Chapitre 23: 23 - White Room
My empty belly asked me for more food. My voice couldn't make anything better than that long gurgling noise of starvation. I was laying on the floor, walking more and more closer to Death with every second passing. But Bad news, I wasn't dead yet. There was only suffering.
Above me, a lightbulb that never switched off whitened the blinding room.
I was laying inside a white box with bitter water to bathe in and white tiles to sleep on.
My tears dried on my skin for... I don't remember how long. I bit my tongue. The metallic taste of the red liquid rolled on the rest of my tongue, hydrating me with the only liquor I could consume.
I stood and my collarbone dislocated. I bit my lip before putting it by in his place in a push, suppressing a shout. How long was I a prisoner in this cage without windows? Days? Months? Impossible to know.
As I did every day, I got closer to the black cavities on the door. I added my nail marks of the day, "Please..." I whispered, "Save me. Someone. Anyone."
Sometimes, it seemed to me that someone watched from the other side of the door. His breath would come to me, or bits of conversations would leak. Sometimes I didn't feel anything. It was only me and my endless torture.
Today, someone smashed their formal shoes on the floor tiles near the door. I could hear them neatly.
A sort of smile appeared on my face. I took my right wrist and hit it against the door, ignoring the pain, "Help me!"
The footsteps began to fade. Again. Why? Why should I endure this suffering? I should have just pulled the trigger when I could. I should have just killed this guy when I could.
I couldn't bear it. I threw my body against that door and shouted, "Please! I'll do anything you want!"
The steps stopped, then finally came to me.
Someone grabbed my shoulder from behind and turned me around with an athletic grip.
A woman with hair full of cinder was the one turning me around. She raised her head, revealing an orange lipstick.
My eyes widened, "Mom!"
But my mother didn't look like anything she was when I flew from Manpo. Her neck was purple and black in the center. She was... dead?
"I am happy for you my son. This country seems to be to your taste. You joined the Opéra, and you became the prima ballerina." Her fingers pressed my shoulder, "Leaving me alone was a good choice."
I shouted and turned to hit the door. "Let me go away!" That wasn't my true mom. This woman was putting her hands around my nape and pressing it.
Footsteps echoed but I couldn't understand where they were anymore, "Please?"
The ghost tightened her grip on my neck. I gasped for air without being able to breathe it, and I took her hands; there were like unmovable rocks, "…Pl…Please…"
The door turned around itself like a spiral and blackened. The next time I could see again, I was floating in outer space.
Where was I again? Wasn't the white room enough of torture?
In one of the frontiers of this dimension, a tape rewound, putting itself back and began to play.
I wasn't even trying to understand at this rate.
The cassette spat a cryptic song. But it didn't stop me from recognizing it. I knew the lyrics by heart.
'La ballerine
La ballerine qui tourne sous le noir ciel de minuit
La ballerine
La ballerine qui tourne sous le noir ciel de minuit
Et elle tourne
Inconnue
Sous l'opérette
En nuisette
Elle tourne la ballerine.'
I was going to sing it again when the cassette rewound, "Do you remember Song ho? That was your favorite lullaby. When you were a baby, I was hoping my everlasting care wouldn't be for naught."
Pressure crushed my neck, making it purple as strangling pain bit in.
"No! Mom, stop! I don't want to...!"
My limbs couldn't move anymore, and every star faded away, leaving me with emptiness. As pain settled in, my eyelids closed. I was going to sleep for the longest time ever.
Cold.
Water.
Cold water splashed my face. I stood and shouted, "Mom! Mom!" Then I touched my neck.
Nothing. No more pain, or any rope marks pressing against my skin.
I was back in the white room. But one thing changed; the door was destroyed open.
I was sitting, and the person above me put a water bucket down with one hand and holding a submachine gun with the other. He had a cap and a mask hiding his nose and mouth as if contact with this room was toxic.
He stared at me and fell on his knees, "They... Those are the ones who...?"
He was saying things I didn't understand. My eyes decided to stop working, and I fell. The last thing I heard was his gun hammer the tiles.
*
I regained consciousness with a towel on my forehead and a mattress on my back.
The cap person gave me a source water bottle dripping with fresh pearls. I snatched it from his hands and stuffed it in my mouth. I couldn't drink it without coughing, and I spat half of it.
"Hey! Do it softly." He took the bottle and wiped my mouth with another towel, "How long have you drank anything?" He took my head and put it on his thighs, then gave me water, as one would do with his own kids.
"What day is it?" I said after drinking. That was nice to talk without a rattling throat.
"November 1st."
"What?" I had a coughing fit.
My Savior calmed my throat again and gave me a plate full of toasts and omelets.
The smell of breakfast gave me the strength to stand, and I caught a bandage on my collarbone. Did he…? I touched the bandage and looked at him.
"I knew she was ferocious," he said, "but to not heal her own employees…"
The Savior took care of me for several days and nights. Around two days later I guess, I was recovering and having pink cheeks again.
Since he saved me, nobody found out about my liberation. That day, we were sharing breakfast, "Why no one is there?"
He shrugged and swallowed his carbonara pasta, "Maybe they are out on a mission."
"Maybe?" I said, "I thought you knew."
"Why would I?"
"Don't you work here?" I caught my pasta with my fork, "Well, it's only fitting someone as lovely and empathic as you don't work here."
He took out two guns from nowhere and gave them to me.
"You seem to be in better shape." He removed his mask before my astounded eyes and revealed pink lipstick on smiling lips.
Clown... makeup?
"I was afraid I wouldn't get my revenge from an equal place." He released his salmon hair strands of hair from his cap.
I would have never imagined what was behind this mask. A scar from his mouth extended to his left ear. Several stitches decorated his scar, making it more atrocious than it seemed. Was he also in pain?
That was Tai Clan's Queen. No doubt about it.
"Wei Xiaojian!"
He fetched his submachine gun, "Come on, when do we start?"
What was he playing at? I couldn't shoot the one who cared for me for days! Problem was, I haven't a choice.
My only choice was to neutralize him.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone