Chapter 51 : Madness

The guard stepped into the dungeon, the heavy door groaning as it shut behind him. It was his shift today. His turn to stand in the darkness.

A shiver crept down his spine as he descended the worn stone steps. The cold air pressed against his skin, thick with the scent of damp rot and old iron. And then—there it was again.

The humming. Every time he walked these steps, he heard it. Without fail.

A slow, fractured melody. Melancholy, but not in the way of fresh sorrow—it was deeper, older, the kind of grief that settled into a man's bones and never left. It seeped into the very walls of the dungeon, curling through the shadows like a ghostly hymn. It should have been quiet, yet somehow, it filled the air. As if the song itself had a will of its own, refusing to be swallowed by the dark.

Even after the prisoner stopped humming, the melody lingered. As though the dungeon itself refused to let it die.

Arthur hummed softly to himself. A slow, broken melody. His mother's lullaby.

Or at least, he thought it was.

Yet when he tried to recall the face that belonged to the song, it wasn't hers that came to mind. The smile he remembered was warm—Lady Gravewalker had never smiled at him like that. The eyes were brown, not blue. And the hair… hazel, not white.

'Who was she?'

He hung from the rusted chains, his body aching, his wrists raw, but his mind was somewhere else. Searching.

He knew she had loved him. That much was certain. The memories were fragmented, scattered, like shattered glass that refused to piece itself back together. He could feel them—achingly close—but the shape of them slipped through his grasp.

Still, one truth remained.

Whoever she was, if she had loved him as much as his memories suggested…

She would be weeping now.

Arthur had learned the hard way that regeneration was both a curse and a blessing.

The blessing was simple—he could always heal.

The curse was crueler—he could always heal.

They started with his hands.

The first time, they simply took them. Two quick hacks with a cleaver. His world had exploded in agony, nerves flaring as his body desperately tried to rebuild what had been lost. Flesh twisted, bones stretched, sinew snapped into place with sickening precision.

By the time his hands had fully regrown, the torturer had returned.

The second time, they didn't cut them clean.

They made it slow.

They peeled the skin from his fingers first, stripping it away in long, curling sheets. They pulled the nails next—one by one—wrenching them free with rusted pliers. By the time they reached the bone, Arthur was half-conscious, his throat raw from screaming. Then they shattered each finger. Bent them backward until they snapped like twigs. And only when his hands were nothing more than ruined, useless appendages did they take the cleaver again, hacking through the wrist.

The third time, they used a saw. It took minutes. But it felt like hours. Metal teeth chewed through his flesh, digging deeper, grinding against bone, sawing through him slowly. The pain stretched into eternity, every second an unrelenting hell.

By the end of the first week, Arthur had stopped screaming.

He had begged instead.

That was a mistake. The torturer didn't like that. The moment he had, they had cut out his tongue. They didn't do it all at once, of course. The tongue was tricky—it regenerated too quickly. So they adjusted. They sliced it in half, then pressed a searing iron to the stump, burning it black to slow the healing. It took the torturer a couple of times before he had figured that one out.

It wasn't until he tried to cry out again—until he felt the garbled, broken remnants of his own voice—that he truly understood what they had done to him.

So he stopped begging.

Stopped making any sound at all. Except for the occasional scream.

Time blurred in the darkness.

The cell had no windows, no way to tell night from day. He felt... disconnected, as if he no longer existed on Pandora but in some separate, hollow realm. A space designed purely for his suffering.

The cell was his world now.

And his world belonged to the torturer.

A cruel deity.

Arthur had no idea how long he had been here. His mind drifted in and out of the past, replaying the moment he was caught.

He had tried to play it off, tried to lie. But the moment their eyes met, he knew.

It was over.

Reftia had known.

Maybe she had always known.

The thought twisted in his gut like a blade. How much of my life here was a lie?

A soft tapping sound pulled him from the haze.

Slow.

Methodical.

Drawing closer in a taunting, purposeful fashion.

The torturer loved to announce his arrival. Truly, he was a very cruel deity.

 The door creaked open, spilling pale torchlight into the cell. Arthur squinted. A shadow loomed in the doorway—a long-haired, balding man with sunken cheeks and ice-blue eyes.

His lips twisted into a sneer, revealing rotting gums. In one hand, he held a wrench. In the other, a pair of pliers.

Arthur felt laughter bubbling up. He couldn't help it. Something about this—about all of this—was just too fucking funny.

A year. A whole goddamn year since he arrived on this planet. And here he was again. Back in a cell.

His laughter burst out, sharp and wild, bouncing off the stone walls. His body shook with it, rattling the chains that held him.

"Hahahaha…" The sound rang hollow in his own ears. "Man, I'm really fucking losing it."

The torturer stepped forward. "So, Arthur… are you ready to talk?" His voice was sickly sweet, almost gentle. "I think I can trust you to be honest, yes? You know what happens if you're not."

Arthur met his gaze. Then he spat in his face. "How about you go fuck yourself in that corner over there?"

The torturer didn't even flinch. He wiped his cheek, then smiled.

"Oh, Arthur." Slowly, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial of white pills. He shook them lightly, the contents rattling against the glass. "Do you know what happens when I give someone blood thinners?"

Arthur gave a weak, lopsided grin. "Actually, you're right."

The torturer tilted his head, intrigued.

Arthur chuckled. "Go fuck yourself outside my cell—I don't want to watch. That'd be real torture, you know." He laughed again, the sound scraping from his raw throat.

The torturer sighed theatrically. "Well, I suppose we're going to find out."

Arthur screamed as the blade sank into his stomach.

The cut was slow. Precise.

Fingers pried his flesh apart, peeling it back like the rind of a fruit. His insides glistened in the dim light, wet and exposed to the cold air.

Then the pills came.

Crushed into powder. Sprinkled directly into the open wound.

Then the wound healed.

And then the blade carved into him again.

Long, deep gashes painted his body, the torturer relishing each silent slice as the metal bit through skin and muscle alike.

Arthur's stomach twisted violently. His veins burned, filled with liquid fire.

His body tried to heal.

But the blood wouldn't clot.

It poured from him in thick, red waves, pooling beneath his back, soaking into the stone floor.

The cycle repeated. Again. And again.

By the time they finally allowed his flesh to knit itself together, his vision was swimming, the world reduced to a distant, flickering haze.

Then they moved on.

His tongue. His fingernails. His ear. His teeth.

The torturer removed each one, then waited.

Waited for them to grow back.

Then he did it again.

And again.

And again.

By the time they finished, Arthur didn't know if he was conscious, or if the pain had followed him into his dreams.

The next day, they tried something new.

Sensory deprivation.

They drained him first—cutting him again and again, siphoning his mana reserves until he felt hollow, his body sluggish, his mind slipping. Then they took his eyes.

The pain was indescribable.

Fingers dug deep, pressing into his sockets, prying away flesh. Something inside him tore with a wet, sickening pop, and then—agony. Hot, blinding agony. His nerves screamed as his vision dissolved into raw, pulsing nothingness.

He was still shrieking when they took his ears.

The last thing he heard was his own screaming.

Then—nothing.

Just silence.

A new kind of terror gripped him, one deeper than pain. He felt the bandages wrap around his head, rough cloth pressing against the gaping wounds. Then came the cold snap of metal as the mana shackles locked around his wrists.

And his regeneration stopped.

His breath hitched. His connection to mana—his only lifeline—was gone. Severed.

His stomach twisted violently.

They were planning to keep him like this.

At first, it was almost peaceful. A lull in the suffering. Then it became maddening.

Time unraveled in the void.

No pain. No sound. No sight.

Just the cold steel of the shackles.

Occasionally, fingers traced questions against his skin—slow, deliberate strokes carving messages into his flesh. He always answered.

Not that he knew if he was whispering or screaming.

"Go fuck yourself."

Weeks passed.

Months.

Years.

Decades.

He didn't know. He couldn't tell. Every moment stretched into eternity. Every second in the darkness felt like a lifetime.

He tried counting in his mind, so he could maintain some hold on reality, and on his own sanity. But he gave up quickly.

Time was a meaningless concept in the void.

He lay still, his body stiff and aching, his mind fraying at the edges. His eyes were gone. His ears were gone.

His world was nothing but silence and blackness.

The only sensation left was the cold steel of the chains, biting into his skin.

The air shifted. Footsteps echoed through the cell, their rhythm precise, almost playful. Not that Arthur heard it.

Then, for a single, fleeting moment, Arthur's ear returned—regrown in an instant as the mana shackles flickered. A cruel tease of sensation. Just enough for him to hear the whisper of fabric, the quiet sigh of breath. Then the shackles clamped back on, and the world was stolen from him once more.

Silence.

Then, a touch.

Soft. Almost… affectionate. Fingers ghosted along his jawline, tracing his skin with idle curiosity. The nails dragged lightly—not enough to hurt, but enough to promise that they could.

A voice followed, smooth as silk, rich with amusement.

"Arthur."

A pause.

"You poor, stupid, stupid man."

His breath hitched. His heartbeat pounded against his ribs—erratic, desperate.

No. No, it couldn't be—

His mind clawed through the fog, scrambling for clarity, for understanding. The abyss in his head threatened to pull him back under, but that voice—her voice—kept him tethered to the waking nightmare.

Officer Reftia.

So, she had decided to visit him.

Somewhere, through the endless torment, he had almost forgotten that other people existed. That the world outside this cell had not simply… vanished.

His lips parted, voice dry and cracked. "...Y-You…"

Reftia laughed. Soft. Melodic. A sound that, in any other context, might have been beautiful. But here, now, with her breath warm against his skin, it was a knife's edge wrapped in silk. How many times had he heard that laugh, not realising how utterly cold it was.

"You sound surprised." She cooed, like a mother humoring a foolish child. "Did you really think you had fooled me, Arthur?"

He swallowed hard, his throat raw, the taste of blood thick on his tongue.

"I—"

"Oh, don't speak," she cut him off gently. "You'll only embarrass yourself further."

Arthur's hands curled into fists, nails digging into his palms. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. She wasn't like this.

He had been careful. He had done everything right.

Hadn't he?

Reftia leaned in, her lips hovering just above his ear—or where it used to be. "You think I only just noticed you were a spy?" A chuckle ghosted past her lips, amused and condescending. "Oh, Arthur. I knew from the moment I met you. You're not exactly a professional, are you?"

His stomach twisted violently.

No. That wasn't possible.

He had spent months blending in, slipping between the cracks, becoming part of the system. He had played his role flawlessly.

Hadn't he?

She sighed, as if disappointed. "It was adorable, really. Watching you scurry around, thinking you were clever. Feeding your precious General Thanason the coordinates."

His blood ran ice-cold. The teleporter. The capital city. Thanason. They had already known. They knew everything.

'Which means, they were torturing me…for fun.' The realisation made his sanity shake. 

Reftia exhaled, slow and deliberate. "Oh, Arthur. Do you want to hear the funniest part?"

Something in her tone sent bile creeping up his throat.

"...W-What?" His voice barely existed.

She leaned in further, until her lips brushed against the jagged scar of his missing ear.

"The teleporter," she murmured, "didn't lead to the capital."

 Arthur's breath caught. A long silence.

Then, Reftia giggled. A light, lilting sound, brimming with satisfaction. A hauntingly child like laugh.

"Oh, come now. Don't look so horrified." She clicked her tongue. "I mean, it did mean you led all your friends into a trap. I do hope there wasn't anyone you were particularly fond of, dear Arthur. Because their corpses are rotting as we speak. No one is coming for you. They're all dead."

No. No, no, no—

A slaughter. A massacre.

His mind conjured the image unbidden. His soldiers. His friends. Noah. Appearing in the wrong place. The worst possible place. Because of him.

His stomach lurched.

The world spun violently around him.

"Y-you're lying" he croaked.

She laughed at that, a colder, madder, laugh.

There was no rescue coming.

No army storming the gates.

No one was coming for him.

He was alone.

His breathing grew erratic. The walls pressed in, suffocating. The chains rattled as he trembled. His fingers twitched uselessly.

Reftia must have seen it, because her voice dropped into something lower, something softer. Something worse.

 "What's the matter, Arthur?" She stroked his cheek, the touch so tender it made his skin crawl. "Are you afraid?"

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut—not that it mattered without eyeballs.

A hollow laugh forced itself from his lips. Afraid? Afraid didn't even begin to describe it. He had spent a year in his new life, and not one day of it had been his own.

And now, he realized—

It had all been for nothing.

Every second of pain. Every drop of blood. Every ounce of suffering.

And for what?

Reftia watched him with something bordering on fascination, her fingers continuing their slow, lazy circles against his jaw.

"But don't worry," she whispered.

Her lips were just above his own now, her breath warm, sickly sweet. "I'll save you."

Arthur's blood ran cold. There was something in her voice. Something worse than mockery. Worse than sadism. Something ancient, inhuman. Hungry.

Fingers slid through his hair..

His body was shaking.

He felt his last tether to sanity, snap.