Everybody feels pain. Humans, animals, witches, fae, vampires and werewolves. Unless there is something wrong in your brain when you get hit by someone, when you fall or when you're sick you are bound to feel pain. It's a bodily reaction, something that has existed since the beginning of time. Pain. Some even enjoy it, the thrilling sensation, the rapid heartbeat, the fear that is born from it.
I knew pain, both in physical and emotional ways. I had felt it again and again and in the last few months I strongly believed that I have hurted enough for a lifetime. Looking at myself in the mirror sometimes I would wonder if there is even a hurt inside me to feel pain, if there is even one spot in my body that hasn't been hit, a bone in my body that didn't feel like it was broken and I find myself unable to answer.
So when Sylia said it was going to hurt I was not alarmed. Without a second thought I accepted what to me seemed like a slightly difficult task. So I followed her, discarding her concerned expression, leaving Sawn behind. I entered a room. There was nothing terrifying to it, nothing to signal that I would spend some of the most horrible moments of my life there.
With Sylia and I there were three people in the little room. Windowless, wooden walls that made it separate from the rest of the building. There was a bright yellow light above us and right in the center of the room stood a lonely chair. It had restraints in its arms, showing that I was going to be tight. It was made of comfortable black leather and the other person in the room, a young man in his mid thirties smiled but his dark eyes remained cold.
"How about you help Alice here get settled." Sylia told him and the man nodded.
"Come over here please." he said, sounding professional, pointing with his palm to the chair. "I will be helping bring forward your memories. All I want you to do is sit here and relax." he instructed me and I sat on the chair.
He gently grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back, then he pressed something on the back of the chair and I found myself laid down, looking at the bright light. I frowned, closing my eyes before I asked.
"How long is it going to take?"
"That solely depends on you." Sylia answered me. "When you have all the answers you seek then you will be ready to stop and bring yourself back on your own."
"That's why I need you to think hard of what you want to see." The nameless man told me. "You are looking for a face, you know the time, the day, you just need to see him. So focus hard so this won't take long. It will be better for you."
"Will you be able to see it too? My memories."
"No. You are the only one who will be able to see. Once you wake up you will describe him to us."
"Alice…" Sylvia called my name. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked me and I nodded. I didn't know if she was able to see my nod from the way I was laid down.
"Yes." I added just to be sure. There was no turning back now. I was so close to getting to know what I wanted, I wouldn't stop just because they said it hurt, nothing could stop me. I would finally see his face, I would get to know who did this and then I would have the council and myself going after him. All of the answers are in my head, I just need to be able to see them.
The man circled me and carefully tied my hands to the chair. For a second the material felt rough around my wrists but if I stayed still I was slowly getting used to it. Don't complain, about anything, I told myself.
I felt the man's hands hovering over my head and his voice soon reached me.
"Now I want you to close your eyes and take a deep breath." he said, loud and clear and I did as I was told.
For a few seconds nothing happened but then in the deep darkness of my closed eyelids I felt the pain. My lips opened and a deafening scream escaped. I clenched my fists and tried to get up, get away. It took a while to realize what had happened, why did I feel like my skull was being ripped apart. The man that stood behind me had dived his claws right into my head, I could feel the blood oozing out, trailing on different parts of my body and I screamed again when he dug them deeper, again and again.
"Let me go!" I cried once, unable to even open my eyes, trapped in a painful darkness. I could feel my body, my brain being picked apart. I felt pure pain, heart wrenching pain and I wanted out, like a little scared child I wanted it to stop…all that until the darkness before me started to take shape and images were formed.
My memories.
From that night.