I was sad.
But sadness was not the thing consuming me.
It was anger.
A dark, choking, blood-boiling anger that sat inside my chest like molten iron.
Had I possessed even the slightest strength in that moment, I would have killed them all without hesitation—without guilt, without mercy, without a single tremor in my hands.
At that time, however, I did not understand.
I did not know that everything happening to me was merely the beginning of a process.
A necessary breaking.
A deliberate destruction meant to hollow me out and prepare me for something far beyond what any sane man could call suffering.
Something was approaching.
Something monstrous.
And not a single soul in this rotting world knew that their ordinary lives were nearing an end.
No one knew that I—this humiliated, beaten, half-dead prisoner—was being shaped into an instrument for a force so vast that even those trying to erase me from existence could never have imagined it.
I watched the torn pieces of cloth drift slowly to the floor.
My fingers moved on instinct, frantic and trembling, trying to shield what little remained of my nakedness. One arm crossed over my chest, the other wrapped desperately around my lower body. My knees pressed inward, thighs shaking, preserving the final scraps of dignity that these monsters had not yet stolen.
Then a brutal force slammed into my spine.
"Urghhh!"
Pain exploded through my back as I crashed face-first onto the freezing stone floor. For a second I could not breathe. My lungs convulsed uselessly while my cheek scraped against the rough ground.
Through watering eyes, I saw the raised boot of the female ward in-charge.
Her expression did not change.
No anger. No disgust. No pleasure.
Just a flat, emotionless face—as if she were reciting a line from a manual.
"If any one of you can break him completely, all of you will be rewarded with a month's feast."
Her words spread through the chamber like the scent of blood dropped into a pit of starving beasts.
I looked up.
Dozens of women stared back at me from behind rusted bars and filthy corners.
Their eyes…
God.
Their eyes were dead.
Not human.
Not even hateful.
Just hollow sockets filled with a starvation so deep it had devoured sympathy long ago.
Like hyenas circling a wounded animal too weak to run.
This place—NARAK—had beaten mercy out of them years ago.
I swallowed.
No.
I prayed.
I prayed that whatever they would do would still be less than what Silviya had done.
How far could people really go for a month of food?
How much cruelty could hunger buy?
Apparently… everything.
Because what happened in the days that followed did not merely hurt me.
It erased me.
It stripped away thought, reason, resistance—until I was little more than a twitching body obeying pain.
Exactly as the wardens wanted.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Silviya leaving with the female in-charge.
She did not look back.
That was the last time I saw Silviya as Karan.
The female prisoners were far more inventive than Silviya.
Silviya had tortured with method.
These women tortured with desperation.
And desperation breeds a cruelty far uglier than discipline.
"AAAHHHHH—IT HURTS—IT HURTS—!"
My scream echoed through the women's block as two prisoners dragged me by my hair across the corridor.
Naked.
Bleeding.
Helpless.
Every inch of stone scraped skin from my back.
My scalp felt as though it would peel away in their fists.
Cells opened as prisoners leaned out to watch.
Some laughed. Some spat. Some stared with exhausted indifference.
No one pitied me.
I was no longer a person here.
I was a spectacle.
A moving corpse presented for amusement.
The tortures blurred together after that.
I remember flashes.
Hands forcing my jaw open.
Blows raining on my ribs until breathing itself became labor.
Something hard striking my fingers one by one.
The copper taste of blood flooding my mouth.
Laughter.
Always laughter.
At one point agony climbed so high that my mind simply went white.
I blacked out.
When I awoke, pain greeted me before sight did.
My body no longer felt like my own.
It felt stitched together from broken pieces.
Whenever exhaustion dragged me toward unconsciousness, they found a new way to deny me even that mercy.
A clay pot was suspended above my face.
Water dripped from it.
One drop.
Then another.
Then another.
Each cold strike landed on the same spot of my forehead.
Slow. Measured. Endless.
I begged. I cried. I cursed. Then I simply whimpered.
But the dripping never stopped.
Sleep became an unreachable myth.
Time lost all shape.
Hours bled into days. Days bled into madness.
I could feel myself disappearing.
Memory first. Then pride. Then language.
Pain became the only thing that remained constant enough to identify me.
And then—
he came.
The echo of boots.
Firm. Measured. Unhurried.
Even through my haze, I recognized authority in that sound.
My swollen eyes shifted toward the cell door.
There he stood.
WARDEN.
Behind him were Silviya and the female ward in-charge, both walking in silent obedience.
The cell door opened with a metallic shriek.
He stepped inside.
His gaze crawled over me from head to toe like a merchant inspecting damaged merchandise.
He nodded.
Satisfied.
Two guards entered and hauled me upward by the arms so my ruined face was level with his.
My hair hung over my eyes in filthy auburn strands.
Blood had dried in patches across my skin.
I could barely keep my head straight.
But when I looked at him…
something inside me still lived.
Rage.
Pure, poisonous rage.
My jaw trembled.
I gathered every drop of saliva mixed with blood in my mouth.
And spat.
Silviya gasped.
The female in-charge stiffened.
For the first time, the Warden's smile vanished.
His face turned cold.
Utterly cold.
Then his fist moved.
I did not even see the punch.
Only the impact.
A burst of white exploded behind my eyes.
The world vanished.
And with it, whatever remained of me.
The next time consciousness returned, it came in fragments.
Bright lights.
Blurred shadows moving rapidly.
Voices overlapping.
"Severe internal damage—"
"Pulse dropping—"
"Prepare another injection—"
"Body may not survive—"
Doctors rushed in and out like frightened insects.
Metal trays clanged.
Bottles shattered.
Someone forced needles into my veins.
Someone shouted for more blood.
I wanted to laugh.
So now they wished to save me?
After destroying me?
How laughable.
But even that bitter thought faded as darkness pulled me under once more.
When I opened my eyes again…
I was no longer in the infirmary.
I stood inside a ruined citadel.
Moonlight filtered through shattered pillars and collapsed arches, painting the broken stones in pale silver.
An unnatural wind whispered through the emptiness like the murmuring of dead souls.
At the far end of the hall stood a throne.
And upon it sat a figure.
Black.
Not merely clothed in black—
but black in a way that felt wrong.
As if darkness itself had been compressed into human shape.
Chaotic.
Twisted.
Alive.
This was not the serene flute player.
This presence felt like blasphemy given form.
Its features remained hidden beneath shadow, protected from the moon's reach.
Yet I could feel its gaze piercing me.
"Do you wish to take revenge?"
Its voice slithered through the ruined hall.
My knees weakened.
Heat rose in my chest.
"Do you wish to punish those who wronged you?"
Again it spoke.
And something inside me answered.
Every memory returned.
The humiliation. The dragging. The beatings. The laughter. The sleeplessness. The spit of blood.
Hatred surged through me like poison entering open veins.
The figure extended one hand.
"Come. I shall give you salvation."
A warning screamed faintly somewhere in the back of my mind.
Do not move.
Do not trust it.
Run.
But my legs ignored me.
Step by step, I walked forward.
"Yes…" I whispered, my voice sounding less human than before.
"Yes… I want them dead."
Another step.
"I want to tear them apart."
Another.
"I want every scream they forced into me returned a thousandfold."
By the time I stood before the throne, I was shaking—not with fear, but with ravenous fury.
The black figure's hand hovered inches from mine.
I reached out.
The moment our fingers touched—
darkness flooded into me.
Not metaphorical darkness.
Real.
A liquid, crawling abyss that poured through my veins, invaded my bones, gnawed into my soul.
My eyes rolled back.
I felt myself changing.
Twisting.
Being rewritten into something alien.
And just as the transformation threatened to complete—
the heavens split apart.
A colossal pillar of pink light descended from above like divine judgment.
It crashed directly onto me.
The ruined citadel trembled.
The black figure recoiled.
And my scream tore through the imaginary world