Chapter 36: The Hairline Fracture
It hurted. Hurts. Hahahaha. Hurts it. I hurt.
The words came out of my mouth but I didn't know if they were real or in my head. There was no difference anymore. Everything was the same. Pain and white. White and pain. Sometimes voices. Sometimes faces.
Hahaha! Huhuhuu. Hahaha. Hurt.
I laughed and cried at the same time. The sounds mixed together until I couldn't tell which was which. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the pain and the waiting for the pain and the remembering of the pain.
As the days went out I became more and more crazier.
I know this now. I didn't know it then. Then I only knew that the world had shrunk to the size of my own skull. The white room existed but it was far away. The experiments happened but they happened to someone else. I was somewhere else. Somewhere inside.
I could only see lights and feel endless pain.
The lights came in patterns. Bright then dim. Red then white. Sometimes they flashed in sequences that I tried to count but always lost track. The pain came in patterns too. Burning then cutting then freezing then burning again. They were trying different things. Testing different methods.
I don't know how much time has elapsed or what is going on with me.
Days? Weeks? Months? The concept had lost meaning. There was only before pain and during pain and after pain. Before pain was anticipation. During pain was existence. After pain was recovery, which was just waiting for the next before.
Everything was moving as if I was in a trance state.
I watched myself from far away. A small body strapped to a chair. A small face contorted in agony. A small mouth opening and closing in screams I could barely hear. That was me. That was also not me. I was somewhere else.
There was nothing to do. No one to help.
In the beginning I had planned. I had thought about escape, about strategies, about what I would do when I got free. That faded. Then I had remembered. I had thought about Cinder, about the prison, about my father's plan. That faded too.
Just the sea and I flowing through it.
The ocean was always there now. When the pain was too much, I went there. When the waiting was too long, I went there. It was dark and endless and it held me. The water was cold but I didn't feel it. The pressure was immense but I didn't notice. I just floated, deeper and deeper, away from the surface, away from the white room, away from everything.
When will this end? I asked myself.
The answer is what I didn't have.
I asked the question many times. In the ocean. In the white room. In the moments between. No answer ever came. The experiments continued. The pain continued. The ocean continued. Everything continued except me. I was stopping. Freezing. Becoming something else.
I could see faces endlessly talking endlessly giving me pain.
They stood behind the glass, those faces. Sometimes they changed. New ones appeared. They talked to each other, pointed at screens, nodded at readings. I was data to them. Not a person. Just a thing that produced interesting results.
What are they trying to do?
The question surfaced sometimes, through the fog. What did they want? Why was I here? The Director had talked about Aetherlessness, about research, about becoming the core of their studies. But that was just words. The reality was pain. Maybe that was the point. Maybe pain was all they wanted.
Is there anything I could do?
The question was rhetorical. I knew the answer. Nothing. There was nothing I could do. The chains held. The chair held. The room held. I was trapped completely, utterly, forever.
I slowly started losing my personality.
It happened gradually, then suddenly. One day I realized I couldn't remember what I used to be like. The boy who planned prison breaks, who fought guards, who outsmarted everyone—that boy was gone. In his place was something else. Something that floated in oceans and watched itself from far away.
I was in a separate place, the ocean or the white room waiting, contemplating, thinking, laughing, crying, hitting, playing, fighting, killing.
All of it happened at once. In the ocean I was alone. In the white room I was a prisoner. In my mind I was everything. I built worlds. I destroyed them. I created people and made them suffer. I saved people and made them love me. None of it was real. All of it was real. The line had dissolved.
It was amazing, you know?
The thought came to me in a moment of clarity. Amazing that I could escape into myself when my body had no escape. Amazing that even in the worst situation, the brain found ways to survive.
The world was in my hands. I could control Aether in my dreams.
In the ocean, I had power. I raised my hand and fire followed. I pointed and wind obeyed. I closed my fist and the water parted. This was what Aether felt like. This was what I had been denied my whole life. In dreams, I was whole.
I could fight in the white room.
Sometimes I imagined fighting back. The chains would break. I would stand. I would walk to the glass and the people behind it would be afraid.
Hahaha! I laughed. Is this the only way?
The laughter echoed in the ocean. In the white room, my body laughed too. I heard it sometimes, a sound coming from far away. Hysterical. Broken. Free.
Am I the only one?
Surely there were others. I wasn't alone in this place, was I? But in the ocean I was alone. In the pain I was alone.
As time passed I got more and more into the ocean, moving deep inside and meeting new fishes that I haven't seen.
They came to me in the darkness. Strange creatures with glowing parts and too many teeth. They swam around me, curious, unafraid. They didn't know what I was. They didn't know what I could do.
Wow. How beautiful. Are these deep sea fishes?
I watched them move. Their grace was hypnotic. They had adapted to the pressure, to the darkness, to the cold. They thrived where nothing should thrive. They were like me, in a way. Surviving where survival seemed impossible.
Look, they are thriving under the pressure!
The thought made me happy for a moment. They were beautiful. They were strong. They were my only companions in this endless dark.
What if I cut them?
The thought came from nowhere. Or maybe it came from everywhere. From the pain. From the faces behind the glass who cut me and watched and learned.
What will happen? Will they struggle? To death? Or will they die without pain?
The questions consumed me. I had to know. I had to understand. The fish were mine. The ocean was mine. I could do whatever I wanted.
I really wanted to see.
So I did.
I cut the fish up and it started moving irregularly. Its body convulsed. Its fins beat uselessly. Its mouth opened and closed in silent screams.
Hahahahhahahahhahahahhahaha!
The laughter exploded from me. So you do feel pain! Just like me! You understand now! You know what it's like!
I started cutting the rest of the fish. My hands moved faster and faster. The water turned red. Bodies floated everywhere. Some tried to flee but there was nowhere to flee.
Hahahahaha it's so fun. Seeing them run for their lives.
Cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut.
I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. The motion felt good. The power felt good. For the first time in so long, I was the one causing pain instead of receiving it.
I AM THE KING OF THIS DEEP OCEAN!
My voice boomed through the water. The remaining fish heard it and trembled. I knew they trembled. I could feel their fear like a physical thing.
HAHAHAHA!
No one will disagree with me.
I moved here and there trying to dominate the ocean. Every corner I claimed. Every creature I found I either killed or made my servant. The ocean bent to my will because I willed it so.
It was the white room in my dreams.
The two places merged. The ocean became the white room. I was everywhere and nowhere. I was everything and nothing.
I had Aether. I do have it.
The realization was glorious. In this place, in this dream, in this madness, I was not Aetherless. I was full. I was complete. I was what I should have been.
I started making fireballs, wind slashes.
The power flowed through me like it had always been there. Fire and air and water and earth, all mine to command. I threw fire at imagined enemies. I cut wind through imagined armies. I raised walls of stone and drowned cities in waves.
This is the true power of fantasy!
This was what the system had promised. This was why I had transmigrated. Not for pain. Not for chains. Not for experiments. For this. For power.
I am the world. The world is me. Everything is me.
The thought was complete. There was no separation anymore. I was the ocean. I was the white room. I was the pain and the pleasure and the madness. Everything that existed existed because I existed.
Every moment is mine. Everything is mine.
Hahahahhahahahhahahahhahaha!!
The laughter went on forever. It filled the ocean. It filled the white room.
Suddenly the world started to distort with a sharp voice that hurted my ears.
The sound cut through everything. It was loud and mechanical and it did not belong. It tore holes in my ocean. It cracked the walls of my white room.
Who the fuck is that?
I looked around but saw nothing. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
I am gonna kill you!! Show me your face.
No face appeared.
Coward!
The word echoed. The voice kept going, sharp and insistent, hurting my ears, hurting my head, hurting my world.
You are scared right? Scared of me!?
The distortion grew worse. My ocean churned. My white room flickered.
Because now I have Aether!
I raised my hands to show my power. Fire and wind swirled around me. Let them see.
Aahahahahaha! Everyone should be scared of me!
The red colour spammed at the white room.
It came from everywhere, bleeding through the walls, through the water, through me. Red like blood. Red like alarms. Red like the lights I had seen so many times before.
Huh? What the hell is happening?
The ocean faded. The white room returned but it was wrong. The red lights were real. The sharp voice was real. An alarm.
I started to gain my consciousness back.
It came in pieces. First the sound. Then the lights. Then the feeling of the chair beneath me. Then the chains around my wrists and ankles. Then the pain, always the pain, but different now. Less. Distant.
My eyes opened. I was in the white chamber.
Something had happened.
I breathed heavily.
Air filled my lungs. Real air. Not ocean water. My chest rose and fell. My heart beat fast and hard.
Can I escape?
The thought was the first clear thought I had had in what felt like forever.
I could move my head.
I tested it. Left. Right. Up. Down. My neck worked. My head moved. That was something.
The chains were still strong, but one part of it was a little weak.
I saw it. A link near my right wrist that was thinner than the others.
My hands and legs couldn't move. They were still strapped too tightly. But my right wrist was close to that weak link. If I could reach it, if I could break it, if I could free one hand, then maybe—
I could reach the weak chain but I couldn't break it.
My fingers touched it. I pulled. Nothing. The metal held. I didn't have the strength.
My head was free. The only option came into my mind. Hit the head on the chain.
The thought was insane. But I was insane. The ocean was still inside me. The madness was still there. And in madness, insane choices made perfect sense.
I did it without hesitation.
I hit my head on the chain.
BAM!
Pain exploded in my skull. The chain dented slightly. My vision swam.
BAM!
Again. More pain. More denting. Blood started to flow down my forehead.
BAM! BAM!
The chain bent further. My head screamed. But I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Blood splattered everywhere. On the chain. On my hands. On the floor. It didn't hurt at all.
That was the strangest part. It should have hurt. Cracking your own skull against metal should have been agony. But I felt nothing. Or rather, I felt everything and nothing and the pain was just another sensation, no different from the red lights or the alarm sound.
Hahahaha hahahah… uiwiwiusjsso.
I couldn't speak much. My mouth didn't work right anymore. But I could laugh. I always could laugh. I only laugh at my own pain.
The chain finally broke.
The weak link snapped. My right hand came free. Blood dripped from my head onto my lap.
My head started to hurt.
I noticed it distantly. Like it was happening to someone else.
But it doesn't matter.
My right hand was free. The red alarms were still going off. I didn't have much time.
I broke the left chain too with my pure strength. Now that one hand was free, I could get better leverage. I pulled and twisted and the metal gave way.
Then I broke the leg chain. One after another, the straps snapped. My legs were free.
I stood up.
And fell immediately because my legs couldn't handle my weight. They had been strapped down for too long. The muscles had atrophied. They shook and buckled and dumped me on the floor.
I fell on the floor where the blood had splattered. The same blood of mine. I lay there for a moment, face in the red, breathing.
I cannot lay here.
The thought pushed me. They will come. The alarm meant something was wrong. I needed to be gone before that happened.
I pushed my body up.
It took everything. My arms shook. My legs screamed. But I rose. First to my knees. Then, holding the chair, to my feet.
Strangely my heart started to pump blood faster. My muscles tightened even though they were unused for a long time. Adrenaline. The body's last gift.
I looked at the glass.
This was the only thing that stopped me. Beyond it, the room with the controls. Beyond that, the corridor. Beyond that, maybe, freedom.
I punched it.
My fist hit the glass. Nothing. No crack.Just a dull thud and pain in my knuckles.
I have to focus on its weak spot and the stress on the glass should be high.
The knowledge came from somewhere, probably from earth. Glass could be broken if you concentrated force on a small area.
I started striking it with my fingers.
I used my fingertips, hard and focused, hitting the same tiny spot over and over. Each strike sent pain up my arm. Each strike did almost nothing. But almost nothing added up.
After doing this for a few minutes a small crack appeared.
It was tiny. A hairline fracture. But it was there.
I immediately punched the crack very hard.
My fist connected. The crack spread. I punched again. And again. And again.
The glass broke.
Shards flew everywhere. I climbed through the opening, cutting my arms and legs on the jagged edges. Didn't matter. Nothing mattered except forward.
I jumped outside and ran.
The control room was empty. The alarm was louder here. Screens flashed with warnings. I didn't look at them. I ran for the door.
I went randomly.
The corridor outside was long and white with many doors. Some were open. Some were closed. I passed them all. Left. Right. Straight. I didn't know where I was going. I just went.
There were many areas.
I passed through what looked like a laboratory, full of equipment I didn't recognize. Then a dormitory, with empty beds. Then a cafeteria, with half-eaten meals on tables. Everyone had fled. The alarm had cleared the place.
I saw an open latch leading downstairs.
A hole in the floor with a ladder going down. No time to think. I grabbed the rungs and descended.
Below was more white. More corridors. More doors. And sounds. Shouting. Fighting. The clash of weapons.
I peeked around a corner. There was some guards catching the runaway experiments.
Prisoners in white clothes like mine were being rounded up. Some fought. Most surrendered. The guards were efficient, professional, unhurried.
There was no way to go out.
They blocked every exit I could see. If I tried to run past, they would catch me. My body was too weak. I had no weapon. No plan.
I ran and jumped inside a small room, closing the underground gate off.
Falling into the ground.
The drop was short. Five meters, maybe. I hit hard, rolled, came to rest on a stone floor. Dirt and dust everywhere.
Fuck!!
I breathed heavily. My chest heaved. My head throbbed. My body screamed for rest.
My eyes were heavy. The adrenaline was fading. The madness was fading too, leaving behind exhaustion so complete I could barely think.
I slept.
Right there, on the cold stone floor of whatever tunnel I had found, I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.