded by nothingness, the beast was waiting for the rain to fall once more.
But it didn't.
Instead… Someone appeared.
Someone with an ever changing face, as if she herself didn't know what she looked like. There was only her, standing and looking at him. Both enraged and at peace. Both lost and happy to be here. She tried to come closer to him in this zone where nothing exists if not those two individuals.
The boy once named Sunless couldn't move away, so when her hand tried to reach him, his only answer was to bite it. Lacerating it to shreds. To be the aggressor without giving the chance of being the victim.
But it didn't care.
Every injury inflicted disappeared the next instant.
So the woman kept getting closer, her hand reaching toward…to ultimately touching the back of his head. Moving him in an embrace that he couldn't reject. Any resistance was futile. She was doing whatever she wanted to with him as multiple voices rang at once in perfect harmony.
[???]:"I'm sorry…It shouldn't have happened. It's my fault…Ashe's Aspect was resonating with your deepest fear…And she got swallowed. Let me handle this…I won't let you die. Because it is not as things should be."
No answer from the beast…no, the boy, feeling finally at peace as the memory of this torture was being erased. Just like every other interaction they had until now, he and her in his sleep. All his senses were numbed as the woman's figure started to vanish.
Left alone in this nothingness until…