I sat there dazed as I watch Lucille change into an auburn wolf and attack the peeping guard. The memory starts to mist again, as the point of view changes as if the viewer was lying on the ground. Lucille disappears as she quickly runs after the carriage that carried her children away.
A chair screeches. Pablo seems to have returned with a beaten guy, hunched as he sat tied up on the chair opposite me.
"Hurry up. We don't have all day", the other guard impatiently scolds, taking away the memory stone in my hand.
I do not move, still staring at my feet. This seems to tick them off. But I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to use my powers. Pablo grabs my shoulder-length hair as his other hand grabs my jaw, his nails half-transformed into claws and digging into my chin and cheeks.
The other guard forces the person opposite me to stare at me. In my heart, I count the seconds, before they release both of us. The point of view I see in my head changes. I can see myself, sitting rigidly on a chair, clasping at it as if I was holding on to life itself.
Dread pools at the bottom of my stomach as the interrogation finally starts.
"Did you take your orders from Lucille?"
"Futue te ipsi", the prisoner spat at Pablo's chin.
(A/N: Futue te ipsi = Fvck you)
Pablo vehemently wiped away the drool on his face. He wasn't one known for his patience. He whipped the guy on the face as he yelled at him to answer him.
I stare hard at my feet again, my hands digging at the chair until my nails bleed. My eyes blurring with tears that I desperately try to hold back.
They say that if three sixes are the devil's number, seven is man's. That it symbolizes man's being and weakness. That it represents the evil of him and the manifestation of sin. Of temptation. Our seven deadly grave sins. Perhaps that's the reason why it only takes seven seconds for me to fully dwell on another's soul. For seven seconds, my eyes will skim over a person and I will be able to feel what he feels.
It's not like how the Satori can invade and read minds and memories as they please. It isn't that I steal souls, more like I am able to comprehend a being's entirety by the way he sees, the way he feels, the way he thinks, the way he remembers. But I am only able to do so if the other person isn't mentally and emotionally guarded. Though most lycans seem to struggle with these. It feels as if some kind really sharp intuition, but more. Much more.
Sensuality duplication. Like emotionally reading people and how they react to things, but with the addition of glimpses of certain memories in the stronger, more intense emotions that come with them.
I feel the same sharp sting on my cheek as if I was the one who was whipped. As if I was the one who got beaten badly. The tip of my tongue feels numb as if I had been biting it for a very long time. I am very afraid to move as if I'd scream in pain if I did, but it wasn't necessary. I knew I'd still feel pain regardless of whether I move or not.
Pablo's fellow guard repeatedly asked questions, not really waiting for an answer at all. He just wanted to torture the fellow, and watched me shake or nod my head in effort, like the useful tool I was.
I scream along with the prisoner as Pablo pulls off a nail. My tears blur my sight as I feel the prisoner's anger and intense emotions. I struggle to remember who I am, what I was doing, what I was feeling, but all I could feel was intense hatred. Hatred for the guards, for rebel's comrades who betrayed me, for the people who put me here. And in that jumbled hatred, I felt a glimpse of nervousness.
It only took that trace of nervousness to grasp a sliver of myself. I waited a while for the ringing in my ears to fade. I looked up dizzyingly at the prisoner who had a cold unreadable face.
"...damnatus Laris. I bet they're at some place we haven't tried looking..." Pablo stared at the map pinned on the wall, that I didn't notice he put some time ago.
"Ah!" The other guard pointed at a place, a gleam in his eyes. "I bet they're at the Barred Forest."
I felt another short wave of nervousness hit me, one that was desperately tried to suppress before I felt it. A sudden memory of a similar map flashed in my mind, a finger pointing at roughly the same place.
I wouldn't be surprised if the other lycans knew of me and my sister's existence in the dungeons. We are famous tools after all, used to threaten the whole lycan society back in line, but at the same time, be the center of everyone's disgust. This is because the Satori are enemies of the lycan-kind. So for this lycan prisoner to suppress his other emotions and intensify his hatred just to confuse and drown me in it, I knew that he had something to protect.
I looked to the map on wall, and then stared at the man opposite me. Our eyes met for the briefest second. I averted my eyes and never looked at him again. But that was enough for him to feel extreme fear. His fear flooded into my heart; fear for whatever I have discovered, or for what I am to say. For the moment I talk, he knows that he isn't needed anymore, that, that's the end for him.
But I have no choice. Silence means endangering my sister. No matter how much his eyes plead at me, I do not look at him again. Instead, I stare at the map.
Either way, all lycans are the same. I did not notice the hatred slip from my eyes.
"They're at Barred Forest", I whisper.
And that was when all sorts of foreign emotions exploded within me. All the more depicting that I was right.
"They're at Barred Forest", I repeat, louder for the two guards to hear clearly this time.
The guards smile maliciously as they go through procedures and drag the other guy away.
In a moment of carelessness, a new guard enters the cell to presumably collect the struggling prisoner. My eyes widen all of a sudden as he takes a dagger and slices the man's throat.
I fell off the chair, thrashing at the ground, holding my throat just as the man did.
It hurts... So much hurt... I c-can't... No more...
A part of me wonders if this is the karma that I get for helping others kill people. I heard voices of the older guards berate the newbie, instructing him to grab a new prisoner first before they could kill the previous prisoner who was still connected to me.
"Ah, es stultior asino! Now we have to wait another few days before... interrogate the others... moron you are... connect the next prisoner...killing the previous prisoner after...so troublesome...."
(A/N: Es stultior asino = You are dumber than a butt)
My consciousness leaves me. Against all reason, my only thought was—
If it's gonna hurt like this every time... then, it would be great if I don't wake up this time.