บท 38: Atsile of Zenonia: Caged Animal [Kolme]

Demon. It was one of the things that she'd painfully learn in those few seconds, carved into her brain like words on paper. Creatures born from the void the Angels opened, infecting the living, availing creatures that should just stay in fairy tales.

The doll laid upon cold iron, eyes behind cracked skin, staring right back into the darkness she was thrown in. Her fingers intertwined with the cage, cages they use to lock away animals. If she repeatedly slams her hands upon these wrought bars then they'd surely get angry at her. Common logic that was crammed into her head.

Common logic, common logic is based upon principles. Principles come from the experiences that people go through. Experiences can vary, but these experiences that formed this wisdom she has does not belong to her. People whom she never met, books she's never read, all of it in her brain that she doesn't even have. Tekhanures don't even have brains, everything they know and remember is crammed into a core somewhere in their physical body. She doesn't even know where her's is.

The puppet slid her hand down the cage's metal bars, fighting back the urge to just hit her forehead against it. Children grow up and now that she has, she learned that she was a child. The common logic is that children learn naturally over years, over decades. The common logic is that they are nurtured by kind and loving parents. The common logic is that she's not a child anymore.

She learnt of things before she even made mistakes for it, no, her brain already made her think she's dealt with the consequences of such things. The consequences for lying, the consequences for murder, the consequences for treason. She's made to remember all of them like she's guilty of them all.

Because she's now an adult, ripped from her infant era to the age of maturity, she understands what the word 'unfair' means. Forced to open her eyes, forced to form opinions that are not hers, forced to think of situations that can make her puke. She hates it, she hates that man for making her think of this.

So, she screamed her hate.

"DAMN IT!!" Her hands crash into the wrought iron. "DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!!"

It's because the doll understands that the anger swells up in her. It's because she understands that the misery starts to pile up in her. It's because she understands that the longing for the innocence she had, the innocence she didn't know she had, was gone.

The ringing grows louder, her knuckles cracking as one of her fingers falls off.

"CURSE YOU!! CURSE YOU TO THE DEEPEST DITCH HELL HAS!!"

The doll had never experienced anger or rather, her anger was muted even beneath the river she was buried in. If she were to dissect it, it'd be more or less her drive to survive even though she couldn't die. Well, now she knows, and the more she thinks about it, the more it makes her want to break.

Either that, or her voice breaks first.

"I SWEAR I'LL GODDAMN SKIN YOUR BRAIN AND SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR THROAT!! YOU MOTHERFU--"

There was a click, a snap. In that split of a second, a mana circuit in the cage flares as it sends shockwaves of high voltage electricity from her fingertips to the edge of her foul tongue and because she can shout, the pain translates out of her mouth. The darkness reclines.

A few seconds of plasma concentrated upon frying her core, a few seconds of feeling like her eyes are gonna melt and fall out like the tears that did, a few seconds of shrill screeching under a basement before a loud clang over the metal floor.

Tekhanures do not feel pain unless their bodies have receptors for such a thing. Of course, people have figured out a way to inflict one without having the need for it. Magic is the most common form, the most common bridge for so many things, including torture and traps. Cages like these are always laced with some sort of sigil to pacify the animals inside. They rigged this one especially to hurt her.

To hurt you, Atsile.

The doll raised her head. The cage disappeared, the darkness cast away from the empty basement. A pair of fancy shoes in front of her face, the toes so sharp that they could stab her in the eye. The man crouched down, doing the same sympathetic gesture of taking off his hat, of wearing that apathetic look.

"Atsile." The four-eyed man said. The puppet twitched upon hearing that name, her eyes unhinged and wide.

"Now, before you shout profanities at--"

"AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!"

In a split second, the doll had lunged over the demon while shrieking like a lunatic. Her hands clutch the collar of his black vest, pinning him down on the unfamiliarly dry soil. Despite her curling up a fist to slug him across the jaw, fingers so itching to carve out his eyes as she screamed mere moments ago, the four-eyed man still bared his unimpressed look.

"--me." He easily moved his head aside, his neck stretching and elongating to avoid a simple attack. "Calm yourself down, first."

The doll felt a jolt, a jolt that was similar to when she was electrified alive but more muted and briefer when her arm connected with the ground. She winced, retracting her arm to rub her knuckles. The black devil sighed.

"You felt that, didn't you, Atsile?" He said. "Even those who lack can feel pain within the domain of their soul."

"Domain of their soul?" She responded, still venomous. "What the hell are you on about?"

"Your mana sea, Atsile. We stand within your barren soul."

Effortlessly, the four-eyed man kicks the doll off of him. A muted grunt escaped her lips as she flung several feet away and upon the cracked earth, the clouds of dust erupting upon her landing. Aching, stinging, pain that she was spared for the first few months of her life with a side of watery eyes.

"Do you feel the dry dust pelting your face?" He said. "I've taught about the fundamentals of a mana sea, have I not?"

Nourish it, give it life. Your mana sea is an important part of your being. In order to awaken it, you must find it. In order to awaken it, your consciousness must be strong enough to detect it. A process that would take years for a normal person, cut short by a kind intervention.

The puppet groans, holding her head with tufts of hair intertwined between the fingers. "Get out of my head, you cretin!"

"I'm afraid you must first eject me from the domain of your soul first." The black devil blatantly spoke. "And to do that, you must cultivate the domain of your soul. I am helping you, Atsile."

"Shut up, and what's with the 'Atsile' anyway?"

"Why, it's your name." He pats down the dust upon his shoulders and reaffirms his stance. "Do you not remember the document you ever so glossed over?"

The doll squints. "That tiny little signature? You expect me to remember that?"

"You could've been named 'Ezel' too."

"Ezel?"

"It means donkey in a dead language."

"Fuck you."

Because she was taught how to socialise, Atsile was taught the middle finger. It was a shame that her middle had fallen off, both of them, conveniently. It didn't stop her from trying.

"You do realise you don't have a middle finger."

"So long as you understand the gesture, does it really matter?"

"Here I bless you with decades upon decades of experience only to see you still act like a vapid child." He sighed, shaking his head like a disappointed parent.

"I'm afraid I'm not looking to impress a bastard like you." Atsile grows vitriolic with each word. "Bequeathing knowledge, sight and voice-- I was just fine before you decided to make yourself known. Why didn't you even help me when I was meters deep down a goddamn river!?"

His dark eyes sharpen, bothered by her immature anger. "Who threw the sword into the lake? Do you ever ask yourself that?"

"And pray tell how you did it?"

"Like this"

And the man flicked his hands. Something reflected, shining like glistening lines against the odd red sky. At that moment, Atsile felt herself lighter as she was pulled into the sky rather abruptly. The stagnant air as she twirls around helplessly, both of her arms quickly being tied by a slithering rope together before she was hung in front of the four-eyed man like meat hanging from a hook.

"A string can be pulled, tied and cut. Your consciousness can be manipulated and tricked." His hand gently cupped her face. "Atsile, this is something you must understand. Compose, comprehend and see through."

"So you're a two-tongued devil who makes others do his bidding? Yeah, I believe that."

An unamused frown upon his pale face, locks of black hair poking beneath his black hair. Black, upon black and black. If there was another thing Atsile can insult him, is that he looked too one-toned and boring. Droopy and disgusting, just like the person.

There was a twitch beneath his eye before he grabbed the doll's face and shoved her away like a swing.

"Perhaps I showed myself too early, a misbehaviour on my part, Atsile." He turned his back upon her. "Perhaps you needed more time to cope with your newfound information. Humans are like that, aren't they?"

"Such a condes--" She swung away before coming back. "--cending way of apologizing--"

And another swing.

"I feel so--" The man quickly chops her throat without looking. The rest of the vocal words that came out of Atsile's mouth were now gurgling noises and groans.

"I will leave you to your devices for now, until you are ready to face me in a more… favourable mood."

The four-eyed man lowered his hat and outstretched his arm to catch Atsile by her shoulder. There were mild snappings around his wrist when it turned so unnaturally, likely dislocated from the arm. Reasons as to why he didn't just turn around will remain as bullets of insults for the next occasion.

"Think well, Atsile."

"You fric--"

Then, the darkness returned as the scarlet disappeared from sight.

"--ing…"

She was back in the cage she was in, alone with no thought to intrude her. The smoke still pertained along the rims of her hair and perhaps they'd leak from her mouth as well if she were to open it. After a moment of glancing back forth between each iron bar, the doll slumps and rests her head upon one. A bitter taste was accumulating.

Whatever imaginary heart she had in her chest, it was palpitating with irritation. Whatever imaginary teeth she had, she grinded together. Whatever's left of her fingers, she folded and clenched into a fist. Though fire may burn, it will fizzle and die out.

Why or how the demon resides in her mana sea doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, she recalled back to the Aiseirigh who threw her into this cage.

"Keep it in here until we've done a full sweep of the village."

And so, Atsile will remain here for who knows how long.

And so, Atsile decided to wait and count the time with her eight fingers.

One… two… three... four… five...