I can feel my consciousness slowly returning, my vision is a bit hazy as I feel a slight pain in my neck. I start to open my eyes and try to take in my surroundings.
"...Nothing?" I see nothing - no matter which direction I look, it's pure darkness. I notice that my vision seems... inverted?
As I try to move, I realize I'm chained up my four limbs are restrained to something while I'm lying on a plain white bed with no decorations.
The reason my vision is a bit off is because my head is hanging off the edge of the bed, which is also why my neck hurts.
'Why is my head hanging off the bed? It's uncomfortable.'
I still force myself to lift my head to look at the bed, but there's nothing - just darkness in every direction, as if the bed is floating in the void.
Strangely, it's not completely dark since I can see my own body and the bed, it's just that everything else is pure blackness. With my limbs constrained, I can't move.
Due to the movement, I also notice I have an iron collar around my neck instead of my usual choker.
"Where...??!" The realization hits me the librarian caught me, and now I'm in some unknown place while trapped in this bed.
'No, no, what the fuck...why does this only happen to me?' I can't help but think how unfair this is I was just hunted by him for a simple accident, I didn't even want to see that stupid book.
Everything seems horrifying, the silence is disturbing, and the only thing I hear is my own breathing. As I see nothing but darkness and the bed, I start trembling, an instinctive fear of being in this absolute darkness.
'W-Where is he? Why did he lock me up here?' Since in the game there were over 1700 possible endings, I don't know even half the ways I can be screwed over - this situation is something I've never seen before.
The clanking of the chains as I try to move is one of the few sounds that accompany this empty space. The librarian may look like a woman, but underneath the clothes, he's a man - not a futanari, but fully a man. So I know that when he comes, he's going to rape me.
But even knowing that, I have no way to escape this terrifying void. This place reminds me of the librarian, especially his eyes they're a deep, black color, like an endless abyss, and they seem to absorb the light, just like this place.
I've been here what feels like an eternity. Having never had a good sense of time to begin with, I can't even tell if it's been minutes or hours since I woke up. The anxiety of knowing he'll come eventually is eating away at my mind.
More time passes, and still nothing. My mind is now going insane this infinite, silent void feels like a prison that tortures my psyche. The only sounds I hear are the chains, my breathing, and the beating of my own heart.
"..."
"..."
I'm not sure if hours or days have passed... maybe minutes.
"I'M GOING CRAZY, SOMEONE PLEASE GET ME OUT OF HERE!" I scream with all my might. I'm scared, this place is playing tricks on my sense of time, and it feels like I've been here for an eternity.
"Please, please I want to get out, someone get me out of here, I'm scared..." I've started crying, begging to be released, as my mind can't handle being trapped in this silent void.
Unfortunately, my pleas are met with silence. I don't hear anything, and now the sound of my own sobs echoes around. This experience seems even worse than when I lost my hand.
Since I'm restrained, I can't even move. I don't know how much time has passed, my mind spiraling as I try to find a way to escape.
"Librarian, please get me out of here...hick, I'm scared" This place is toying with my sanity, and I never thought I'd be so terrified of an empty space before.
'W-What if he abandoned me here...no, he wouldn't do that...please...I don't want to be alone forever.' My mind has even considered the possibility that I've been abandoned to suffer in this void for eternity, since I can't die.
"Librarian, please don't leave me here, please, please I don't like this place, get me out of here" The uncomfortable position of my neck doesn't help as I beg not to be abandoned in this place.
I try to struggle, but it doesn't help at all, only making the chains rattle. Even the slight pain of the chain rubbing my skin doesn't take away my fear, and my tears just keep falling down my face.
"Help, get me out of here, I swear it was an accident, I didn't mean to read the book, I'll do anything to get out" Now I'm desperately bargaining with the void, hoping to be freed.
More time passes, which I can't quantify, and now all I feel is pure hopelessness. No matter what I say or do, all I get in return is silence. The terrifying darkness is no longer as great as my despair.
'I wish one of the 7 were here...' My loneliness, fear, and hopelessness make me wish for the company of one of the 7. Before, I would have just wanted Aetheris, but now I'd accept any of them.
'I wish I could die...someone could kill me...' I can't bear this void it's worse than being raped. This place is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
'I'm in hell...that's the only answer...I'm being punished for some sin I don't remember...sentenced to be trapped in this infinite void for eternity...' My mind wanders, trying to find a way to maintain my sanity, when normally a human would have already gone mad.
However, I feel my mind restoring itself, which means I must have lost my sanity a few times already. My immortality disproves the theory of this place being hell, since I'm still able to regain my mind.
"Why...why can't I even go insane in peace..." This immortality is the worst curse I could have I'm not even allowed the right to go mad. I'm forced to stay sane as time passes in this darkness.
"S-Someone...kill me...please kill me..." I've lost all attachment to my life, I just want to be taken out of this place by any means possible.
"...Urk" I feel the blood dripping, having bitten my tongue in a suicide attempt, but it quickly heals, the taste of blood in my mouth reminding me of the reality I can't be killed.
"..." My tears won't even come out anymore, I just wish it would all end soon, that someone would take me out of this suffering.
Now that I'm in this situation, I think I understand how a depressed person feels. I just want it all to be over, I only feel loneliness and sadness in this void that seems to consume my mind the light of hope can't open a single path through this vast darkness.
I try to sleep to pass the time, but it's useless, as I have no sense of time. I'm stuck in this for who knows how long when I finally hear a different sound.
A slight rustling, as if something is moving on the bed. My hope, which I thought had died, reignites as I desperately move my head to try and see the bed.
"L-Librarian...hick" I feel tears of joy at seeing the person on the bed a beautiful woman who is actually a man.
"Hello, my dear. I never thought you'd last this long," he says with a sadistic smile.
"W-What...?" I ask, confused.
"You've only been here for five minutes...haha," she laughs at me after stating the actual time I've spent in this hell.
"I-Impossible...5 minutes?" The time that felt like an eternity was only 5 minutes.
"Welcome to my room, my dear," he says as he gets up from the bed for a moment, his voice still one of the most beautiful I've ever heard.
"Y-Your room..."
'How can someone use this hell as a room...'
"...I suppose I didn't phrase that well...this room is called the [Room of Lamentations]," she says calmly, using magic to give me the knowledge of what this room truly is.
"!!!"
The [Room of Lamentations] is the librarian's room, but it's also a space covered by a veil of dimensional magic. When the librarian is away from the room, the veil closes, creating an environment that causes nightmares in anyone who observes the room's darkness for too long. The nightmares vary, but they all have the single purpose of destabilizing the target until they commit suicide.
'What a cruel room...' I can only think of the cruelty of this room it forced me to experience endless solitude until I tried to kill myself.
"Why did you do this to me...why did you put me in this hell?" I ask, slightly tearfully.
"...I'm sorry," he apologizes, which confuses me.
"...I didn't want you to witness that. It just so happened that you woke up earlier than you were supposed to, to be more precise, your immortality forced you to wake up sooner," he explains, and he doesn't seem to be lying.
"Although I still intend to do what I had planned before...as an apology, when it's all over, I'll give you permission to take books from the library."
Although this is a good thing, I can't bring myself to feel excited. The experience was traumatic, and I just hope he does whatever he wants to do quickly so I can leave.
'Aetheris...I miss you' My little dragon, whom I've seen so little of, is already the most important thing to me in this world.
"...I can't really get in the mood for that now...so I'll give you some information...then I'll put you to sleep and give you special permission to use my room, so you won't be affected by it even if I'm not here," he says, it seems it was a mistake to have made me experience that.
"On the bright side, my dear, the room's mental effect is temporary. After 30 minutes, any memories or feelings acquired within the nightmare will disappear completely, as if it were a distant dream," he says to cheer me up. Basically, my suicidal urges will go away, and my hope will return.
'At least I won't be forced to keep those bad feelings.' The feeling of this nightmare is something terrifying, so I think it's very good that I won't have to keep those feelings.
"You can ask me something, my dear, and I'll try to answer...in 10 minutes, I'll put you to sleep so you can rest your mind."
"...What is a chimera?" I'm not entirely sure what the librarian's race is.
"...Good question. Though there's no exact answer, the simplest meaning would be that it's a being made up of parts from the corpses of other creatures," he opens his choker collar to show his neck.
"I'm a chimera, for example. Although most chimeras are made with pieces of monsters, I'm a bit different I was created with parts of races combined with monster parts."
"How?" I ask, puzzled. His neck has a mark like a stitching, showing that his head was not born connected to his body, but rather sewn onto it.
"My arms are from one race, my legs from another, my torso from yet another, and my head is human. As for my monster parts, they're mainly my organs, though my penis is also that of a monster, so I can reproduce like them. By the way, I'm a man, my dear."
'I see...it makes sense, but I wonder what those races that make up his body are?' I don't think he'll answer that, and I don't really care to ask.
"Why are monsters...not treated like the races?" This doubt leaves me curious, my mind that has gone through a terrible trauma is now extremely calm, so I'm taking advantage of this to ask questions, since in 30 minutes my mind will return to normal.
'It's good that I won't be left with any trauma after this.' Traumas are terrible, and I already have the trauma of being raped I don't need any more.
"...That's not something I can explain to you. But if you want to know more, you should look for the book [Mythology of Monsters] it will have that information. That's enough for today, our time is up. Have sweet dreams, my dear, when you wake up, we'll have sex," he says, using magic to put me to sleep. My consciousness fades quickly as I fall into a deep slumber.