Kept In The Dark
I can’t remember where I was before, all I see around me is darkness. Maybe I’ve just gone blind. But I can’t feel anything around me either, I can’t even feel the air when I try and breathe.
“I let them kill you, you deserved death, I felt relief when I heard you take your last breath”
All of a sudden, I could see again. I think I’m at my house. Well, it looks like a house and I’m here, so it must be my house. I can breathe again. I guess I just blacked out, had a weird dream before I woke up again.
Wait, did I just hear someone say they killed me?!
“Day by day my hatred for you grew, I wonder if at the very end you hated me too.”
I whipped my head around trying to find the voice, maybe he’s the person who knocked me unconscious. He sounded like he was right behind me, but no one is there. There’s no door in sight, but I can see a hallway, that’s my best bet. I get up and sprint as hard as I can.
……..
Suddenly I’m back in the darkness. Did he knock me unconscious again when I started running? Must be. But why do I keep having this weird dream?
“Oh what joy, getting to murder you again. Next time try to fight back, time for another spin.”
I can see again, breathe again. I need to get out now. I sprint towards the hallway, this time I make it. I just need to keep going and hope it leads to a room, anything I can hide in…
I’ve been running for what feels like a full minute and I’m somehow still in this hallway, how big is this house?! There aren’t even any doors along the sides, and I can’t see any exit further up, where does this hallway even lead?!
“You can run anywhere, hide in any room, but I’ll still find and kill you soon.”
Hearing those words caused my heart to go cold, the panic froze me for a second. I look around but can’t see him. He’s not behind me in the hallway or ahead of me, maybe he’s behind one of the walls, but his voice sounds so close to me.
In an instant I’m back in the darkness. He must have knocked me out somehow. I don’t know how he did it, and I don’t understand why I keep having this dream before I wake up, or why he keeps saying he’s going to kill me, but never does. Maybe he’s playing with me first before… deciding to do it for real.
I’m so afraid it hurts; my heart can’t take all this much longer. I can breathe again, I must be waking up. “Please, let me go, I’m sorry for whatever I did, please!”. Just being brave enough to speak out felt like it took all my energy, I didn’t even have it in me to try and run this time.
“I don’t understand why you keep coming back, but maybe if I kill you enough times, we can take care of that.”
Kill me, he said it again. Maybe he thinks that when I’m going unconscious, I’m actually dying. If he’s that insane there might not be any use in trying to talk to him, but I need to do something before he really kills me.
“Please, whatever I did I’m sorry. I don’t want to die, you don’t have to kill me, I’ll do whatever you want! Please!”
I heard nothing but silence for a few moments, the calmest I’ve felt since waking up in this house, my house? Still not sure. The furniture is all finely polished wood, and the lamps lining the walls look expensive. Is this all my stuff? Maybe this isn’t my house, but why can’t I remember. Maybe he drugged me, or I’m just concussed from all the times he attacked me.
“The group who killed you first obviously made a blunder, they said that you’d be gone forever. Yet here you are seemingly unable to stay dead, no matter, I’ll finish the job in their stead.”
I’m dead. I can’t run anywhere; I can’t stop him from attacking me. I’m really going to die.
“I can pay you some money, my family… I think my family can pay a lot too.”
My family… why can’t I remember anything about my family?
“Your family? ---The same family that murdered you so dearly? Hmm, it sounds like you can’t remember very clearly.”
My family murdered me?! What is this psycho saying, I’m still alive. Why the hell would my family murder me? And why is everything he’s saying a rhyme? He’s definitely insane. I need to get out now.
“Perhaps all your deaths have affected your memory, it wouldn’t surprise me since I’ve been killing you daily.”
…
Daily?! How long have I been in this house, been being attacked? Maybe I just don’t remember the other days like I can’t remember other stuff… oh God!
“Tell me the truth, you must go to hell every time you die, did you really think someone like you would ascend into the sky?”
There’s no way I’m actually in hell, this guy must be some sort of crazy zealot. Maybe he’s punishing me because he thinks I deserve it, and this is his way of putting me in hell. But what did I do to him?! And why can’t I see him?! It always sounds like he’s right over my shoulder, but whenever I turn around, he’s never there. I might be drugged, I can’t trust my own senses, maybe I’m just delirious. At this point anything is better than him attacking me over and over, I’ll just answer his questions and hope he keeps talking.
“I see blackness, and I can’t breathe either. Nothing but blackness, can’t feel or see anything.”
Another moment of silence.
“Interesting, I thought hell would be worse, that doesn’t sound like enough punishment for a man whose very presence felt like a curse.”
I’m back in the darkness, but something is different this time. I can breathe a little bit. Only in short breaths never enough to relax, but before I felt suffocated. And the darkness isn’t as dark anymore. I think I can almost see someth---
I’m back. Back in the living room. Back to hearing the voice. Back to getting knocked out… there’s no way he’s really killing me. That wouldn’t make sense.
“Hmm, maybe stabbing in the heart isn’t enough, since every time you wake up your wound has closed up.”
Stabbing me in the chest! I look down, my shirt has a small rip in it right where my he… I tear away at my shirt to see if I’m bleeding, but I don’t see anything, not a single scratch. I look around the living room, I see a giant mirror. I rush towards it. I start checking myself all over, but I don’t see any injuries. I don’t see any bruises on my head, and I can’t feel any lumps either. How has he been knocking me out this entire time?
There’s no way what he’s telling me is the truth. No one can survive being stabbed there, and how could I not even have a mark on me. Plus, I can’t even see him, how could he get that close to me without me being able to see him. But why do I keep having that dream when he knocks me out. Why does he think I’m being killed?!
“Hmm healing yourself from fatal wounds represents an elite level, I wonder if in hell you made a deal with the devil. Before you died you could only change your limbs into sharp metal, and that’s something many republic soldiers could do, it was nothing special.”
Change my limbs into metal?! What the hell…he’s making it sound like there’s a bunch of people outside who can just go and change their limbs into metal?! What the hell is going on? I need to get out of here now!
I get up and run for the hallway, I prepare myself to get knocked out… or die again.
Suddenly, I’m in the dark again. I wonder how long this torture will go on, before either he kills me for real… or, no, I can’t believe I’m actually starting to believe I might be really dying and coming back. I’ve been attacked too many times; it’s starting to affect my thinking.
“Well technically you’re both right, he is stabbing you through the heart, but I’m stopping you from dying right at the last moment.”
My heart froze, it feels like every muscle in my body is tense. What the hell was that sound, how am I hearing something, in the darkness. Is this my subconscious? I take a second, and then I realize that I’m breathing, I’m breathing in the darkness, and easily too. I can even see something now, something not as dark as its surrounding, it looks like the silhouette of a woman, I think. Is she the one who just spoke to me?
“Calm down, this time he didn’t actually stab you, I’m talking to you as you're running down the hallway. But every second in here is like one one thousandth of a second in that world.”
My jaw dropped. What the hell is going on? Am I starting to talk to myself?
“I can help you escape, escape from that… man, as you say. The same way I’ve been helping keep you alive”
Is this the lady healing me? No, that’s insane. She’s a result of my injuries. I’m just getting delirious, but it feels so real. It feels like she’s right there, behind a veil of black. It feels like a real person. I… I can’t help it; I can’t stop myself from saying something.
“Please help me, I’ll do anything. I need to get out of here, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I said calm down, listen, the man... it... it used its powers to bind your sight, so that’s why it’s invisible to you. When you hear its voice, it really is behind you, you just can’t see it. It also hid the doors in the hallway from you, but its power has limits, and that’s the most it can do.”
What? Binding my eyesight? What the hell is she saying? I must be delirious, this is proof. But every part of my body, even my brain is telling me to keep talking to her. Wait, I got an idea.
“Okay so I’ll just attack him the next time I hear him?!”
“No, it is more resilient than a human. It would take a days’ worth of punches and kicks to put it down. You need to transmute your hand, quickly before it notices, and stab it when it is behind you whispering.”
“Transmute… what do you mean? And who is he? Why is he trying to kill me? I’ve never done anything to him, I’ve never even seen him before.”
“Ugh, don’t worry so much. I will help you do it. I know you can’t remember much, part of the cost of fixi--- Restoring you was that it damaged some of what you are, or rather what you were. And it, not a he, an it, is just a creation of your father’s. A spirit, designed to make sure you were really dead. Now remember transmute, stab quick and fatal, okay?”
Did she say damaged me, what does she--- Wait. What?! My father made that thing!
“MY DAD! You're lying… what the hell are you? I’m just hallucinating, you’re just a symptom of my concussions.”
“Hah I figured it would be better to lie to you, but I just really wanted to see your reaction. Yes, your dad really made that thing, and not just him, your brother and sister also helped him kill you; the first time I mean. When your father made that thing, a little bit of the rage, hatred, and insanity he was feeling seeped into it. That’s why it keeps reciting deranged poetry about murder I assume. Now back to the real world, remember, just try to transmute your hand when you hear it whispering, I’ll help you do it. Then attack fast.”
All of a sudden, I was back in the real world. But I was still running, right in the same spot I was before I spoke to… myself or whatever that woman was. My dad would never try to kill me, my family wouldn’t either. My dad… I don’t remember him, but there’s no way my real father would try to hurt me. The hallucination was just speaking nonsense. But even the rhyming man talked about me turning my hand into steel, maybe that part is true, maybe that’s how I can ge---
"Hmm, just now I felt a strange energy from you, tell me, what did you do? Did you try and transmute your hand? Hah! At your level even making a quarter inch dagger would be grand."
He’s here! I have to do everything I can now. Even if I’m just going crazy, I need to do something now. Think… focus… What did the lady say to do?
"Maybe if I cut off your head, you’ll finally stay dead."
Now! I have to transmute now! I turned around, ready to either stab my attacker with my magical metal hand or punch him in the face if that was all really a hallucination. I can’t see anyone, but I think I can feel him. I feel his focus on me, his presence right in front of me. I raise my hand and form a fist, preparing to punch as hard as I can. I need to survive; I don’t want to die. There’s no way this thing was created by my father, there’s no way my brother and sister tried to kill me.
For a split second I go back into the darkness, and I hear the woman say, “Good, watch this.” I think I saw a smile through all the black separating her and me.
My raised fist turns black, but instead of turning into metal, small black lines start to appear all around me, they surrounded me, from my skin to about a foot away in every direction. Each black line a few inches away from the one next to it, and each line itself a few inches in length. The lines were just hanging in the air randomly, no clear pattern to their placement, some of them were even touching me.
All of a sudden, I’m back in the darkness.
“Well, we really overdid it there, you died again. Well almost, I saved you at the last second once again.”
I have no clue what happened, the last thing I saw were small black lines in the air near me. Did my attacker die? Did he get injured? Did I make it outside before dying? She was right. He--- it was right too. About everything. That must mean… I really was dying. What is going on. Was she right about my fam… No, there’s no way.
“What happened, did I get out?”
“Well, remember when I said I damaged you? Clearly a part of that damage is that you can’t really finish your transmutations anymore, you’re a little bit broken now. To get around that I am lending you some of the darkness, you might not be able to transmute the way you used to, but it's better than nothing.”
“So, then what happened, why did I… die again?”
“Well, I’ve never done anything like that either, I think we overdid it a bit. Each one of those black lines you transmuted your hand into, created a cut. So, we kind of cut everything within a foot of you, including your own body. You lost a lot of blood, wasn’t pretty trust me.”
“And the man who attacked me?”
“Not man, it, a creation of your fathers’, remember? It was heavily injured, we didn’t control our transmutation enough to cut any fatal areas, but it had at least 10 or 12 deep cuts all across its body. You couldn’t see it because it was invisible to you, and you were already dead, but he was leaking a lot of energy through his cuts. He fled the house, probably trying to find your father for treatment, I’m sure.”
“We?”
“We. I can’t do transmutation for you; I can only help you complete it by fixing what is now broken in you.”
“So, I’m finally free?!”
“I guess I shouldn’t expect a thank you, as long as you hold up your end of the bargain.”
… Bargain?
“Bargain? I didn’t agree to anything?!”
“No, but your mother did.”
