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  With the soldier’s back to them, they couldn’t figure out what it was, but the idea of a new instrument tormented them more than their own mind. They didn’t need to see it to feel fear, for their lips to dry and their pupils to enlarge, occupying half the light.

  Neil’s gasping breath still lingered, and his noisy heart kept beating. The pain in his body didn’t hurt them as much as the voices, in his mind, that screamed at him that they were going to die there.

  The soldier turned. In his right hand, holding a white thread, he held a roll full of sharp gray spikes. The tip of them gleamed when in contact with the light. The doctor reconfirmed if the syringe was on the point and walked silently to James.

  "I'm crazy, right? Let's see how much madness I can get into your body," the doctor said, bursting into a wave of megalomaniacal laughter.

  James stepped into combat mode, fists clenched, and legs bent. All he needed was a good punch to the chin to immobilize the doctor, although the chains on his feet prevented him from getting close enough. Even as he seemed to have it within his grasp, the doctor turned away easily, making his punches obsolete, joining the collection of intricate attempts against him.

  "Now, now," the doctor said.

  The soldier, who had moved like a shadow behind James, rubbed the roll on one of his arms. Gruesome screams fill the room, as the pain was tremendous, his body imploded with it, and snot blocked his nasal passages. His head fell to his chest, and tears made their way down his face, falling onto his tennis shoes covered with dust and mud. The doctor took advantage of the distraction and thrust the syringe into his chest. It was no more than mere seconds until the screams dissolved into the air, James swallowing them, almost choking.

  "Tears so early? After all, you're the weakest one.” The doctor said, handing the syringe to the soldier and receiving the roll, "Let's have some fun."

  He put the roll of spikes close to James's leg, and let it go, letting it roll down his leg. Small holes opened in the trunk of the leg, rivers of blood accompanying the path of the instrument. The ruined leg was bumpy and sunken. His mouth was half-open, and the noise caught in the back of his throat. Blood pooled around James's shoes, which caught the attention of the doctor. He looked fascinated at the light red, and quickly grabbed James's arm and licked from elbow to shoulder, swallowing the blood his tongue picked up along the way.

  "Not bad, but I preferred your friend's." He said, dropping his arm, and stretching out his own, "This tires me. Just one more time and we will get serious. Give me the syringe and get it, you know which object I’m talking about. Don’t let it fall. It's a unique object," he said to the guard.

  He took a few steps to the right. He ran his fingers through Lucy's rosy hair, massaging her temple, sliding the tip of the syringe down her fragile neck. He was pleased to see Neil's anger in his fists and veins on Alec's forehead, brows, and knuckles. They both wanted to protect her, but there they were, defenseless and helpless. As subject to suffering as she was.

  "Coward!" Alec shouted, saliva running down his chin, his teeth clanging violently against each other.

  The doctor laughed and walked away from Lucy. James was waiting for him, but he decided to get close to Alec. Syringe in hand and a curve in the lips. He nodded to the soldier, who, once again, stepped behind the young man and held him. Alec, who was already waiting for him, was able to release one of his arms and hit him with his elbow, catching him by surprise. The soldier lost his footing, slamming into the wall and falling. As he rose, anger exposed on his face, he placed his fingers on the sensitive part between Alec's neck and left shoulder, which in response twisted. The doctor, approaching carefully, was about to inject the syringe into his skin when he heard someone tap three times behind one of the walls.

  "You were lucky," he said, hiding the syringe behind his back and backing away. The soldier followed him to the door and waited for him to pack up his stuff and put the suitcase on his lap.

  The group was left alone, in abysmal suffering and pure degrading conditions. There was no drink, no food, and the scent of blood flooded the room.

  "It's over?" Lucian asked Alec, the only one who could answer him.

  "Yes, but I'm not sure why. It was so sudden..." He replied, thinking of several reasons.

  "What if Max told them everything?" Lucian asked.

  Alec didn’t answer. The idea hung in the air, a question left unanswered.

  They couldn’t track time. It seemed, to Alec, only a few minutes later, and Lucian talked about hours. There was an undoing between reality and what was happening inside that room. Blood dripped from James' right arm and leg, creating an even larger puddle at his feet. Neil's fingers were already moving slowly, but he still had not regained complete control of his body and his face was as white as the walls. Lucy's consciousness slowly appeared. She had momentary tears of lucidity before she lay back in her chair and stretched out her hands, acting as if she had to catch something flying above her that no one could see.

  Chapter XIII

  Max’s POV

  Max saw his friends enter a room but was prevented from following them. He was led to a door, which had the number 3 in black, in the middle. Kantos removed a key from his pocket and opened it, giving Max room to enter first. The light went on automatically and revealed a small room, with only one table in the middle and two chairs, one on each side. On the table, a sandwich, a bottle of HP, one of energy and two bottles of water. He looked at Kantos with a dubious look, his eyebrows arched, and lips pursed.

  "If it were you, I would take advantage of it before the great leader arrives." The soldier said to Max, standing in front of the exit, blocking it.

  Seeing that he wouldn’t leave so early, Max hurried to sit down and drink the life and energy bottles, followed by two cracks in the sandwich and about four sips of water to push the food down. His belly rumbled, and the buzz came out of his mouth in the form of a belch, spreading the scent of chewed food in the room. Kantos shook his head contemptuously at the jovial attitude. He was still tinkling the last bits of bread when he heard loud, monstrous footsteps approaching. The floor seemed to shake every time a foot was placed on the ground. Small pebbles peeled off the walls and fell to the floor, stamping themselves. Max swallowed as quickly as he could, and drank the little bit of water, choking for a moment as he forced the food down.

  "You did a good job," said the leader to Kantos, who was moving away from the door to allow his entrance.

  "Thank you, boss!" Kantos said, feet together, head narrowed forward, and neck slightly tilted up.

  The leader glanced at Max and walked to the table, sitting on the opposite side.

  "A young man, in his prime age, and, above all, a healer. An essential member of any group that deserves it. We have not had the visit of such important outsiders for a while. I read the letter. I want to know which one of you has a spirit animal.” The leader asked him calmly, but in a way that sounded like an ultimatum.

  "I ... Oh, I don’t know. We didn’t open the letter..." Max said, trembling with fear and stumbling over his own words.

  "Hm... I'll give you one last chance. Are you going to answer truthfully? "The leader asked, dragging the legs of the chair across the floor to lean as close to the table as possible.

  "I swear. Seriously, I don’t know." Max replied breathlessly, knowing that the consequences of lying wouldn’t be pretty.

  "I'm going to tell you a secret. Come closer." The leader said to him, in a voice that was as reassuring as mesmerizing and to which Max couldn’t resist, "I don’t like blood. I hate it. I have someone to handle it, but..." Before finishing the sentence, he took Max's head as if it were a mere plastic, and threw it against the metal table, "sometimes I have to take care of it, too."

  Max's forehead slammed into the metal so hard that the swing made him fall from his chair and bite his tongue hard. He put two fingers on his forehead, fingering it until he had felt a source of pain and heat, slick with blood which came a
way with his hand when he inspected the liquid. The scent made him sick, and he had some difficulty getting up and standing without holding his chair. He staggered, the scent rising up to his nostrils, his legs trembling like a paper house about to be dragged by a tornado. It took him some time to sit down, and even after doing so, he had a hard time seeing the leader's face without moving and getting out of his normal plane, seeing two faces glued together. He had lost 10 HP points from such a small action from the leader.

  "I'll repeat it. Who has the spirit animal?" Asked the leader, sighing with annoyance. He took no pleasure in what he was doing, but he knew it was necessary.

  "I..." He started but had to stop. Sharp pain in his forehead made him wriggle in pain. He couldn’t open his eyes completely, and when they came into contact with the bright light of the room, they closed in an instant, "I don’t know." He finished face down.

  "You're more loyal than I expected." The leader commented, raising his hand and motioning to Kantos.

  "Are you sure?" He asked, glancing at Max.

  "Yes. You know what to do.”

  Kantos, who didn’t seem very happy to be used as a torturer, aimed the palm of his hand at Max. Gusts of wind were hurled at his slim body and threw him against one of the walls. The force of the air pressed against his bones, imprisoning him and tearing his clothes slowly. Max screamed in pain, seeing himself forced to open his eyes, flying pelts, scratched glasses, about to explode in a thousand pieces, lights on his face, and having trouble in breathing.

  “Please, don’t…” He begged, as loud as he could.

  He tried to remember the good times when he was a child and he got lost in his uncle's library, full of books of all kinds. Reading what he could and yearning to become someone that the family could be proud of, but also by the day that he finished academy so he could have access to the private collection. His uncle had promised him. He needed to survive until there. There was more at stake than that, but it was that memory of ancient book’s scent that made him feel that it wasn’t his time, that the reaper was not going to decapitate him here, under the earth, in a small room, alone, being tortured to death.

  "Enough," the leader said.

  Kantos lowered his hand and the wind waves vanished in seconds. Max fell, sprawling on the floor. His torn clothes revealed a thin body with protruding bones and pink nipples. His color contrasted with the white ground. He had wounds, cuts on his whole body, including some superficial ones in the face and in his fingers. It took him some time to close his hand and get up as much as he could, with a bare shoulder and a quick breath. His glasses had jumped from his face, into the right corner, with broken lenses, and a trail left behind them. He could barely see, and he had to grope his way until he touched something solid and low enough to be a chair. Even less than a meter from the leader he could no longer see his face, only the shape of certain features, such as thick lips and ears larger than they should be. Attributes that distinguished him and which were large enough to stand out.

  "Get up and follow me," the leader ordered.

  Max immediately obeyed, fearing reprisals. He followed the leader's form to the entrance, groping around him to get an idea of where he was. Someone touched his shoulder. He turned and saw the faint face of Kantos, who was now stretching out his hand, having a small object in one of them. Max took the glasses, which he quickly put on. They didn’t fit well and they tightened around his ears but they were going to have to serve. He returned to the tunnel without a light, where he didn’t have an idea of the end and the beginning, or even if there was an exit other than where he had come. The leader had his back to him. He didn’t look back once, nor did he hesitate for a second, even knowing how much Max wanted to get out of there and how helpless he was. Max was not sure if the boss knew he wouldn’t have the guts to attack somebody helpless, or trusted Kantos, who was following Max, a few steps behind him, to protect him.

  They led him to the next door, which had no number and was smaller than the others. A narrow corridor led them into a room, smaller than the one in which they had been, and with a transparent glass. At first, he saw seven shadows, four in each corner of the room, one in the middle and two around one of them. They exchanged a few words between them, but the sound was confined to the four walls. Gradually he began to notice and perceive that they were his friends, still imprisoned and being used as a bargaining chip. Kantos pressed a button beside the doorway, and the shapes gained color, becoming clear who they were, and the puddle of blood beneath the hand without Neil's finger, as well as the finger on the floor, covered in blood.

  "What are you doing? Stop!" Max shouted. The sound echoed through the room, revealing and disappearing into the void.

  "We thought you needed an incentive. They can’t hear you here. Take advantage, watch the spectacle." The leader said, pulling up a chair and sitting down, looking bored and as he would rather be anywhere else but there.

  Max tried to knock on the glass but Kantos stepped in front of him and stopped him. His intelligent brain melted, troubled by the emotions that tore through his body. He didn’t sit down. He stood motionless, eyes wide open, watching as a young man, a few years older than him, took something from his suitcase and turned to his cousin. He lost what was left of his humanity gradually, seeing his cousin's body become nothing more than a guinea pig for experiments of torture. His heart pumped the blood faster, flowing into his numb brain. He knelt, his hands touching his face as tears moistened his lips and fell to the floor.

  His cousin's mouth moved, suffocating in pain, but nothing came out. A silence governed by the weight of the moment, by the inability to fight what was happening. In charge of saving the academy and the people, and, in the end, had been barred badly as soon as the journey began. Max punched the ground so hard the bones between his fingers reddened. He didn’t feel worthy of the trust he had been given. He had to prove that he deserved it, that no matter what happened, he would remain silent, a safe lying on the dark bottom of the ocean. He resisted seeing his cousin's leg be destroyed as if a giant had stepped on it without hesitation. Blood trickled down the small holes in James's leg, and the young man who had caused them smiled like a psychopath as he tasted it.

  "He's crazy!" Max shouted, his face turned to the leader.

  "Not crazy, but in love with his work. The right person for this kind of work," he replied, looking down at Max, "It's not over yet. There are still 3 colleagues left." He added, smiling, "Unless you have something to tell me."

  Max didn’t answer. He got up and looked at the mirrored glass again. The torturer's fingers were lost in the long strands of Lucy's hair. Max bit the inside of his cheek until the pain relieved him of guilt. He could stop everything, and yet he knew that it would not be what his friends wanted, that they would rather suffer than reveal everything. Even Neil had already proved himself, and he alone had been useless so far. The young doctor approached Alec while the guard held him by the arms. The syringe, dripping, was directed at his body.

  "ENOUGH." Max shouted, "Please."

  "Hmmm. A special affinity? It makes us weak, you know? Well, a promise is a promise..." The leader said, standing up and knocking three times on the wall.

  The torturer stopped. He glanced at the glass, before picking up his things and leaving the room. He left them alone, slash wounds on their bodies, and Alec and Lucian staring at each other, exchanging words.

  "Which one?" The leader asked, looking at the group.

  "Ah... that one." Max pointed at Lucian. His finger trembled and color faded from his face, removing the pink color.

  "Are you sure?" The leader asked, waving at Kantos.

  "I am..." he replied, still with his finger in the air and his voice failing him, "What are you going to do to him?"

  "You're better off not knowing. You can go to your friends. Someone will come to set you free. They are free to go. You'll get the HP bottles, energy and half the money." The leader told him, walking to the door, "you made the bes
t decision."

  Before leaving, the leader pressed the button near the door, causing him to no longer be able to watch what was happening in the other room clearly. Max fell on the floor, once again crying with a tight heart. A big enough squeeze to immobilize him. He looked at the mirror, seeing a shadow entering the room, trapping Lucian's hands and feet with another chain and taking him with him.

  "It's all my fault," he said, tears streaming down to his fists as he struggled to bury them on the floor.

  A few minutes passed until his legs regained their ability to rise and his arms stopped shaking. He wiped his eyes and nose with the left corner of his clothes and walked to the door. His head still throbbed. A latent pain that sometimes forced him to close his eyes and leave him dizzy, going against the walls of the tunnel. A shiver ran down his spine as his body touched the cool moist moss. The darkness embraced him with every step he took, stretching the tunnel for several yards without reaching the number one door. Step by step, and yet it never seemed to get there. Trapped in a loop, intended to repeat the scene, his head created a high definition cinema, as the moment he betrayed the group repeated incessantly. He sighed deeply, the heavy, thin air swelling in his lungs.

  He touched something with a different texture on the rock wall and stopped. His mouth half-open with a bit of saliva escaping from the right corner of his mouth, he looked up and saw the sign with the number 1. The door was leaning. He hesitated for a moment. His hand trembled, nervousness seizing him, wondering if he could face them. He swallowed his pride and went inside.

  Chapter XIV

  Alex, Neil, and Lucy were talking to each other. Neil was still recovering, bleeding, but he was talking non-stop, serving as a short-term remedy to not focus on the pain. He also had his finger on his hand, hoping that it could still be sewn to his hand. They didn’t notice that Max had come in and he could hear them saying that there was only one reason why they had taken Lucian and how he must have betrayed them. Neil blatantly accused him, while Alec said he wouldn’t do it and Lucy refused to take a side.