A boy sat in the center of a lake of blood. He was screaming—a sound so piercing, so violent, that it transcended noise and became a hollow, terrifying silence.
"Freedom... freedom... freedom... true freedom."
That was all he said. But the way the words tore from his throat was horrifying.
In the middle of that crimson expanse stood pillars built of mangled corpses. At the heart of it all was a man—no, scratch that—he was a mere boy. His hair was a shock of shining white, as pale as his own sickly skin. His cheeks were sunken, hollowed out as if he hadn't eaten for days.
His hands were engulfed in roaring flames. His skin blistered, blackening and turning to ash before his very eyes, only to knit back together in a grotesque display of instant healing. He wore armor caked in layers of dried gore, his clothes ripped to shreds as if he had fought a battle with the whole world and won.
And his face... the horrifying mask used to scream those words. Slits had been carved into his flesh, stretching past his eyes; they were so wide and deep you could see the leeches feasting. They burrowed into his face, desperately trying to pierce his skull to get to his brain. But before they could reach it, the flesh reformed from nothing, sealing his face and letting the parasites have their fill once more. It was an endless cycle: eat, heal, eaten, heal. Over and over again.
His eyes were endless pits of black, a void of malice that could swallow the sun. He sat there atop one corpse, two, four, six, ten, a hundred, ten thousand, a million.
He threw his head back and shrieked into the void, "Freedom! This... this is freedom! Can't you see?"
His mind was overrun with every emotion. He wanted to become a monster; he wanted to become a savior—the savior—but in the end, the threads that bound him as a human won.
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Kerium clawed at the ground, trying to find something to take his pain away. He was hurting. All his physical injuries had healed, but his ability only mended the body, not the mind. His whole world had been crushed over and over, and now that he had finally found a way to be free, he realized he would have to give up everything. Nothing would be left of him. Was that truly freedom? His mind spiraled on that thought, never chilling, never slowing.
He had to give up his emotions to start, but he was chained down. He couldn't find the second key. He had found the first one; he had said it himself—humans are weak. Becoming a monster was the only way to be free. He had found his path, but the path he imagined and the path he saw were as different as heaven and earth. For him, the path never ended. No matter how jagged the stones were, his journey wouldn't stop. For anyone else, this would be the end, but not for him. He would always be missing something. He would always be alone.
"Why? Why me? Why can't I..."
As he thought about what he had to do, his eyes spasmed around the cage. He saw the jagged stone, the blood that acted like paint on the walls, and the mush on the floor that looked like slime. He saw a body that was only a torso, stab wounds in the middle where the heart should be. And on the side was another body, lying with its back to him.
"I can't... I can't... I can't do this."
His hands hit the ground, cracking the floor, grabbing at everything until his fingers closed around something solid. It was a piece of bone, once white but now carved in blood. It was the same one that had been in Lizelle's neck. Kerium didn't care about that. He had found his light once more. He knew the only thing he could do.
He leaned over the sharp object. The blood reflected on the bone like a mirror, and in that reflection, Kerium started to laugh. No sound came out. It was horrifying—like a man screaming without lungs, gasping for air with every laugh he tried to make. There was only one thing that could help him. He whipped his head back and slammed it down as hard as he could. His only thought was his family. He couldn't save his sister, but he had saved his mother. That was enough. Mama can just make another one, he thought, just before his head was pierced.
Splat.
As the bone entered his skull, blood splattered across the floor like a canvas, shooting to the far end of the wall with clumps of purple in the mix.
Silence.
At the beginning of the day, three souls had inhabited the cage. By that night, three souls had left their bodies. As the third soul left, it felt happy. It was so happy to have fulfilled its only desire. But in the end, the chains on it tightened. As it tried to leave, it was pulled back down toward the body. Slower, slower—like a fish trapped on a hook. It had exhausted all its energy, and now it was being reeled back in.
"AHHHHH! It hurts! IT HURTS!"
Kerium was in deep pain. How could he not be? As he moved his head up, the bone remained lodged in his face, piercing his skull and hitting his brain. All he felt was unimaginable agony; it was so deep it touched the back of his skull. He shrieked, biting off his own tongue in the process.
He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted it to end in any way possible, no matter the cost.
Boom. He slammed his head on the ground once more.
Silence.
...
Silence.
"AHHH! Stop... stop, stop, please..."
He had killed himself again. He couldn't bear the pain, so his only relief was when he was dead. He knew that if he kept doing it, he would wake up in the same spot every time he revived. But the pain felt like an orb heated to a million degrees had been shoved inside his skull, melting his brain. The only way he knew how to stop the pain was to die.
Slam.
Silence.
"Ahhh! Why won't it stop?!"
Slam.
Silence.
"AHHHH!"
He gargled on his own blood. He choked on the bits of his own brain that had ended up in his mouth after the continuous slamming.
Slam.