My vision blurred once again, and once again the scene shifted.
Now, I was the one who sat on my knees, looking blankly at the figure with a sharp knife-like object pierced through his stomach.
'huh?'
It took me a while to understand that the thing I was seeing was from Azariah's eyes.
"Huff... huff...."
And it didn't take long before the emotions of Azariah overwhelmed me.
His pain, sadness, denial, anger, helplessness—all the emotions stung to my core, making my mind numb.
"B-brother." A childlike voice left my mouth as my small hands gently shook the body lying in front of me.
"W-wake....u-up..Brother.." My vision blurred again as tears fell from my eyes.
"P..prom....." A soft whisper left the figure's mouth.
"Br-brother." I quickly brought my ears closer to his face, trying to understand what he was saying.
"P..pro..mise...me...you..will...keep...her...safe..." With a voice that continued to dim down as he spoke, he completed his sentence.
"I-i p-promise...hic..., I-i...hic..promise." My own trembling voice left my mouth as tears started to roll down my cheeks.
"I...le...ave...the...rest...to...you...Az..."
With a smile on his face, the figure mumbled his last words before his breath stopped, reflecting his ending life.
"..hic..hic..."
Sitting there, I cried my eyes out, as the pain of losing someone close was too much for the child-like me.
Baam...
Before my sobs stopped the door burst open as people in black clothes entered the room, their eyes manically looking around as they tried to find someone.
"I...will...protect her... I promise...."
Mumbling between sobs, I stood up, looking at them blankly.
"Take him with us, better than going empty-handed," the leader of them said, and before I could understand, someone hit me at the back of my head, making me lose consciousness.
******
******
Beep...Beep ...
My hazy consciousness returned as the loud sound of a machine woke me up.
"Urgh..."
Like an axe splitting a log, my head felt painfully heavy, as if I might die from the pain.
Clank...
As I tried to move my body, the metallic sound of chains jolted me awake, and I looked around in confusion.
It was a room-like structure, with all the floors and the ceiling painted in white.
And in the middle of all this was me, bound with chains.
'Another dream?'
I wondered, finding myself not inside a bathroom but in another dream, akin to a memory.
Clank...
The chains made another metallic sound as the dream became more vivid.
'It's cold.'
I shivered, feeling bone-chilling cold from the surroundings. The sensation was so intense that I instinctively tried to cover my body, but the chains prevented me.
My teeth chattered as the cold made me shiver violently.
Beep... Beep...
The sound of the machine running in the background continued as I tried to look down.
I then realized there were no clothes on my body; I was completely naked.
"Test... Test..."
A woman's voice brought me back, and I looked up to where the voice was coming from.
"The current temperature of the room is 0 degrees Celsius."
Her voice echoed in the room, and I understood why I was feeling this cold.
"Day one, Experiment one: the time needed for the subject's body to give out in extreme cold."
Her cold and emotionless voice echoed once again as I understood what was happening.
It was the underground facility mentioned in the game.
The event that made Azariah the person I knew from the game.
It was the place where Azariah was tortured for three whole months.
And I would be reliving all those memories from now on.
"After an hour, it is determined that the cold is not enough; changing the temperature to -8 degrees Celsius."
The voice echoed once again, and then the temperature of the room started to drop as well.
My hands and feet started to turn cold, and slowly I began to feel numbness spreading through them.
Gradually, the cold overtook my body, freezing my blood.
"Argh..."
The sensation of my blood freezing while still conscious was so painful that a whimper, akin to a cry, escaped my mouth.
Blue veins started to become visible all over my body as the freezing continued, and my body began to swell.
"I... kept... my... promise."
With my childlike voice, I whispered as my consciousness started to fade again.
******
******
"Urgh..."
With a familiar pounding in my head, my consciousness returned as I groaned in pain.
Opening my groggy eyes, I surveyed the room.
I was sitting on a chair, bound with chains wrapping around my body, binding my hands and feet to the chair.
"Are you aware?" I looked up as I heard the voice of a man.
Baam...
I immediately tried to break free from the chains as I looked at his face.
Dark brown hair and eyes of the same color—the motherfucking person who was the reason for all the pain I was enduring.
"Now, now, don't be too hasty," he said, moving towards the table on the side and retrieving an injection with a very long needle.
"It's been half a month since I've known you, and damn kid, you have guts to survive this long. Frozen until half dead, broken bones, torn skin, and you're still strong."
Filling the injection with a liquid, he continued with a smile as he looked at me.
"It's a biochemical imperative that will cook you from the inside at least 160 degrees Celsius," he said, checking the injection one last time.
"I thought only that girl could be an interesting subject, but you sure are something else," he mumbled as he brought the injection close to my neck.
"Day fifteen: Experiment forty-eight: the time needed for the subject's body to give out in extreme heat."
"Urgh..."
Piercing my skin, he injected all the liquid into my body as I let out a low groan.
"Huff... Huff..."
My breath soon turned labored as my body started to burn from the inside.
"Urgh... Urgh..."
I groaned like a mad beast as my blood started to boil.
"Urgh...."
Tightly holding the sides of the chair, I groaned, shutting my eyes.
My skin started to turn red as the boiling blood showed its sign.
"Argh..."
I groaned again as all the boiling blood reached my head, burning my brain and numbing my body entirely.
"Urgh..."
Groaning one last time, I lost consciousness once again.
*******
*******
"Day twenty: experiment fifty-four: time needed..."
*******
*******
"Day thirty: experiment ninety-four: time needed...."
*******
*******
Days continued in my dreams as I relived all the memories of Azariah, each one becoming etched into my mind.
From his days living like a lab rat to the happy moments he shared with the ones he cared for.
Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, I experienced them all as if they were my own.
I lived through all of this in one night.
And when the sun rose on the next day, my mind was already broken.