Chapter 20: Torture

Arthur's feet suddenly stopped, an eerie silence returning to the empty corridor. He had been traversing his way through the gargantuan Zepar estate for the past 5 minutes, finding himself lost in the twisted corridors a couple times despite living in the damn place for over a month now. In front of him was a dead end, the wall completely shaded in the same emerald green that caked every wall in the abode. Such a sight wasn't an uncommon thing, so why, why did Arthur suddenly freeze. Why was the colour on his face slowly waning, going from a healthy glow to that of a sickly white?

'What is this smell? It stinks,' Arthur clutched at his nose in an attempt to stop the pungent odour that spewed forth from the dead end like a miasma from tormenting him any longer. The smell was repulsive, comparable to the stench of rotting flesh. Not like Arthur would know what that smells like, but that was the best comparison he could make. In short, the smell was vile, so much so that one whiff of the scent caused the young boy's stomach to churn and all colour to leave his body.

Arthur's gaze quickly darted around the corridor, rebounding off the edges like a game of pong, 'Is there something here? What the fuck is causing this smell,' Arthur queezily commented. He had passed this corridor once before, alone, when he was delivering another set of shit smeared clothes to the maids for cleaning, a gift given to him by the ever generous William, yet when Arthur passed by here, he had never sensed such a stench that seemed to claw at the very insides of his nostrils, endeavouring to bury their smell into the very forefront of Arthur's mind. 'I can't see any visible sources for the stench, the hall seems to be perfectly normal, so *gag* what *gag* is causing this,' Arthur pondered, attempting to suppress the sudden urge to vomit that only seemed to increase in ferocity with each second he remained still in the desolate space.

At this moment, Arthur recollected something in his memory, sure he was alone when he went to deliver his clothes to the maids, but that didn't mean he didn't see anyone here. 'Yeah, if I'm remembering this correctly, which I probably am, didn't I find Charlotte here?' Arthur inwardly questioned the scene of the beautiful girl draped in an ever golden dress coming to the forefront of his memory.

Charlotte had left him early that day, asking to be given some time alone from the young Arthur, a request that Arthur had found weirdly suspicious given Charlotte's nature. Didn't she love him to the point of obsession? Wasn't she the girl that proposed the idea of sleeping in the same room, in the same bed, under the same sheets to the poor boy, all in the effort to spend more time with him, so when she asked for some alone time, Arthur, of course, found her plea eerily odd, yet with some simple reasoning, propelled forth with the idea that the Arthur at that time really didn't want to accept Charlottes true he came to the forced answer that perhaps Charlotte simply needed a break from him, like how an average person would start to grow sick of their partner if they were forced to be with them 24/7.

At the time, no such stench existed here. There was no reason for Charlotte to appear in such a place where there was no form of entertainment unless she really enjoyed blankly staring at walls, and even then, she could simply look at any of the copy pasted walls in the house. So then why did Arthur find her not even an hour later, frozen in this very corridor, her gaze unfocused and her smile oddly broad?

Upon seeing the boy, Charlotte seemed almost weary, paranoid even. Her eyes darted rapidly around the hall, similar to the actions Arthur had performed not even a moment ago before they stopped and focused upon the at the time agitated Arthur, where she then proceeded to breathe a sigh of relief? Before joining him on his silent escapade to the washing quarters. And that was where the memory of this place ended. Arthur hadn't taken this route ever since, not because he was creeped out from spotting Charlotte here but because he had found faster ways to the cleaning quarters since then, thus making this route unviable.

'Thinking about it, it was pretty weird to find Charlotte here,' Arthur commented, his face now a deathly shade of white. In all honesty, he wanted to leave the corridor right here, right now. Some other maid could stumble upon the scent and be forced to find the route cause of it, for all Arthur cared, yet despite this thought, something made the boy want to stay, even though he knew that lingering here any longer could cause him to be late for his lessons with Vienna. 'To my knowledge, there's nothing here, so what could have brought her here? Could her sense of smell be greater than others, and she just picked up on the scent earlier? No, I know that's not true from my knowledge of this world, and its characters, so what is the meaning of all this,' Arthur bounced a few ideas off his brain in a feeble attempt to explain Charlotte's reason for being found in this hall, before forming the resolute goal to find the source for all of this.

'I suppose the best way to find the source of a stench is through smell, but….' Arthur paused, the hand that clutched at his nose in the vain attempt to suppress the source of his worries faltering. He really didn't want to get a whiff of a smell he could easily consider the pure essence of death, yet Arthur knew better. To find the source, he would need to sacrifice his sense of smell, so, against the warnings of all his instincts and his better judgement to simply give up on the idea, Arthur peeled off his hand, exposing his nostrils to the full blast of the rotting fetor.

Immediately the pungent odour wormed its way up Arthur's exposed nose, its gaseous form pushing past the boundaries of what should be biologically possible and erupting like a cloud in Arthur's brain. He wanted to vomit. To run away from whatever was the cause for this vile stench, no, Arthur himself didn't want this. His subconscious mind wanted this, to run away while Arthur still had the chance. Although the boy had ignored it, a sense of foreboding had begun to slowly build in the epicentre of his mind, and whatever the payout of such a sensation may be, his brain wanted none of it.

However, even with all these instinctual warnings his brain had been subjecting Arthur to, the boy remained firm in his odd determination. He wanted to find the cause for all of this, no matter what. Why? He didn't know why, was his determination misplaced? Definitely. Would it be better to just turn tail and run like his subconscious had been begging him to? Absolutely, yet something in Arthur's soul just urged him to unearth this childish mystery.

So with a flawed mindset to get this thing over and done with, Arthur took one step forward…and his very being shook. His knees buckled, his face went green, and his vision went momentarily cloudy as though he was about to faint.

With just one step, the intensity of the smell seemed to double, if before it could be likened to rotting flesh. Now Arthur had no idea what it was comparable to. It was musty and warm. He could feel the precipitation of his sweet mixed with the odour gather upon the very edge of his skin as if he had been out playing in the pouring rain. At this point, his brain had simply given up on helping the boy, residing itself to be his partner in whatever the future may hold for the two.

'*blagh* What *cough* *blagh*' Arthur gagged. He had managed to repress the urge to vomit. However, it came with the unfortunate repercussion of exposing his mouth to the gaseous scent of death, which quickly made its way down through Arthur's oesophagus, searing his insides with its horrific nature and making the boy gag on his owned inflamed throat, his breath was laboured, and Arthur struggled to remain conscious amidst the cesspool of stench, if before it was his mind that screamed at him to run, now it was the soul that had edged him into investigating the odour. His decision was rash. Arthur knew that. He didn't know how much worse the stench would get, nor if it was even something safe to be inhaled, yet he remained stubborn in his decision. He was going to find the cause of it no matter what. And with that, Arthur took another step forward. His gaze, though impaired, was resolute, brimming with complete devotion to his quest.

Yet that resolution quickly shook with his following step and the ensuing stench that followed. It was hot. Arthur's body began to involuntarily sweat with every pore on his skin opening itself to the world around him in a futile attempt to grasp hold of some fresh air to sustain itself, his hair that had been previously caked to his flesh thanks to the assistance of some dried blood had simultaneously been both freed from its confines before getting stuck in the overwhelming amount of sweat that profusely poured forth from Arthur's pale green skin.

Despite wanting to move, Arthur couldn't budge an inch. His skin had become interchangeable with the clothes that adorned his body, stuck to one another like glue. Looking down with his tunnel visioned gaze, he could clearly see a puddle of his own bile sinking into the ornate carpet of the Zepar household staining it with his flavour.

'Hot, sick, move,' Arthur inwardly gasped. It seems like the breath of the stuff he had suffocated on earlier finally spread had finally grasped hold of his lungs, making them into a nest for whatever nasty plague to inhabit and torment the young boy. Arthur wanted to cough, choke, and just give up and fall onto the floor. Maybe if he was unconscious, he would be able to get away with breathing the stuff in. Arthur couldn't move. He could hardly breathe. Arthur wanted to run away. This mystery didn't concern him anymore. Wouldn't it be more in line with his character to have a maid or someone more qualified deal with this? Yet despite all these nagging urges, Arthur grabbed hold of his own leg. If he couldn't move them normally, he'd just have to force them to take one more step. He could feel it. The next one would be his last, so with all his enhanced strength, Arthur wrapped his right hand underneath his leg and pulled.

His cheeks went red, and his already shallow and heavy breaths became nigh undetectable. Arthur hadn't accounted for the strain and oxygen that the body required for even the simplest of actions, let alone one so strenuous as forcing yourself to move. Arthur could see his already tunnelled vision gaze slowly narrow, a thick dark border consuming the empty space left behind from his shrinking lens until eventually, the lens he had been using to view the world shut, entirely consumed by the unknown darkness.

'No, no, no, no, not now, not when I'm so close, I can feel it, I'm almost ther…,' Arthur inwardly cried until suddenly…his thoughts went silent, one final sound filling the empty hall.

Arthur collapsed.

A somewhat warm sensation pressed against Arthur's sweat smeared flesh. What it was, he had no idea. He had tried to shift his ever watchful gaze in the direction of the sensation only to be met with a complete void of darkness. Was he awake? Was he asleep? Was he dead? These questions quickly filled Arthur's empty mind. Where was he? What was he doing here? He couldn't remember. The last thing in his memory was his fight with Iris, and after that…. He had no idea. Everything was foggy

Time passed, or at least Arthur assumed it to pass, and with that passage came piece by piece of new information. His cloudy, almost dream-like memory became something he could tangibly remember, 'I'm…in a hallway…and I don't think I'm dead,' Arthur affirmed. He would presumably be experiencing his eternal torment if he was dead, so that option was quickly wiped off the table. 'So that means…I'm asleep. No, If I was sleeping, then I wouldn't be able to form such a vivid string of thoughts, which only leaves me with the fact that I'm awake, so then why can't I see anything,' Arthur questions, his previously calm and collected thoughts quickly morphing into those of fear, 'Am I blind? Holy fuck, am I seriously blind? System help me!!' Arthur cried for help, yet no help came. The system had refused his plea. Leaving the isolated child alone with his horrific thoughts, 'Mana sense, I should be able to use my mana sense, right, that will help me!' Arthur begged, focusing his mind on where he presumed his two palms to be and forcing his scan skill to activate…yet no feedback came. Arthur was not aware of the mental block that had subconsciously formed, separating him from his total reservoir of mana.

Arthur was alone, completely isolated from the outside world, he couldn't use his magic, or rather he didn't even know if he still had it. The system refused to answer his call, so what was Arthur to do except focus on the wet sensation that tingled his cheek, he didn't know how much time had passed, yet in that period of lost span, his awareness of his cheek only grew, to the point where Arthur could feel whatever the moisture that had previously fallen against his pressed cheek merge with his flesh, dampening his skin. However, that wasn't the only sensation the boy was becoming gradually aware of. The smell returned to the boy, filling Arthur's previously open sinuses with a scent he could only liken to death. It hurt him, it suffocated him, every breath Arthur took instantly became laboured and heated, it was a battle to simply breathe for the young boy, yet a struggle he would surely prevail in.

Time again passed for the collapsed Arthur, who had quickly formed a mindscape of his current predicament. From what he could guess, he was on the floor. The wet sensation was most likely a mix of his sweat and saliva, though the possibility that it was his vomit wasn't out of the question. How far was he in the corridor? Arthur didn't know, though. He could only hope that his body had collapsed facing forwards and not back, and judging by the pain that slowly racked the front of his skull, he had done just that. It was while Arthur was mid thought that the final sense returned to him. Sight. The void around Arthur quickly began to brighten. Slight traces of what could only be assumed to be the outside world shone through thanks impart to the chandelier that hung high above the boy illuminating the empty corridor.

Outlines thousands of little strands quickly filled Arthur's gaze, which he quickly determined to be the tiny little threads that made up the ornate carpet, the item that had borne the most damage from Arthur's brawl with the horrific scent, Arthur could see the darkened colour of the shadowed threads, the ornate dark green intertwined with brown, and finally, he could move.

Though slow and weak, Arthur managed to feel his arms brush against the object, moving closer to his torso to push the boy back up to his feet for one last hoorah. Sure he had taken that final step, but he still had no idea where the source of the scent was originating from. Hell, he might even have to walk further into the corridor if this gut feeling was wrong, and then he might well and truly die, having not learnt his brief lesson from this battle.

After getting in position for what could only be assumed to be a poor attempt for a press up, Arthur began to lift his body, his laboured breaths once again becoming indistinguishable from that of a corpse. At the same time, his only recently regained sight was eaten at by the void to the point where only a spot of vision remained.

Colour quickly filled Arthur's mind. Never before had he been so thankful to see the bright emerald green walls of the Zepar estate, yet hidden amongst this colour was a discovery of a century. Right in front of Arthur's gaze, shrouded by his fringe, were the extended frays of the carpet followed by a sliver of exposed wood flooring. There was something there. Hidden directly underneath the sprawled out boy was what Arthur assumed to be the source of all his most recent troubles, the plague that had brought him to the edge of his consciousness and beyond. 'A trap door?' Arthur dumbly muttered, pulling himself up to a sitting position, his eyes trained upon the loose carpet like a hawk. He wouldn't let himself lose sight of this discovery now, not when he had already suffered so much emotional torture just to reach this point.

With one hand, Arthur covered his previously exposed sinuses, he had no need for his sense of smell now, while the other reached towards the edge of the carpet, his fingers slipping in-between the narrow crevice between the floor and the wall and digging themselves underneath the large piece of ornately woven flooring.

'Here we go,' Arthur gasped, holding onto one final breath and pulling at the woven flooring, which quickly folded under his enhanced strength, giving way to the contents underneath.