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I…I can't breathe.
There's a cloth over my mouth, preventing me from speaking. The only pitiful sound I can make is a muffled sob. My arms and legs won't move, they're strapped to a metal bed that rattles with my body's shaking.
Hot tears are rolling down my face as I stare up at the high, dim ceiling. I dare not think about how far underground I am, so far away from the city streets of Senntisten. How long has it been since they brought me here? Days? Weeks?? I want to go home. Please , I just want to go-
"Be silent ."
A voice from the corner interrupts the sobbing I hadn't known I was doing. I can't move my head, but my eyes turn as far as they can towards…towards her .
A towering figure is standing with her back to me, a hooded head bent over a desk as she scribbles something in a large tome. The etch of her quill is soothing, almost, against the distant screams and manic laughter of the asylum. I try to shake again, but it's no use. I'm going to die down here.
The figure turns, and I just manage to blink away my tears to see her features. She is inhuman; her skin gray and ridged, embellished with lines of silver coming from her eyes and mouth. A gemstone of icy sky blue shines from her forehead, her eyes the same piercing color. Darker blue uniform-like robes obscure her form entirely, cloaked in the front by a white apron. The apron is already covered in blood.
"Patient 2074," she recites from the tome, holding it within her gloved hand, "Race: human. Sex: male. Reason for admittance: mental instability."
I quake against the leather bonds. No! I'm not insane! Please, I'm not insane!
Her ice blue eyes flick to me, practically glowing against the dim shadows of the room.
"But we both know that's not true, is it?"
I stop struggling. Words that should have been a comfort were spoken with such indifference that it makes my blood freeze. My heart pounds against my ribcage. I want to respond, but the only sound I hear from my gag is a whimper.
"You spoke treason against Lord Zaros," is her plain response. She places the tome back on the desk behind her, and I watch her fingers subtly adjust the book's position to be exactly parallel with the edge. She steps towards me, adjusting her gloves.
"Humans, such as yourself, have rather interesting brains. It seems you are not using yours to its full capacity."
She is standing over me now, staring down at me with cold eyes. I can't look away. My tear-soaked gag is thick against my mouth. I can't breathe. I feel a leather glove grasp my chin.
"Perhaps I can make better use of it."
The hot tears pour from my eyes, obscuring my vision. I shake my head, but it won't move.
No…no, no, no, please!
She reaches for something past my vision. A blindingly bright crystal on a metal arm is swiveled in view above my face. I try to blink, but large, leather clad fingers pry my eyelids open. Ice blue eyes inspect my skull as if digesting an invisible chart. After a long few moments, though, she reaches for my gag and pulls it beneath my chin.
Immediately my chapped lips part and my lungs rush with a gasp of air. Breathe, breathe! my brain screams, but I know this is my only chance.
"D-Doctor Vhael! I beg you-" I rasp, trying to quickly stammer out the name I remember hearing as I was wheeled into the room, "-th-there must be some mistake! I- gauh !"
My mouth is forced open wide. Her gray face twists only slightly in a scowl.
"Mistake? I do not make mistakes ," she hisses, inspecting my teeth. The gag is briskly shoved over my mouth once more. "And 'Doctor' will suffice."
I'm going to die down here. My throat burns as I shout and scream into the damp cloth, my wrists desperately rub themselves raw into leather cuffs.
She is indifferent. There is not a trace of heed in her eyes to my plight. I would have even welcomed madness, or cackling satisfaction at my desperation, but there is nothing.
The doctor wipes her gloves on her bloody apron and wordlessly turns away. I can do little more than watch helplessly. She steps across the room, and my eyes widen in horrified realization.
Shelves that were once concealed in shadows now visibly display an array of jarred organs. Brains, eyeballs, hearts, and even shapes I don't recognize sit in neatly organized containers against the wall. My stomach churns painfully at the sight, and my cheeks well with saliva. I want to puke, and although the urge to drown myself in my own bile before my skull is cut open is tempting, I resist the urge.
The towering figure shifts some of the jars, causing the contents to swish slightly. She removes a jar – devoid of an organ, but full of viscous liquid – and carefully replaces the other jars exactly as they had been before.
Her movements are methodical and almost calculated, as if routine. She walks back towards me, and places the 'empty' jar down on a metal worktable near my head. I try not to look at it. Her hands move beneath the lip of the table to an unseen drawer. As it slides open, the metallic rattling of what I can only assume are instruments of torture sends a chill down my spine. Coolly, she dips her hand into the drawer, grabs something, and pulls it out.
An enormous rounded bone saw sits in her grasp. I feel every inch of blood drain from my face, and my throat utters another whimper of pleaded mercy.
Without so much as a glance at me, she sets the saw next to the jar and turns away again, this time back towards her desk. I hear the sharp clink, clink of a quill against an inkwell, followed by the familiar etch of pen against the paper of the open tome. In desperation I shift in my binds once more.
Please, Zaros, I take it back! I'll be a good citizen! I'll do anything. I'll join the church, I don't care. Just please, let me go free! Let me-
Suddenly, I feel something against my wrist. Or rather, the lack of something against my wrist. There's slack. I can't see it, but I can feel the clip of the leather cuff give way ever so slightly.
A rush of hope floods my senses. Could it be? Could I have been given another chance? Without a moment's hesitation I squirm my wrist as quietly as possible, my eyes locked on the hooded doctor across the room. For the first time today, I am overjoyed at her indifference.
My wrist pulls free of the cuff, and I almost bite the gag above my mouth to keep from laughing in relief. As quick as my fingers would allow, I unlatch the binding around my head, then my other wrist. I utter silent prayer after silent prayer, hoping against hope that the doctor has far too many notes to take.
Just a little longer , I pray as I undo the binds around my ankles, just a few seconds more!
It seems my prayers are answered. One by one the metal clips are undone, and in moments, I am a free man.
My head is spinning and my heart is rushing with adrenaline. The doctor is still turned away, her attention fixed solely on her work. I look at the door. I'd have to be quick, but I can make it.
I swing my legs over the side of the metal bed and push off, letting my bare feet hit the cold, brick floor. The bed rattles, alerting the doctor. I see her head perk, then swivel.
" NO! " she shouts, but it's too late. My shoulder is already hitting the door, forcing it open. The exhilaration of freedom overwhelms my sense of pain. I can hear footsteps behind me, but the beating of my heart in my ears is faster. I'm panting, rounding the door into the hallway of the asylum. My feet fly over the brick as fast as they can. I look back just for the briefest of moments-
WHAM!
My head reels as I come crashing into a wall. At least, I think it's a wall. But how? I don't remember there being a wall here.
Before my mind can react, the front of my ragged burlap tunic is seized by something large and spiked. In a single moment, I feel my body hoisted several feet into the air, and I yelp in surprise.
With a panicked blink, I find myself staring up into a set of luminescent eyes. But these are not the same icy blue of the doctor. These are green , set deep in sockets of gray flesh.
My new captor grins at me, revealing sharp teeth that could only belong to a prehistoric creature. His hand, encased in a metal clawed gauntlet, grips my tunic and raises me closer to his face.
"Well, well, what have we here?" he says coyly, tilting his head.
In desperation, I grab his gauntlet and try to wrest myself free, but he hardly moves. I kick, squirm, claw, anything, yet he is as still as a mountain. In fact, my struggle only broadens his smile.
I hear the clicking of heels against stone behind me, and I see the gray face turn up.
"Drop something, Doctor?" he asks in the same coy voice, then lifts me to his side, as if putting me on display. I follow his gaze, though part of me wishes I wouldn't.
Doctor Vhael adjusts her cravat smoothly, calmly walking towards the newcomer as if nothing had happened.
"Legatus Zemouregal," she bids him with a slightly frustrated look. "You're early."
"I thought I might surprise you," he responded, his smile never wavering. His green eyes turned to me with a devilish glint. "Besides, I think I got here right on time."
My breathing quickens. This can't be how it ends, not when I'm so close! Not when I'm just within reach of repentance. I look between the two, then hold my arms around the Legatus' gauntlet.
"Legatus, sir, please , listen to me!" I beg pathetically. "I'm not insane! I'm not supposed to be here! I-I said it as a joke- a joke! I promise! Please, you have to tell them I'm not insane!"
My words are tumbling out, bordering on babbling, but I don't care. He tilts his head again and his smile fades into an intrigued twist, and he raises a ridge on his gray face where an eyebrow should be. He nods to the doctor, gesturing to me with his other hand.
"There, now, he said he's not insane! I think that's quite a serious oversight. Wouldn't you agree, Doctor?" he asks her. She makes no response. He turns back to me, looking straight into my eyes. He's smiling again.
"Don't you worry, little human, you'll be perfectly insane by the time the good doctor's done with you."
My heart stops. No. No, no, no! Zaros, please no!!
As I squirm helplessly in his grasp, the Legatus simply laughs. His other hand grabs both of my wrists, encircling both of them easily. He forces me to the ground, and my feet crumple beneath my legs. I feel my body lurch forward, the enormous man dragging me by my wrists across the floor behind him as if I weighed nothing more than a ragdoll. The doctor takes her place beside him, gloved hands folded neatly in the small of her back.
"So, what's the procedure for this one?" he asks her, his tone jovial. His gauntlet is cutting into my already rubbed wrists, and pain singes my nerves. I scream for help.
"Cranial," the doctor responds, ignoring me. She fixes her caplet. "My supply of ' standard ' human brains is running a bit low. Pontifex Nabor seems to only be sending me the truly insane ones." She fixes the caplet again. "I presume you have new specimens for me?"
"Hah! You almost sound like you didn't think I'd come through," he says. He pulls my body forward once more. My skin feels like it's being scraped off. I scream again.
I'm going to die. I'm going to die alone. No one hears me, not even my captors care that I'm trying so hard to fight back. Does Zaros even care? Did he set me free…only to let me be captured again?
I can take it no more. I crumple in defeat and let my body be dragged limply across the ground. Choked sobs pour from my throat.
Minutes later, when I'm strapped back on the bed and a gag back over my mouth, the last thing I see are my own bloodshot eyes in the reflection of a bone saw before everything goes black.