NE'S

godforsaken place. A sharp shaft of light stabbed through the cracks of my dungeon, slicing across the filth-caked floor. T

other turn

ad come for me, they a

re. No clocks and No way

voice bounced off the stone walls like broken glass

efore spitting on the ground. "It's been three years, can you believe it? This f*ck*n'

e ye

my mind like a poisoned d

ng? Had time forgotten me

huffled off until the sound

alone

acing the spiderweb of fractures again

nto the stone above me had been memoriz

bloomed like blackened sores. I could

for the ceiling to become more familiar than the faces of thos

ere better compared to when I first woke up h

dy curled instinctively into itself, a pathetic attempt to

om me layer by layer, and shattered

d for it. Interrogation sugg

for information. It

ped free from my throat, even when

gain and again to the brink of death, only to wrench me back with cruel han

ip into blessed darkness. But every time I opened my eyes again, the nightm

the damage faster than they could inflict it. They turned to silver in desperation, searing it into my flesh to

ered him the

e the others.

k like the husk of a fruit, probing for the 'monst

ps, cracked my tongue and twist my stomach into knots,

ng the cup just out of reach.

o even to summon the

my voice gave out but even death, it seemed, found me repulsive. It

a hollow, shivering thing, they simply... left me. Abandoned like a b

world that existed beyond

y like scattered diamonds. The heat of summer soaking into my bones, the bite of

that sometimes it felt wo

ow. Turning brittle and gray, an

to the bone. My skin clung desperately to my frame and cracked like old parchment.

a toilet in this wretched place. For three years, I've been sleeping

ngled, matted mass that drags behind me

the slow gnawing from the inside, the way your stomach tu

hallucinations of starvation and drank

ithered and died inside me. Until there was bar

uch me, then surely I was cursed. Nothing good had ever happened to me from th

ot the chance to develop. I resented my father for abandoning me without so much as a second glance. I hat

intangible and Insignificant. A speck in the grand scheme of things, easily forgot

y to glance at what Tob

zza and maybe a sip or two of stagna

d through my half-dead nerv

ajar barely, but

breathe. I blinked several times, wondering if my

nly before me. Tobias, lazy, ca

ion stirred deep within m

ng it weak tendrils toward th

some miracle I managed to slip past unnoticed, where would I even go in this state? I was barely skin stitch

ing down the thought lik

inevitable. But if I must die

ilent witness, or under the sun rays caressing my bod

ld snap at any second, I forc

nable to bear even the smalle

using the bars. My breathing came in labored gasps, like a drowning man tasting the surface for the first t