As much as he loathes to admit it, in the end it was apparent that all Ziun was, was a tool meant to help someone who’s “injury” wasn’t even his own doing; and whoever he’d originally been, who he’d end up being when all is said and done — none of it had ever mattered.
And so regardless of the consequence, or whether the stupid pieces of the revered Marshal's "soul" were ever recovered to completion — Ziun didn’t even care. Because when he really thinks about it: is there any reason as to why should he help this ‘Aaron’..? History dictated that he hadn’t brought Ziun anything but pain.
A demonic cultivator who only loved him? An Emperor who fired him from his court position and took Ziun as a male concubine to protect him? What shit. That fucking love didn’t stop the man from killing innocents, nor did it stop him from ignoring his consent and taking it as him(Z) being a tease.
Oh, but his torturer did listen to him from time to time and didn’t kill or maim anyone Ziun specifically told him not to. Except… that was the fucking problem, wasn’t it? The fact that Ziun had to tell him not to do any bodily harm—as if the man used him as a moral compass for lack of one himself.
Now, Ziun understands there are people like this that don’t fit into his own worldviews or have the same/similar set or morals as him, and that’s fine. Truly.
But he doesn’t want them in his life.
This ‘Aaron’ goes against pretty much everything he believes in— and the system just calls it romantic! As if he should be happy someone would commit genocide for him! Frankly, Ziun is of the mind that 'Aaron' was simply a beast wearing human skin who couldn’t be anything but insane, and no so-called "SS-grade Ability" he was supposedly the proud owner of, was worth losing his goddamn mind over.
Nothing; no man, woman or anything in between, was worth that.
Not even this so-called “love”.
Coming back to the present, Ziun easily ignored the man just like he did the last time he was here. Except he knew how this played out, didn't he? His silence never led to anything pleasant, but for the life of him he couldn’t muster the energy to play this “Stockholm syndrome love” that the man expected of him — whether it was this instance or the first.
Besides, what Ziun did or wanted had never mattered.
This man who claimed to love and adore him had only ever done things that he wanted to do. Ziun was at this man's complete and utter mercy and he hated it. Hated him.
After a while his stomach started to growl. The painful cramp easily jolted him into a lucid awareness he had never quite felt since arriving here, imprisoned. More than anything it was an awful reminder of his current circumstances.
Gone were his creature comforts such as his plush sofa and the warm, comfortable climate of the Hub. There was no longer an endless supply of books to peruse, nor soft pillows to lounge back on. Instead everywhere is dreadfully empty and painted in such a droll grey, grey, grey—
“Baby, are you ok? I know you’re hungry.”
Ziun continues to stare straight at the ground, although he’s sure that his clenched fists showed his anger just as well enough.
It was almost ironic, really; Aaron asking him if he was hungry. He’d been the same person to starve him after all.
He hears the man shuffle as he stands up.
“Say Ah~”
'Fuck you,' he bitterly thinks, although it holds little impact. Even his mind was begininning to weaken from starvation, it seems.
Just as Ziun was contemplating whether he had the energy and strength this time to successfully kill this man—and without consequence, too— a shrill noise rang throughout the basement that caused him to bodily flinch.
'What is that?' The noise was oddly persistent and an absolute torture to his ears. The sound managed to come from all four corners of the room with no identifiable origin — but that’s just the thing.
Ziun doesn’t think he’s hearing anything.
He blinks and it’s like the air itself is vibrating. If he could put it into words.. it was almost as if there was an energy playing at a different frequency that clashes with whatever is on this plane of existence. In response to this—this spectacle; a web of cracks flash across his vision, along with the delicate sound of rapidly shattering glass.
Before Ziun could even begin to make sense of these series of oddities, however, a sudden grip on his chin distracts him.
"A-Ah!" With a yelp his head is painfully tipped back. His neck strains at the sharp incline, but what he sees before him makes Ziun suck in a sharp breath and he easily forgets about this little bit of pain.
“Look at me!” Aaron shouts at him and tightens his grip. The airborne fissures recede to the peripherals of Ziun’s sight as he stares so blatantly at his captor, but that.. that doesn’t matter anymore because the very image of Aaron is already broken beyond repair.
His captor's face is almost distorted past recognition as previous instances of ‘Aaron’s that Ziun has met seem to emerge from everywhere, nowhere, and impatiently fold onto each other. Sometimes his features fit seamlessly, and other times it was downright horrific. Ziun is shocked to find that just a simple thing such as placement, size or thickness could mark ‘Aaron’ as either a devils spawn, or the son of an angel.
It was an abnormal sight to bear witness to, is what he was getting at, so much so that Ziun thought being severely starved and dehydrated had finally caused him to go crazy. To make matters worse, just when delirium seems to settle in, the cracks in his vision come back with a vengeance.
Rather abruptly with no sort of prerequisite, Ziun finds himself staring through countless panes of broken, cracked glass; ‘Aaron’ spliced into images that no longer lay on top of each other and instead became independent between each glass shard.
It was so.. so disharmonious that Ziun feels like the alarm bells wringing in his head warning him that something was wrong, had actually sounded aloud. But then the reflections of ‘Aaron’ start shaking, vibrating at a frequency that Ziun apparently can’t hear—
—and then he’s gone.
‘Aaron’ disappears as the shards drop to the floor. They become normal, dull. There’s no faces trapped or reflected in the glass as it innocently sits on the floor.
Ziun isn’t sure what he's supposed to feel. Relieved? Thankful? Happy?
What if the same thing ends up happening to him? Would he still be happy then?
Luckily—or unluckily—before he’s given the chance to properly think about what ‘Aaron’ disappearing could mean for him…
[Get up.]
...something else makes an appearance.
Almost without a thought, Ziun pulls at the chains restraining his arms. Clinking, they fall apart almost embarrassingly easy. His feet barely manage to touch the ground before he collapses down onto his knees, narrowly missing the shards of glass. Still his legs trembled.
Unsurprisingly, the ground he’s knelt on is cold. He’s wet for all that there is no water, the dripping ceiling not providing enough moisture for the feeling of being drenched. It crawls over his form, this wetness, sinking into his skin and embedding itself so deep that Ziun finds it hard to shake the shiver that racks him.
Amidst his trembling, he eventually peels open crusted eyes he never noticed he had closed, only to see a face he thought he’d long forgotten the image of.
Long black hair, pale skin, and impossibly dark eyes.
“Mom…?” Ziun himself startles at the address. His mother’s appearance wasn’t something he thought he could remember, but there she is, standing in front of him just the same as she was when he—
“We don’t have time for this!”
—when he what?
White static fills his ears. The answer is on the tip of his tongue and leaves an ashy taste in his mouth, but yet again before he's given enough time to figure out just what could cause such a thing; the woman outstretches her arm to grab at him.
“NO!”
The shout she lets out is almost heartbreaking, her arm having passed through wherever she had meant to grab him.
Ziun doesn’t think it was supposed to do that. And when she keeps on repeating the same gesture, he’s even more sure of it.
“I can’t—” For reasons unknown, she abruptly cuts off. Instead of actual words, however, there’s a noise similar to static coming from her still open mouth.
“—S̮̣͈͔͓͊̏̇͘̚Ṕ̟͓̜̜͔̏̊̊͐̔͟a̹̺͎͍̹̻͌̆͋̃̈͑t̨̳͙̅̎͐̒̕͜ͅi̼̻̬̙̫̅̅̾́̇A̢̮̙̬͐̌̆͘͜͝L̡̛̝͓͍͚͔̎̈̽̉͞ ̢̣̪̹̄̑͒͟͝͠R̢̙̗̮͛̍͆̔̾͘͟͟ȋ̼̖̖̘͚͗̎̊̕f̹͔̣̙̹̀́̽̃̽T̖͚̜͍̱̓̅̈́͐̒ ̞͙͍̠̰͌̀͊̕̕C̢̺͉̼̠̋̾͐̐͢͡͝Ļ̛̛͓̳͔̳̃͊͞O̺̻̤̩̍̓̽͑͘͜S̳̳͍̟̜͈͆̅̄̂͊͘I̥̩͕̭͖̯͒̓̄͐̊͗N̻̠͚̰̯̭͐̐̆͋͐͠G̛̣̪̮̤̟̽̕͡͝—”
Ziun can’t even begin to make sense of it, and it seems she notices that too.
Her mouth suddenly closed with an audible click as her eyes turn completely white. It was unnatural. This whole thing was, really. But that doesn't stop it from happening. Her eyes continue to glow in a way that would otherwise be ethereal—had they not been empty sockets. That same stark white seems to tear through the skin of her cheeks, peeking through cracks that had somehow appeared on her face.
They make her look fragile—the cracks—and seemed to form in a way that looked deliberate.
"Hiss—!" Still that white, liquid lava seeps through and smears itself across her skin, hissing and giving rise to mist as it melts through her. Ziun is almost enraptured by the very sight.
[GET OUT] That same, unknown voice that had appeared earlier booms throughout his chaotic mind. The sound came out of nowhere, and with no one to tie it to apart from the rapidly fading person in front of him.
Unlike what he initially thought, that white light doesn’t seem to be harming her. She makes no noise from where she stands, arm still outstretched in a motion as if she still longed to touch him, and the more of that starkness that coats her skin, the more Ziun finds she fades; almost as if.. as if she were a ghost inhabiting the body of a porcelain doll.
It’s with this chilling comparison that Ziun realises with startling clarity that the figure is only imitating his mothers appearance. It was never the real thing.
[GET OUT!] The doll repeats with more urgency. And it seems to be for the last time, too.
Because when Ziun goes to open his mouth to ask her to elaborate…
“What—”
… she finally fades to nothing right in front of him. It’s equal parts upsetting and frustrating. His only link to, well, anything, has just up and disappeared like smoke. And ok, she wasn’t a reliant source anyways—what trustworthy person would use a familial face to trick him into listening to what she says?—but she was still a lead, no matter how deceitful.
“Fuck!”
Without a clue as to where she could’ve come from, or what she was even made of, Ziun finds that there’s not much he can do to get her back. He’s suddenly left all alone in a place that constantly reminds him of bitter memories he had shoved deep, deep down.
Fed up of feeling sorry for himself, Ziun attempts to get his shit together. Because although there were no more words spoken, nor any commands wired through to his brain — that doll had said all she'd needed to say.
Get out.
What more was there to it?
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