Chapter VII

All was dyed in a vivid, sterile white. The tiled floors, the smooth walls, the low ceiling, His vision was dominated by it, broad and spanned out, yet oppressive. He wanted to escape from that blinding white, but his movement was restricted, cut off. His wrists and ankles were bound, his back pressed against a hard, flat surface, his senses suffocated by his apprehension and that sterile, chemical smell.

Breathing uneven, raggedy, his heart beat loudly in his ears, his mind, his everything, vision shaking.

He was afraid.

The sound of footsteps echoed, clacking noisily against the tiled floors, reverberating throughout his hypersensitive eardrums.

A glimpse of deep, black-blue hair, and a flash of vibrant, silver eyes glinted behind glasses lenses’.

Those cold, piercing eyes fell on him, freezing him right down to his very core.

Only for a moment, that figure stood beside him before disappearing just out of his range of vision, a small table of surgical tools just to the side of his face. If not for his restricted limbs, they were close enough for him to reach out and touch them, steeped in a sterile solution, glimmering ominously. As though to burn their image into his mind.

No.

That fear rose into his throat, threatening to suffocate him, his body breaking out into a cold sweat, his nerves taut.

A gloved hand closed around a scalpel, lifting it out of sight, the sound of blood roaring in his ears, laid flat against his head.

...Please. He begged in silent prayer, the words trapped within his clogged throat as he struggled against his restraints...But neither his silent prayers, or his struggles bore fruition. Neither would save him, and he knew that, his breathing going erratic as those tools, glinting cruelly in his narrowing vision, descended upon him. Without anesthesia, he felt every inch of blade slicing into the flesh of his stomach, prying his skin apart, violating him internally.

Agony tore through his entire being beyond what words could ever describe, a scream ripping from his throat, the sound of the table underneath him rattling violently beneath his writhing body.

But even those sounds seemed all but drowned and distant compared to his pain, his nerves laid bare, his body picked apart. Even if he wanted to lose consciousness, to die, he found no relief. He was trapped within those everlasting moments of torment, refusing to release him.

Would his suffering ever end? He wanted to break. He wanted to lose his mind. Anything to make it stop.

But it wouldn’t end. It would never end. He would drown ceaselessly in this pain, unable to break, unable to die.

The moments would drag on just like that, the low ceiling reflecting in his shaking vision, words he heard, yet didn't comprehend ringing quietly in the back of his mind.

“Do you resent your Fate?”