50. Ache (Patreon)

A/N: Hey everyone! Thank you all for your patience. I'm still a little sick but I'm doing way better than I was last week and very much on the mend. Barring YET MORE random bullcrap smacking me around, regular update schedules should resume from here. Also: wow! Chapter fifty! That's a pretty cool milestone, right? I think it's cool. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

My throat is raw from silent screams, so after a while I stop bothering. I can't stay still, of course, not with this kind of pain arcing through me, but whimpers and sobs are enough to let out that animalistic need to react to the agony. I don't know how long it's been. Probably not very; this kind of all-encompassing pain tends to drag out every second, stretching time into one horrific, extended moment after another. Why does it hurt so much? Why?

A soft pressure settles itself around my still-hardening carapace, the Goddess tickling my ears with a reassuring hum. I don't need to worry, She promises. They won't find what they're looking for, not by taking a pick to an iceberg. They're learning, bit by bit, but it won't be fast enough. Not before I figure out how to escape.

Escape? Escape!? I can't even think, and my body barely works. I have enough hardened chitin to cast Spatial Rend, probably, but that doesn't even matter because of the Zone of Law, and the rest of me is just… a mess. I know I could probably repair myself with my transformation spell, but it wouldn't matter because I still can't get out of here!

"Are you getting anything?" the dentron woman asks silently, her lips tracing the words to her partner.

"More complex than the last one," the man torturing me answers, shaking his head.

The Goddess clicks Her tongue disapprovingly. She knows I'm smarter than that, but She'll forgive me this time since I'm not thinking straight. Think. Block out the pain. I'll need to get used to this kind of thing sooner or later. I have three different elements of magic, and only one of them is being blocked. Surely I can figure out a way to leave?

I… I'm not sure. Can I? My Transformation magic seems useless here unless I transform myself so much that I burst out of the cage… but the cage is reinforced with Barrier magic so I'd probably just squish myself to death. And while I might be able to transform the people around me into monster versions of themselves… I'm pretty sure that would just make them more dangerous? Like, it could certainly be an effective distraction I suppose, but I still don't have any way to take advantage of the distraction.

And that just leaves Refresh. A spell for sorting and cleaning. There's no way I can… well. I mean, there's probably some way I can kill someone with Refresh. It can move blood around when I incant it, but… well, no, that wouldn't work. Partly because I'll probably get clapped by one of the guards the moment I try to speak a spell out loud, but partly just because blood belongs in the body. And even if I had some way to kill someone with something even lighter than blood, like air…

Wait. I can totally kill a person with air. I wouldn't even have to say the spell out loud to sort air.

The Goddess grins, lovingly stroking my legs in a way that makes my next whimper of agony about more than just the soul damage. I'm doing such a good job, She tells me. Silently, now. Invisibly, now. I should make them unable to ever hurt me again.

Death claws at my soul, scraping my threads raw. I can feel it inside me, cutting, grating, searching. The pain is nowhere and everywhere, unlike anything else I've ever experienced. I can feel the Goddess is right; it's barely a papercut against the size of my spirit, but it's like a papercut under a fingernail that just. Keeps. Digging. Even though the injury is small, the pain blooms like fire, peeling away nerve after nerve and leaving them open and raw to the air. He's doing this. A man is doing this to me, on purpose. All I have to do is pull the oxygen out of his lungs and wait.

All I have to do is decide this world is a cleaner, better place if he's a corpse instead of a person.

Because that's the thing, isn't it? The core of my spell. It is a spell of Order. It puts things in their proper places. And it's one thing to believe in a world where pancake batter is supposed to be mixed, innocent women are supposed to be free of disease, and skittles are supposed to be sorted by color. Those are innocent things, beautiful things. They might be selfish, sure, but they're the small kind of selfish that doesn't have to hurt anyone to make my life better. It's easy to believe there should be a world where things should get a little easier at the cost of no one.

But a world where this man's lungs are an improper place for oxygen? No. I can't believe that. I felt legitimately bad about killing actual rapists. I can't convince myself that, in a properly clean and orderly world, this man deserves to die, just because he's hurting me. And until I believe that, I can't even attempt to kill him with Refresh. I can't just attempt to knock him unconscious, either; oxygen deprivation isn't something I can expect to just try for the first time and not give someone brain damage with. I'll be risking murder whether I want to kill him or not.

The Goddess sighs, drumming Her fingers across my back. Oh well, She shrugs. I'll have plenty of time—and plenty of reason—to change my mind. In the meantime, I am encouraged to have fun with the torture. And so I cry and scream and sob until my body finally gives out, and I wake up in bed.

My soul still hurts.

It's less all-encompassing, less debilitating, but it's still there. Goddess, it's still there. It hurts to move, it hurts to think, but most of all it just hurts. I lie in bed and shiver for a while, profoundly tempted to just call in sick today so I don't have to move, but… that would require getting my family involved.

I get up and start my routine, ignoring the ache as best I can. I hadn't really noticed it until now, but I guess I've gotten pretty used to a body that doesn't have most of the passive aches and pains people tend to get used to. Between my transformation spell doubling as recovery, No Less Than Perfect wiping away even the tiniest issues, and chitinous limbs that just don't seem to get sore in the same way my old limbs did, pain has been… well, not really a rare thing for me, but a decidedly temporary thing. Something that happens during the admittedly-frequent periods where things go horribly wrong, but then disappears afterwards. This, however, is constant. And I don't know when—or if—it's going to go away.

I guess I'll get used to it eventually. That's how it always goes.

I take a quick shower just so no one can accuse me of having not done so, and I Refresh myself to actual cleanliness. The idea of using the spell as a murder weapon makes me sick. It corrupts everything I love about it, so I just try not to think about that as I start my day, completing the motions on autopilot as the pain steals most of my higher functioning anyway. I stagger to the bus stop not realizing it's nearly an hour before the bus normally comes, the time I'd normally spend showering not having been used for anything this morning.

Well, flapjacks. Now what? Nervous of having nothing to do, I pull out every modern-day woman's most reliable thought killer: my cell phone. Oh hey, I have notifications. Discord again? I scroll through the chat with Valerie's friends, reading her field various questions about me with somewhat limited answers, until I finally find the post that pinged my phone.

---

<Skarmbliss>
@DistractedDreamer hey are you okay? seemed like you were having a bad time all stream and then you stopped suddenly.

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Oh, really? What happened?

<Skarmbliss>
ya i'll link.

---

And then they do, showing a video of me pulling out a bunch of my hair, complaining about it, and then shutting off my stream without any real warning. Chat goes a little wild after I leave. It looks like some people are starting to believe me?

---

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Uh. Gosh. I hope she's okay? Hey @Monster Magus, is your friend okay?

<Monster Magus>
I dunno. Prolly not.

<Mortissississimo>
Yeah that sounds about right lmao

---

I sigh, and start typing. May as well set the record straight.

---

<DistractedDreamer>
Can confirm: not doing great. My hair is falling out and my everything hurts.

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Oh, hey Hannah! Gosh I'm sorry to hear that.

<Mortissississimo>
Yeah those are symptoms of radiation poisoning. You have radiation poisoning

<DistractedDreamer>
Kind of, but it's the Spider-Man kind where it gives you weird powers and gets you wrapped up in dimensional shenanigans.

<Mortissississimo>
Ok but for real though have you considered going to a hospital

<DistractedDreamer>
And doing what? Consulting their entomologist? Look, I appreciate the concern but I've kind of gone through this whole "let's suggest all the practical solutions" thing with Valerie. I HAVE EIGHT LIMBS. A hospital can't do anything with that.

<Mortissississimo>
Well, not with their entomologist, no. But if you consulted their arachnologist…

---

Oh my gosh. Seriously? I clack my teeth together in irritation. I wonder if I can get the Goddess to dox this guy for me. Just ask for some divine knowledge to troll a man on the internet with. She'd probably think it's funny.

---

<DistractedDreamer>
I'm getting the distinct impression that you either think I'm crazy or lying for attention, and while I can't say that's an unreasonable assumption it's still kind of frustrating to get nothing but indignation and jokes in response to "my hair is falling out and my everything hurts."

<Mortissississimo>
Aight yeah that's fair sorry

<DistractedDreamer>
Besides, I'm eventually going to have ten limbs, so an arachnologist wouldn't help either.

<Mortissississimo>
Well now I'm just getting mixed messages

<DistractedDreamer>
My medical issues, my prerogative on joking about them. *Sticks out tongue*

<Mortissississimo>
Don't actually stick out your tongue you'll make blue faint again

<blue>
fhfhdslfhsdlfsdffjkldshf

<DistractedDreamer>
I'm alone at the bus stop. I could send more pics.

<blue>
DFHKSDJAFKFLAFDSJHFSDK

<Monster Magus>
Wait, you're at the bus stop already?

<DistractedDreamer>
Hey Valerie! Yeah, I… got my whole routine done really early and just kind of autopiloted out here.

<Monster Magus>
You said you're in pain?

<DistractedDreamer>
I'm being soul tortured!

<Monster Magus>
That sounds… bad.

<DistractedDreamer>
It's not great!

<Monster Magus>
Let me get ready real fast and I'll come meet you. We can see if there's like, a counterspell I can whip up, or at least maybe a painkiller.

<DistractedDreamer>
Oh yeah! Hey! If this is affecting me earthside, then earthside magic might work to fight against it!

<Monster Magus>
My thoughts exactly.

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
What the heck are you two talking about?

<Mortissississimo>
Magic, duh

<Skarmbliss>
you guys are actually serious huh. like its real for real.

<DistractedDreamer>
Yes. Ugh, this is the worst way for me to make friends, isn't it? Just walking in and acting crazy. Honestly, I was really looking forward to just having a normal place to hang out? But yeah I guess being out on the internet means I'm out on the internet. You guys get weirdo monster Hannah. And soon you'll have weirdo monster Valerie too!

<Monster Magus>
Yeah my ears really hurt today so that'll probably be fun.

<DistractedDreamer>
I'm honestly lucky my ears haven't fallen off. Y'all wanna see my bag of human teeth?

<Skarmbliss>
your what

<Mortissississimo>
Your WHAT

<DistractedDreamer>
My bag! Of human! Teeth! Don't worry, they're all my teeth. My former teeth, anyway. Because they all had to FALL OUT OF MY FLIPPING MOUTH when my big sharp chompers grew in.

<Monster Magus>
Do you still carry your teeth around in a bag!?

<DistractedDreamer>
Again: what else should I do? Throw an entire human's mouth full of teeth into the trash? What if somebody finds that?

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Just stagger it. Throw away a tooth at a time, in various trash cans. A bag of teeth might be concerning, but one tooth is pretty normal. This is just if you don't think anyone's going to be looking for them, of course; obscurity through normalcy. If you're worried someone will be searching for the body, the "bury it in the woods" or "throw it in a river" options tend to be more reliable. The disposal location should minimize both the probability that the body can be found and the probability that its discovery could be linked back to you, but for just teeth that should be pretty simple. Smash them to dust before you toss them out in the wild somewhere and you should be fine.

<Mortissississimo>
Thanks Lana we can always count on you for our corpse disposal needs

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
I try!

<DistractedDreamer>
I guess I could probably just eat them, too, but trying to get my teeth to break up something that small would be a pain.

<Mortissississimo>
Yeah that sounds like a reasonable primary objection to the strategy of eating human teeth

<DistractedDreamer>
My standards have kind of been getting tossed all over the place, okay!?

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Hey Hannah, would you prefer to talk about something else?

<DistractedDreamer>
Yes. Definitely. Absolutely.

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Then I wanna ask how your date went!

<DistractedDreamer>
Oh! Well, it was mostly pretty good. We went to an aquarium and it was super fun!

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
Nice!

<DistractedDreamer>
Yeah!

---

The pain is constant, but the distractions help. Lana keeps me talking about other things until Valerie arrives at the bus stop and we get to chatting in person. Predictably, Val has a lot of spell ideas, but they tend to run into a recurring theme.

"If we aren't somehow dealing with the situation treeside, we're just treating the symptoms, not the cause," she says. "So we're going to have to figure out what kinds of spells work on you between dimensions, and I don't know how we would confirm that outside of casting magic on you while you're unconscious over here and asking you if it worked in the morning."

"Huh," I muse. "So… you need access to me while I sleep."

"Yup," Valerie nods. "Pretty much."

"My mom is not going to approve a sleepover on a school night," I scowl.

"I figured, but you're kind of getting soul-tortured. Maybe you should just… not listen to her?"

I say nothing, staring at my feet. I know I should agree with that, but I don't know how to. I'm not sure I could on my best day, and today is far from my best day. Valerie frowns at me, but doesn't press the point.

Eventually, the bus arrives and school starts soon after. Even the simple, routine tasks of classwork seem difficult when my body and soul ache. It's so hard to focus on anything, even telling my friends what's going on feels like an ordeal. Ida tries a wordless cast of No Less Than Perfect on me, which helps a little but not for long. I think I prefer Alma's feel-better strategy.

"You want a shoulder rub?" she asks.

"Huh?" I say dumbly. We're sitting together in the library for lunch like we normally do, carefully eating while surrounded by a mountain of books. She's reading another Terry Pratchett novel while I futilely try to wrangle my brain into focusing on homework through the pain.

"A shoulder rub," Alma repeats, giving me a wry smile. "You know, the thing where someone rubs your shoulders."

"Oh," I blink. "Uh. I won't say no, but I don't know if that's going to help with soul damage at all."

"It doesn't necessarily have to," Alma shrugs, putting her bookmark in and standing up. "I bet your whole body is tense from stress, and that just adds to any already existing pain, right?"

"Sure," I agree. "Okay."

She gets to work, brushing my hair aside before pressing her thumbs into the muscle of my neck and kneading away. She's right; it does feel good, even if it doesn't really get rid of the pain. It's the kind of stepping-into-a-hot-tub kind of relaxing that makes me just want to sigh with relief, but… well, uh, we're sort of in a public school library so I'm just going to continue sitting straight and keeping things as chaste as possible.

"You are really good at this," I can't help but comment as she moves out from the neck to the shoulders proper.

"Yeah, my dad has a bad back and he likes it when I help out with this sort of thing," she answers nonchalantly. "I've got a lot of practice. Although it's kind of hard knowing how firmly to press now, since I think your spell is making me stronger."

"Also the claws," I mumble.

"...And that, yeah," she agrees. "But I don't really use my fingertips for this anyway, so it's not a huge deal."

"Well I've also got weird biology, believe it or not, so I don't know how well my preferences will scale to your dad," I tell her, "but I could go with more pressure, I think."

She leans forward so she can look at me and wiggles her eyebrows.

"Want me to go harder, do you?" she asks in a comically sultry voice.

A laugh chokes out from me, despite how not all that funny it is. She cackles back and the two of us just spend a little while shaking quietly in an attempt to not laugh loud enough to get us kicked from the library. It's stupid. It barely even helps. But… it's something. A little levity on a long day helps a lot.

But it's a very long day, and I'm just so tired. It's not long before lunch is over and the rest of my schedule is once again bleak. I have work today, so after school I head straight there. Doing anything is a slog. I haven't felt this exhausted, sore, and drained since well before all the magical nonsense in my life started, and then only when I was really, really sick. I manage to get through my shift in a haze, and despite my all-encompassing fatigue when I get home, I'm terrified of falling asleep. It'll only get worse on the other side of things.

---

<DistractedDreamer>
Apropos of nothing: do people here think that if someone hurts others, they deserve to die?

<Mortissississimo>
"""""Apropos of nothing"""""

<Monster Magus>
Hannah?

<Lana, Blood Ba’ham>
I mean, I absolutely think there are cases where it's unavoidable to use lethal force in self-defense.

<DistractedDreamer>
Yeah I understand that. Trust me, I understand that. I'm like the freaking queen of using lethal force in self-defense. I mean does a person who hurts others deserve to die. Like, ontologically.

<Skarmbliss>
How I wake up knowing my enemies are ontologically evil and there is no act against them which is wrong :-)

<blue>
what does ontologically mean

<Lana, Blood Ba'ham>
"Relating to or based upon being or existence." In this case 'ontologically deserves to die' just means 'deserves to die as an inherent property of the person's existence.' Which… no, I don't think that's the case.

<Mortissississimo>
Death penalty arguments would make an interesting change from the usual political discourse around these parts, but I have to argue that nothing "deserves" anything, ontologically speaking. The concept of deserving things is not useless, but it is absolutely made up, so it doesn't really work in ontological contexts.

<Lana, Blood Ba'ham>
Even outside the specific realm of ontology, I think it's tough to argue against the value of prioritizing forgiveness and healing. Like, there are extreme cases where someone might be too horrific to forgive or too dangerous to attempt to capture, but as long as you can capture and rehabilitate, you should try. This goes doubly so when you're talking about policy, be that systemic or personal. Death is sometimes necessary, but it should be the extreme exception, not the standard practice.

<DistractedDreamer>
Alright. Thank you anyway.

<Mortissississimo>
"Thank you anyway?"

<Lana, Blood Ba'ham>
You're welcome, I suppose.

<Monster Magus>
Good luck, Hannah.

---

I turn my phone off, close my eyes, and fall asleep. I wake up still in pain, but it no longer matters. Nothing does. Not the new shape of my hardening carapace, not the messy-haired woman sitting blankly on a chair in the corner, and not the utter lack of other guards or defenses. My torturers are nowhere in sight, but they don't matter. Hagoro isn't nearby to disable my Space magic, but he doesn't matter. My thoughts are nothing but listless nothings, technically awake but utterly devoid of volition. I do not move, except to breathe.

It's impossible to know how much time passes before something happens, but events are beyond my notice anyway. Sometimes people walk by the room they're keeping me in. Sometimes they greet the guards, but sometimes they just glance at the door, seeming to read something on it before walking away a little faster than they approached. One person I don't recognize enters, a human woman with a shaved head and a primitive-looking pair of glasses. She carries a tray in each hand. She extends the smaller tray towards me, and when she reaches the wooden bars of my cage she somehow passes the entire tray and part of her arm clean through them, depositing it next to me.

The tray has a bowl of water and some kind of meat I can't identify. Some part of me vaguely notes that I might be offended by being given a water bowl like some kind of pet, but I can't deny it would be easier to drink from than a glass, given my continued lack of hands. Not that it really matters. The woman also deposits a tray in front of the long-haired girl in the room, who is equally unresponsive to its presence. Gently, the woman coaxes the girl to eat and drink, guiding her hands and helping her safely bring food and water to her mouth while her eyes continue staring blankly at nothing. I get no such treatment. My tray remains untouched, and I remain motionless. After the meal, the woman with the shaved head departs.

More meaningless things occur. More measureless time passes. I still don't feel anything even when a dentron I recognize and normally dislike approaches the room, changes something on the door, and speaks a spell. I don't feel anything as the Goddess descends onto my body, cuddling me with a smile like I'm a sleepy kitten. I don't feel anything when Hagoro enters the room, walks over to the blank-faced, long-haired girl, and speaks softly.

"Madaline?" he says. "Madaline, I'm back. You can stop now."

Nothing but increasingly-familiar nothing answers him. He places a hand on her shoulder, careful and calm, and gives her a light shake.

"It's alright, Madaline," he continues quietly. "I'm here. Can you hear my voice, Madaline?"

It sounds like he's said this hundreds of times. He uses her name a lot, like it's a magic word.

"Focus on me, Madaline." The girl blinks, slowly. "That's it. There you go. Are you with me, Madaline?"

And then, all at once, the world matters again. It hits me like a sledgehammer: the pain, the hunger, the fear, the miles and miles of racing thoughts that I had been so comfortably floating above just moments ago. Now, the ice broken, I've fallen back into the frozen lake of reality and it is wretched. I take in an involuntary gasp of air, and Hagoro's gaze immediately flicks to me, tension filling his body for a calculating moment before he relaxes and returns his gaze to the Chaos/Pneuma mage.

"Thank you, Madaline, for taking over," he says. "I feel much better rested now."

"Ha… go… ro…?" the girl asks groggily, her voice scratchy from disuse. She blinks a few times, her gaze lazily lifting up to meet Hagoro's smiling face. She slowly meets his smile with one of her own, leaning slightly to give him an affectionate nuzzle with the side of her head.

For my part, I start shakily stretching my legs, each one cramped from where it was curled up below me. My body is distinctly no longer spherical, almost more of a bean shape as it stretches and bends slightly upwards. My mouth and eyes are all slowly migrating towards the bit of my body that's growing upwards, finally giving me a visibly distinct front side and back side. Likewise, four of my limbs are very distinctly still legs, feeling natural to keep my body weight on, but many of my other limbs are slowly getting a little more specialized.

This is all just knowledge I'd already acquired and simply not cared very much about during my magically-induced dissociative episode, of course, and it's still pretty difficult to care because a half-dozen other pressing matters are suddenly screaming down the halls of my consciousness. I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and my soul hurts and I'm stuck in the room with a Pneuma mage and I'm completely helpless and I'm going to be soul tortured later and—

The panic attack hits all at once, my body gasping for breath as I shudder in horror. Oh, Goddess, this is too much. Too much, too much, too much. Why does my life have to be like this? The Goddess strokes me lovingly, but it just makes everything worse because of course it does, I don't want Her touching me, why would I ever want Her touching me? I don't want any of this! I don't want pain or torture, I don't want extra limbs or magic, I don't want friends that keep going out of their way to help me or a girlfriend that I keep stumbling around and causing problems for!

More than anything, right now, I wish I could just go back to being nothing.

The Pneuma mage, Madaline, turns to stare at me the moment that thought passes through my mind, a sad look of something like understanding passing over her face. I shudder in horror and revulsion, not knowing what thoughts are really mine and what parts of me have been irrevocably twisted by her. I'll never know. I'll never want to know. Hagoro holds out a hand and helps her stand, the thin girl shaky on her legs.

"Thank… you," Madaline mumbles at him, her body seeming even stiffer than mine. He just gives her a stoic nod, his focus fixed on making sure she doesn't fall. Carefully, taking her empty food tray in his other hand, he starts leading her towards the door.

"If you're trying to break me, you're succeeding," I blurt, barely thinking about my words before they come tumbling out of my mouth. My eyes can't tear up, but the quivering cadence of a sob still rings out in my words. "I'm just some fucking girl. I can't… I'm not going to be able to handle torture."

Hagoro gives me a considering look for a moment, then wiggles his two stump arms.

"Forgive me if I choose to remain cautious," he answers dryly.

"Oh, fuck you!" I sob. "You attacked us! I thought you were helping us when you freed me from that Pneuma mage, but then you turn around and lock me in a room with another one!"

Madaline flinches away, her eyes growing distant for a moment before Hagoro squeezes her hand and starts walking her towards the door again. It's obvious he cares for her, in a fatherly way. It's obvious she needs the care. I hate it. I hate looking at these monsters who keep hurting me and seeing them as people. I'll never be able to escape like this.

He doesn't respond to me any further, just giving quiet words of encouragement to Madaline as he opens the door and hands her off to one of the guards, who also seems to know her. A sudden terror fills me as she turns to go, and to my disgust I can't resist the urge to call out.

"Wait," I beg. "They'll… they'll be coming back again today, won't they? To hurt me? Can I… negotiate or something? Like maybe you could… put me under while you do it? I don't know what I can give you, but…"

Disgusting. Horrible. I'm obviously compromised. The Pneuma mage is walking away and I'm begging her to stay and cast on me. But if it's that or the torture again, I just… I can't…!

Hagoro doesn't answer me, but he does pause, fiddling with a small magic item on his belt as Madaline waits next to him, staring at me. Shortly afterwards, Donny jogs into view of my spatial sense, turning to Hagoro as he arrives.

"What's up?" Donny asks.

"She says she wants to negotiate," Hagoro answers.

"Oh. Uh, awesome," he says, then turns to me. "What did you want to talk about, Hannah?"

I scrunch my body in on itself, trying not to tremble. Two Pneuma mages have their attention on me now. What am I, an idiot?

"...She said she wanted my help when Malda comes by again," Madaline answers for me quietly.

"Oh," Donny answers, then he turns to stare at me for a moment. "...Shit. Uh, sorry kid. Having Pneuma magic active would interfere with the Death spell we use to sus you out. Conflicting elements and all that."

That is in many ways both horrible news and vaguely relieving. I spend a while processing my despair before realizing something important: no one else is acting surprised by this revelation. That means they already knew this, and they just needed Donny to make the decision on whether or not to lie to me about it and trick me into giving away info for nothing. I suppose they either don't value anything I could tell them enough to screw me over for it, or they still hold some insane hope that I'm going to choose to work with them as long as they torture me nicely enough. I let out an irritated hiss, the sound vibrating in all the right ways to make them shiver.

"That's it, huh?" I snap. "You're oh-so-sorry you have to torture me, but you have no choice? Nothing you can do about it?"

"Unfortunately, no," he answers, his face carefully neutral. "Normal painkillers, magical or otherwise, don't really work on soul damage. You need Pneuma magic for that, and that would interfere with the only spell we have that might help you. We're not doing this because we think you deserve it, kid. We're doing this because we either figure out how to stop you from killing billions, or we have to kill you. Those are the stakes."

I start breathing harder again, to my immense shame. I wish I could be one of those cool action heroes that knows how to take the pain, but I'm not. I'm really, really not.

"...Here's some things I can do," Donny tells me. "We can… adjust the times you're being worked on. Give you a little more breathing room between sessions. Make everything surrounding the dirty work as comfortable as possible. Does that sound good?"

Yes. It sounds very good. I'll take anything at this point. But it doesn't really solve anything, does it? This ache still won't go away.

"You're an enormous, experienced organization with a stupid amount of resources," I accuse. "Is there seriously nothing other than soul torture that satisfies whatever insane thing you want to do to me?"

"...Kid, we're lucky to have any spell at all that might be able to do what we want to do to you," Donny answers.

Something about that churns in my mind a little, stewing and shifting until I finally figure out what's bothering me about it.

"No," I realize. "You're not lucky. It has nothing to do with luck at all."

The spells people get are not a matter of luck. If the cultists have a spell that does something they think they need to do to me, it's only because the Goddess gave someone that spell. So why? Does She want me here? Did She intend for me to be tortured like this? The Goddess lounges on me further, the pressure of Her presence rising as she flashes a maledictive grin.

"What do you mean, kid?" Donny asks.

"...Hagoro," Madaline whispers, her eyes going wide. "Do you hear Her laughing?"

All eyes flash to Madaline for a terrified moment before turning back to me.

"You're being set up," I tell them. "You're being played. I don't know what the game is, but She's winning."

She's always winning, a chuckle reminds me. All She has to do to win is play.

"Kid, slow down. Who are you talking about?" Donny asks. "The Goddess? Are you saying the Goddess Herself has an agenda here?"

"Yes!" I tell him. "Of course She does!"

"Well, what is it?"

"I don't know!" I snap, thinking rapidly. Her agenda is probably getting me to seed Earth with magic so she has more playthings. That seems to be her whole modus operandi so far: just tempting me into spreading souls around and laughing at the ensuing fireworks. So how does that connect to what's happening here? Is she using the cultists as a catalyst to force me to experiment more with magic?

I start pacing around in what little of my tiny cage I'm actually able to move in. It's awkward and uncomfortable, in part because my body is strange and using different instincts to move all of a sudden, but mostly just because what little room I have is taken up by the tray of food and water that I still need to consume.

How is She doing this? Why is She doing this? People are given their magic at birth, right? So did the Goddess somehow predict, however many decades ago, that a certain specific person would grow up to be a cultist and a certain specific spell would… what, turn them against me? Take people that could have been friends or allies and twist them into enemies?

The Goddess chuckles condescendingly. Really? Twisting away potential allies? Do I seriously believe that I could have ever been friends with these torture-happy zealots? I need to clear my head and remember the situation here. And… shit, I hate to give it to Her, but She's got a point. I'm coming off a panic attack and chatting with a Pneuma mage whose whole thing is seeming like a friend and teasing out information. Maybe they can use this torture to get whatever they want from me eventually, but that's no reason to just hand it to the bastards.

Of course, all these thoughts become moot the moment my torturers walk into view. My mind and body freeze as I spot the two of them with my spatial sense: the sunken-eyed human man and the cold, unflinching dentron woman. They're walking towards me. They're on their way here.

Instinctively, I scuttle backwards, trying to escape, but of course there's nowhere I can go. I start hyperventilating again, my second panic attack in as many minutes hitting me at the speed of a bullet train. No, no, no, no. I don't want to suffer that pain again.

The Goddess clicks her tongue with disapproval. If I don't want them to hurt me again, then I should do something about it.

"Kid?" Donny asks, but I'm barely paying attention. "What's wrong?"

"Shut up," I snap. "This is all your fault. It's all your fault!"

"...You've been uncharacteristically unpopular with this one, Donny," Hagoro mutters quietly.

"I can't grow crops without soil, man," Donny grumbles back. "She's suspicious as all hell and she fucking hates us. She's probably just gonna end up like all the other ones."

The ones that died, they mean. People like me, who they tortured to death.

"I'm not going to 'end up' like anyone," I hiss. "You wanna keep pushing me until I break? Then fine. You can find out what happens if you break me."

"Nuh-uh, kid, if you try to bring the apocalypse down on our heads, we'll know," Donny frowns. "You will not get the chance."

"I'm not going to start a fucking apocalypse!" I shout at them. "I'm going to get out of here, rescue my friends, and live my fucking life away from the insane people who think the greater good gave them a pre-paid gift card to clawing my soul open!"

"A what? No, not important," Donny sighs, shaking his head. "What's important is that you need to figure out that you aren't leaving until we figure out how to declaw you. And if you actually help us with that process, you might even survive to the end of it. So please, just let us—"

"Is there a problem, Donny?" my torturer asks.

Donny flinches in surprise, turning and giving the man a polite nod as he approaches. I, meanwhile, stop being able to function out of terror.

"Malda! No sir, sorry. Just the usual threats," Donny answers.

"It is tiring to hear of them," my torturer—Malda—sighs. "Don't take them lightly, however. Founder's Kin are always powerful, and we don't know the full extent of what she can do. The accounts those sailors gave of her fighting in battle might have all matched standard Founder's Kin abilities, but we have to assume she's hiding more. The only piece of unique information they could provide was the possibility of cleaning magic, of all things."

"...Yes sir," Donny nods.

"Return to talking with her friends, would you?" my torturer requests. "I heard you were starting to make progress with one of them."

"Yes sir," Donny nods again. "I could actually use your help with that in a bit, Madaline, if you're up for it."

The Chaos and Pnuma mage seems to ignore him for a bit, mostly just spending her time staring at me. But then, slowly, she turns her head to Donny instead, and nods.

"Okay," she agrees, and the two of them depart together. Only then do Hagoro, my torturer, and his assistant actually step into the room with me, and I feel my body start to shake.

"I see you haven't eaten," my torturer comments. "Would you like a minute for that?"

A silent Refresh. That's all I need. He'll be unconscious in minutes, dead in just a little more. I can get all three of them at once, if I stay focused. But I can't. Why am I so weak? Why can't I just believe in a world where killing a monster counts as cleaning up?

Because cleaning is easy for you, I remind myself. And this isn't something you can stomach turning into something easy.

Well. I guess I'll just suffer, then.

"I'll take that as a no," Malda shrugs after I spend too long in silence, and reaches out to turn my soul into pain.

This time, I don't last anywhere near as long before I start screaming. I have nothing to prove, really. It hurts. It hurts more than anything. I think it's only fair that I'm allowed to scream in situations like that.

I don't really feel like a person when I finally wake up. I don't know how long the torture lasted and I don't want to know. The ache is deep within me, the omnipresent agony seeming to wash everything else away. I don't even try to move, just lying in bed and hurting until my mom wakes up, knocks on my door, and terrifies me enough to get me moving.

"You awake, honey?" she asks. "Don't be late for school!"

"I-I-I'm fine!" I stammer, hiding under the covers in case she comes in. "Sorry! I'm just going to take a quicker shower today!"

"Oh, hmm," she muses. "Well, that'll be nice. Save us some water."

"Y-yep!"

She eventually goes away, and I drag myself out of bed. I drag myself to shower. I drag myself to school. I drag myself through classes. I drag myself to work. I drag myself through an entire day of pain and exhaustion, and when I finally get home all I have is the knowledge that it's all about to get much, much worse.

I'm not going to be able to handle this. I'm not.

Something is going to break.