My consciousness shook up with a blur.
For a moment I didn't know where I was. My eyes opened to white. White ceiling. White walls. White floor. Is this the white chamber? Again? Did I die?
Everything was white, so bright it hurt to look at. I tried to move my arms and heard the rattle of metal. Chains. My hands were tied to the arms of the chair. My legs too, strapped down at the ankles and calves. I was sitting in a metal chair, bolted to the floor.
No, this is reality.
I looked here and there, trying to understand. The room was small, maybe four meters square. Empty except for this chair and some equipment I didn't recognize. Machines with screens, tubes, wires. A syringe was applied to my hand, taped down, connected to a tube that ran up to a bag of clear liquid hanging from a pole.
What the hell is going on?
"Patient XX-Prime was woken up. Commence the experiment." A voice echoed through the chamber. It came from speakers somewhere above, flat and clinical.
I couldn't move. The chains were too tight, the straps too secure. I pulled against them anyway, felt metal bite into my wrists. Nothing gave.
Suddenly, I was turned 180 degrees by some mechanism. The chair rotated on a central pivot, smooth and silent. Now I faced a large glass panel. On the other side, I could see people standing. Four of them. Three men and a woman, all wearing red coats, all watching me like I was a specimen.
One of them stepped forward to a microphone. His voice came through the speakers.
"Hello, Zyphron of Theodore. We are here to experiment with your Aetherlessness. First, let's check how your body reacts when Aether is forced into you."
He clicked some buttons on a panel in front of him. I heard machinery whir to life behind me. The bag on the pole began to bubble. Liquid Aether moved through the tube.
I felt it enter my vein. It was cold at first, like ice water spreading through my arm. Then it changed. The cold became heat. The heat became fire.
My body violently rejected the Aether.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
The scream tore out of me without my permission. It BURNED. LIKE FIRE. Like someone had poured molten metal into my veins. I could feel the Aether pushing through my bloodstream, trying to find purchase, trying to settle into my body. But there was nothing there. And my body was fighting back.
I trembled through the chair, burning like crazy. My back arched against the straps. My head snapped back. My vision went fuzzy at the edges, then dark, then light again in pulses. My body having seizure, muscles contracting and releasing without my control.
Fuckckckkcuvkc!!! Ahhhhhhh!!
Jripaqkdjkfoe, wkwkpwuieksiiskmmofl.
My mouth moving and opening in various angles. Sounds came out that weren't words, weren't even human. My jaw locked, then unlocked, then locked again. I bit my tongue. Blood filled my mouth.
I tried to speak to make thoughts, to form any coherent idea, but it all got blinded in the pain. There was only the fire. Only the burning. Only the endless, agonizing rejection of something my body could not accept.
How long did it last? Seconds? Minutes? I couldn't tell. Time stopped meaning anything.
Finally, the pain stopped.
The Aether flow ceased. The burning receded, slowly, like water draining from a pool. I breathed very hard, my face downward, hanging against my chest. Drool and blood dripped onto my lap.
My senses were numb. I couldn't feel my hands, my feet, my face. Gradually, slowly, sensation returned. I could feel my legs touching the floor through the soles of my feet. I could feel the cold metal of the chair against my back. I could feel the straps still holding me down.
I looked at the white tile on the floor. There was a crack in it, right in front of me. A small imperfection in all that whiteness. I focused on it, used it to anchor myself back to reality.
I could hear muffled voices through the glass. They were talking about me.
"It's amazing." A man's voice. "Rare to see a one hundred percent repel of Aether. Most Aetherless show some 0.000001 percent absorption, even if they can't use it. This one rejects everything."
"He might become the core of our research." Another voice. Older.
"Did you see that?" The first voice again.
"What, Director?"
"His mental strength. The way he held on. Didn't lose consciousness. That's way higher than even most adults we've tested."
A pause. Then the second voice spoke. "Yes, that will help in our experiments. We can push further. Get more data about how Aether concentrates."
After that, they started preparing for another experiment. I saw them moving behind the glass, consulting screens, adjusting controls. One of them left and returned with something in his hand. A weapon, maybe. I couldn't tell.
Why? Why did I choose to escape?
The thought hit me like a physical blow. I had chosen this. I had left Cinder. I had thought I could survive on my own, that my skills, my mind, my training would be enough. And now I was here, strapped to a chair, about to be experimented on by people who saw me as nothing but a specimen.
Why didn't I choose Cinder?
If I had stayed with him, I would be in House Theodore by now. Safe. Bounded by shackles but safe. Instead, I was here.
Are they gonna continue this?
I looked at them through the glass. They were still preparing. The one with the weapon was approaching a small door in the side of the glass enclosure. A delivery port. He placed the weapon inside, closed the door. On my side, a panel slid open. The weapon was there. A short spear, made of some material I didn't recognize.
Yes, damn it. They are.
I cannot do anything. I pulled at the straps again. Nothing. The chains held. The chair was bolted to the floor. There was no give, no weakness, no opportunity.
This is torture. How am I gonna escape this?
The question had no answer. I was strapped to a chair in an unknown location, surrounded by people who wanted to hurt me for science. There was no escape. There was only what came next.
They started the next experiment.
The panel slid open fully. The short wind kin spear rose into the air. The spear rotated, aimed at me.
Then it flew.
The wind spear hit my shoulder. The tip drove in, through skin, through muscle, scraping against bone. I felt it enter, felt the cold metal inside my body.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH" I shouted again, but this time the pain was less compared to the previous one. Not less in absolute terms. Less because I had something to compare it to. The burning had been worse. This was just injury. I could handle damage.
The wind spear slowly vanished. It dissolved, the Aether that had formed it dispersing back into the air. The weapon was gone, but the wound remained. Blood soaked into my shirt.
And then my body healed.
I felt it happening. The wound knitting closed. The blood stopping. The skin sealing over. It took maybe thirty seconds. When it was done, there was nothing left but a scar, pale against my skin.
What's happening?
They must have done something. Healing magic?
I don't know.
What are they even doing? Why is this happening to me again?
The questions spun in my mind, finding no purchase. This was the curse of extreme nightmare difficulty. That was the only explanation that made sense. The system had thrown me into a world of pain and just said 'good luck '.
Every unfortunate thing happens to me!
I thought of my past life. My real life. The memories were faded now, twelve years of this world pressing them down, but they were still there. I had been normal. Ordinary. And then the system killed me, forcing me to live as Zyphron.
Why did the system transmigrate me to make me suffer like this?
Was someone watching? Was someone out there, beyond the walls of this world, enjoying my life, my struggles, my pain? Was this what it was? A show? Content for beings who could watch and laugh and never feel a moment of what I felt?
Why? Why always me?
The question had no answer. It never did. Bad things happened to people for no reason. That was the lesson of my past life. That was the lesson of this one too.
Is this what my life has become?
I looked at the figures behind the glass. They were preparing again. Another experiment.
No.
The thought crystallized in my mind, hard and cold.
There's no way I would accept this.
I would not lie here and take it. I would not let them use me until I broke. I would fight, even if I couldn't move, couldn't talk, couldn't do anything. Even if the situation was hopeless. Even if every logical part of my mind told me there was no way out. I would fight in the only way I could. I would survive. I would watch. I would wait. And when the moment came, if it ever came, I would take it. I would find a way. I would make one.
I will definitely escape.
It is what it is. I tried to accept the situation.
Not accept defeat. Accept reality. This was where I was. This was what was happening. Denying it wouldn't change it. Fighting against the chains right now wouldn't break them. So I would wait. I would endure. And I would be ready.
Even though it was hopeless.
The next experiment began. I don't know what they did. I stopped paying attention to the details. There was pain. There was always pain. But I had made a decision, and that decision gave me something to hold onto.
As my consciousness flickered, fading in and out with each new wave of agony, I could see an endless harsh sea. The one with no end. Dark water stretching to every horizon, waves rising and falling, storm clouds gathered above. There was no land in sight.
Just like there was no end of pain. No end of peripeteia. No end of misfortune.
The cycle continues.