Chương 13: The Temptation of Nibera: The Sadistic Jester
"No one can escape this place. This Funhouse is a prison and no one, absolutely no one, escapes this place. I really do hope to see you soon. My-Ed-ward" She blows me a kiss and falls out the cage backwards. Everyone runs to the edge to see and when we get there she flies into our faces. Everyone was able to jump back into the cage safely avoiding her wings from killing us. While on my ass I gnash my teeth and squeeze my fist. I mutter to myself
"I will find a way out of here no matter what and I will make it back to you. Akira" Suddenly circus music starts playing along with the sounds of clown noses honking from a distance on our right. In the distance there comes someone juggling what look like multi colored balls on a giant beach ball rolling in midair with the help of absolutely nothing headed our way. "What the hell could that be?"
I ask myself while I stare at the figure still coming towards us in confusion. I believed everyone shared my confusion but I immediately killed the thought when suddenly Cayafaz said "Its him" With a frown on his face and his eyes glaring just a little below the figure. He went on to say "He's coming"
"He? Who's this he?" The girl from earlier behind me answers with
"The one who runs this prison, the master of the funhouse who calls himself. Play Pal Pen"
The figure suddenly appears before us in front of our cage. He was dressed like a joker from the Italian renaissance era. A court jester, a clown, a true joker with the look of a serial killer, a sadistic jester. Truly a very scary looking fellow with the face to match. He had looks that could kill…Literally, his mouth permanently set with a malicious grin, the pupils in his eyes in a slit so thin they were basically nonexistent.
He also looked like the kind of person that would kill you if you laughed to little or laughed to loud. This was someone who bore a face that read merciless, you could tell by first glance alone. You can't judge a book by its cover, but his cover showed he had no sense of sympathy nor humanity and would derive pleasure from others death.
Yeah…This is someone you didn't want to be around and I were to give him a name, any name at all it would be from: The jester of death, Harbinger of suffering, Clown of carnage, King of torture or The Master of the Funhouse. But if I were to describe him in one word? it would be a word of action and that word would be… Run… because he will kill you
"Well hello boys and girls!" Pen shouts all excited and energetic as if he's the entertainment at a party.
"Its been a while since I spoke to you all from cell 62 hasn't it? I heard someone singing my name so I assume you all missed me, that warms my cold, dead heart. Well if I had one anyway" He finishes off his statement with a loud long cackle that sends chills down my spine. i look behind me to find Cayafaz struggling to get out of his chains, in the process his wrists begin to bleed and the more he struggles the more his blood splashes all over the place. The Cackling clown ceases his laughter and begins to chat with Cayafaz
"Oh, my dear Cayafaz you're in such a rush today to start our morning routine. It's good to see you're eager to get started but you need to learn patience my dear boy. Patience is a virtue and what not"
He turns to Mr. William "Ah, dear Mr. Will" He say's in a satisfied tone
"I see you are in good health, that is very nice. I do hope you make a speedy recovery so we can get back to our work Ha-ha-ha. I can't wait" he then suddenly notices me
"What's this?" He draws a pair of glasses from behind him out of thin air and puts them on to examine me as if this were some sort of checkup at a hospital.
"Well! If it isn't our very own sleeping beauty, he's alive Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa, alive I tell you!" He says while suddenly wearing a lab coat with lightning flashing behind him as if trying to reenact Frankenstein's monster.
"Well its good to see you're awake, now that you are though that sort of changes the outcome of my plans, you see I wasn't expecting you to wake up but now that you have… Hmmmmm…"
He strokes his chin with his eyes closed while thinking deeply. After a while of thinking all of a sudden. He opens up his eyes and in them is a suffering that I cannot even begin to explain, then that hellish and malicious grin from earlier returns as he stares at the girl behind all of us who had fought with Cayafaz earlier. With his wicked smile he calls out her name
"Oh Isabel" he enters into the cage approaching her slowly, his eyes pure white and grin ever widening. She cowers in fear, trembling and shivering
"No! Not me! You can't take me! That's not fair! Its only been three days, I don't want to go back… I can't go back there! I won't let you take me back! No! No! No! I won't let you"
"Oh? But my beloved, precious, darling, sweet, lovely little flower Isabel"
She reaches the end of the cage with tears in her eyes and slowly slides her back down on the end of the cage muttering the words no repeatedly. Pen then bends over her and stares her dead in the eyes
"Oh yes my beloved Isabel, you don't have the power nor the right to refuse me. You see you don't have a choice or a say in the matter because you're my prisoner and as my prisoner… I can do what I want with you. And ill torture you as many times and as often as I want to"
He cackles lightly while running his hands through her hair gently and slowly caresses her face. He puts her hair to his nose and takes a deep breath of it. He fills his nose with it and inhales, taking his head all the way back with each deep breath almost as if he was taking drugs. With one deep breath he completely floods his nose with her scent and after he finishes he says to her.
"Oh yeeeeeeeeessssssssssss, Ha-ha. Your scent is really something you know that? I just can't get enough of it. Once I start I can't stop. You're like my own source of high, my personal brand of heroin. I've missed your tears but what I really want I've really missed is your screams. More than anything else! I want to hear how you and the newbies screams harmonize when I start to torture you both" He calm's himself down and places his left hand behind him
"And now… Let's take you both to your rooms so that we can have a little fun" His left arm extends and grabs me by my hair. He takes Isabel by the hair to and drags us out of the cage. He hops on his beach ball and roles us away
Later were taken to a torture room and in it are all sorts of devices, weapons, creatures and means he can use to make someone suffer. There are two, cold looking metal operating table. There are cuffs for our hands on top and for our legs at the bottom.
"What are you going to do to us?!" I yelled, as if I was in a position to act tough. He replies me with
"Nothing much. I'm just going to torture you to the point where you'd wish you were dead and just before you can die ill bring you back. Ill keep doing this to you both over, and over, and over, and over, until you eventually break. Mentally, physically and the rest. But that's only if you don't accept the mark. So, what do you say? Do I have to torture you? Or will you accept the mark so you can live your life as a human being again"
I face the ground to make it look like I was considering his proposal but I just wanted him to get close so I can headbutt him. How would I accept his mark? So I can live in this wasteland? When I can tough it out and so I can see Akiko again, I made up my mind there and then that no matter what this clown did to us we weren't going to break. That was what I had decided, but I turned to look at Isabel and she looked like she was already broken. Her face was filled with despair and she was numb to everything happening around her. The clown laughed
"Don't bother relying on Isabel to support you or for anything. You see when she gets in here she becomes incapable of doing anything. Paralyzed by the thought of facing her fears she becomes numb to everything else around her, see for yourself"
He takes a gun with a diamond drill at the mouth and fires it into her forearm
"Isabel!" I yelled out in hopes shed snap out of it… but it was futile. The drill shot right through her, bone and everything but she wasn't fazed. She just stared, bleeding out while the clown laughed
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa. Look at that! That's even more blood than last time. Oh, now this is why she's my favorite"
"You!!! You bastard!" I tried to rush at him and attack but he just shot me with a stun gun and that's were my outburst came to a halt.
"Ooh calm down" He said "I can't get why your so worried about her when you should be worried about yourself. I mean your about to face your own tortures and fears to. But before we do that I'm going to go have my fun with Isabel. Ciao"
He waved me off as he placed Isabel on a stretcher and rolled off behind a curtain to another room. So, I stayed on the floor and from there I heard Isabel's consistent screaming. I could see flashes of light reflecting what the clown was doing to her in the other room from the floor. I saw her blood splash everywhere like it was used to paint the room and the tiles. Each time she would scream and he would let out a cold, long spine-chilling cackle. It was clear he was enjoying himself. This went for hours on and hours on end and after all that time had passed he brought her back out on the stretcher saying "Honey! I'm hooome" I noticed when he came out with her the stretcher was covered in blood. But that was strange because though it was covered in blood she had no scratch or injury on her body what so ever. The clown wipes his brows
"Men, that was a hard day's work. Don't you think?" He bends over her face and examines her body "Well she's healed but it looks like the shocks going to last a couple of hours"
He pulls a pen from behind his ear and starts writing on some kind of clipboard
"I prescribe a healthy dose of sleep, a few group therapy sessions, and some time out with friends or family" He removes the note, folds it, and keeps it in her pocket
"You bastard! What did you do to her?!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, asking the same stupid question despite everything you just saw. Obviously, I tortured her like I said I would! Duh. And now, I'm going to do the same to you but you don't have to get tortured you know you could always just accept the mark and you would walk out my prison a free man"
"Humph, sure "free-man" as if any of us are truly free even with that mark. I'm not taking it"
"You know I like you a lot Ed and that was the kind of answer I was expecting. I won't lie, I sort of expected you to take the deal but I'm kind of glad I get to torture you instead, because you see. I've taken my time to study you and I realized that your fear isn't one that's physical. Normal torture doesn't work on you but, there is a spot on your body your scared of feeling any pain. Since I can't use your fear to torture you I'm going to use that and make u scream until you break. Just like the others"
"Well I hate to disappoint you but I'm not like the others"
The clown smirks as a response to my statement
"What's so funny?"
"Tell me something boy. Why do you think someone makes a mirror?"
"What?"
"Just think about that for a second. Why is a mirror made? Its simply because the one who wants to make it enjoys the sight of his own reflection. He takes his time to painstakingly create a beautiful mirror to reflect himself and after a while of putting in time, effort and detail into every piece of that beautiful mirror it comes out a success, catching every part of its creator. All the beauty, and majesty of him is reflected off the mirror just as he had hoped. Then, over time the mirror started to gather dust. The creator of this mirror polished it, cleaned it, wiped it, over, and over, and over again. But no matter how hard he cleaned there was still dirt. Eventually there were parts of the mirror he couldn't clean anymore but parts that still reflected him. It pained the creator when he saw this but he knew that if the mirror could no longer reflect him he had to get rid of it even if there were still parts that could. So, can you guess what the creator did to the mirror?"
"I don't know" I turn my head and glare at him with content "You tell me"
"Well I don't know Ed. How about you and I find out together?" He turns my operating table 90deegres away from the curtain to the right
"Together with an old friend you might remember"
"No. No way"
"Yes, my dear boy. Does he remind you of anyone from your past?"
The person that the clown turned me to face is a boy around my age with his eye lids closed shut, blood flowing down from his eyes like a river and most of all. He has the facial features of a childhood classmate of mine who went by the name Alvin.
"You remember him? Don't you Ed?"
The boy protests
"Please I've told you, I don't know who this Edward guy is. I've met a lot of people in my life. Sometimes I don't even remember my own family members, so please, just let me…"
Pen loses his cool and yells at him
"DID I ASK YOU TO SPEAK!!!?"
"No sir" He quickly yells out and is accompanied by "I'm sorry"
I try to remind him who I am despite the situation. Worried that Pen might flip out on me I held back a bit, but he didn't. he was hoping id ask him, as if he wanted us to have that conversation. I still couldn't figure out his plot but I had no more time to waste and that was no longer my concern.
"Alvin! It's me, don't you remember? We both went to the same elementary school together. You, I, Ella, Daniel, Samuel, Kosi and so many more" I scuffle a bit
"it would make sense if I'm not remembered by you though I was pretty insignifi…"
Before I can continue Alvin interrupts me
"Edward? As in Well fed Ed"
I giggle a bit "God knows I hated that nickname"
"I don't believe it. it's you! it's really you!"
"Yeah man, it is. Look don't even worry. I promise you we will get out of this"
"Bah, bah, bah, bah. Sorry Eddy boy but that's where I have to stop you. Because you might make it but I can't guarantee his safety. But it isn't all hopeless, his life can be spared but that depends on how you answer my question. So at least I've thrown you a little hope on a raft. Your welcome"
"What god damn question do I have to answer now"
"Ooh calm down Ed, I did say we would find out what happened to the mirror together didn't I? So, you will tell me… what the Mirror maker did to the mirror. You have three tries to get it right and you have to make sure you get the exact answer. If you fail, your friend Alvin is going to die but if you win he live. And as a bonus ill even restore his sight, so his life is in your hands, Ed."
Alvin starts to protest
"Please no, no, no, no, no. Please I... I can't. I'll do anything! Please just don't kill me"
"If you want to live, I suggest you shut up and have a little faith in Your partner"
"It's alright Alvin" I said to him with a little smile on my face
"I'm not going to let him win… I. I will save you"
"Alright boy. Answer the question, what did the mirror maker do with the mirror"
This is obviously a self-reflection type of question. The kind we're you put yourself in the persons shoes and try to see them through you. I just have to think it my way and ask myself what I would have done. Or it could be wrong and this could be a question about God and man… either way those are my two options and there couldn't possibly be more than that so this should only cost two trials. Let's do this!
"First attempt. He Shattered the mirror, threw it out and made a new one"
"It's like you're not even trying Ed. Wrong!"
As expected It wasn't my first guess. Ill nail it on the second one
"He couldn't bare to see the mirror he put so much effort into and he loved so much be destroyed so, he kept it stored up and made a new one in memory of the old"
"Oh dear, Alvin I'm worried you might end up dying because Eddy isn't getting it. Wrong again! One last attempt"
Wait what? That can't be! There could only be two options and only one of those could be the answer, there's nothing else anyone could do. The clown skips cheerfully with a grin from ear to ear on hi face to a switch and places his hand on it. he stares at me with twinkles in his eyes, Alvin riddled with fear wets himself muttering constantly "I don't want to die". The clown repeats himself
"Edward. One-last-try"
I became frustrated. Not knowing what else to say I foolishly and without reason gave an answer I didn't even put much thought into. What was the answer? You don't need to know that because it doesn't matter. I wish I could tell you I got It right, I wish I could tell you we put up a good fight, I wish I could tell you I won and saved Alvin's life, but, if I did all of those would be lies. It wasn't until the clown flipped the switch… that I realized this was the goal, this was his torture. The answer to the question was that there was no right answer or better said there was no answer. I was just meant to keep quiet, if I had realized that sooner I could have saved his life. The goal from the very beginning was to make us both believe we could win, for Alvin to have faith I would save him… and for me to have hope that I could… this is what he meant when he said normal torture didn't work on me. The spot I felt pain he wanted to take advantage of was my heart. I have three… no four great fears and the fourth one is having hope and loosing it and he played me with it like a jukebox.
Earlier I asked, could there be faith without hope? Or hope without faith? After this demonstration provided by yours truly I now have an answer, a clear enough picture of what hope and faith are. They are the instruments of mental and emotional torture and the you can't have one without the other. Because you need the both of them…to break a person
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