Lord Of Beasts

"Just one more day."

The familiar words escaped Ethan’s lips as his eyes slowly opened.

Pain answered him immediately.

Every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he sat upright on the narrow infirmary bed, surprised that he wasn’t restrained.

Not that he was complaining.

Fresh bandages wrapped around his torso beneath the prison uniform they had forced back onto him, while bruises covered nearly every inch of exposed skin. He had required hundreds of stitches around his body, but thankfully, his body was resilient, and the makeshift shanks dealt him merely flesh wounds.

That wasn’t to say they weren’t painful.

Ethan clenched his teeth as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, wincing as several stab wounds pulled against still-healing flesh.

"So... I’m alive."

He didn’t exactly sound pleased.

A guard then unlocked the infirmary door with practised indifference.

"Your condition is stable, and it’s time to go back to your cell."

Ethan didn’t bother replying, though he didn’t exactly agree that he was recovered. Not that it would matter even if he said anything, since he didn’t have rights in this place.

He was then guided back, spotting some of those he had faced in the infirmary along the way, one with a bandage wrapped around his eyes.

’Racist fucks,’ was all he thought to himself.

He was sure they would come after him again, and maybe soon because of his condition, but he wasn’t afraid.

What’s the worst that could happen?

’Oh no, they might kill me,’ he joked internally. ’They’d be doing me a favour.’

Ethan didn’t want to die, but he also didn’t have a lot to live for, so death didn’t scare him in the slightest.

As such, the torturous cycle of violence and loneliness continued.

At some point, he lost track of the time he had spent locked in the so-called Monster Manor.

Weeks?

Months?

Years?

He had stopped counting, or it was more like time had blurred together. With each passing moment, he felt he was losing his sense of reality and chronology, sinking deeper into the depths of despair.

It didn’t help that every couple of days someone would try to kill him.

Sometimes he won.

Sometimes he barely survived.

But each time he thought it was over and might finally get some rest, he woke back inside the infirmary. He’d then endure weeks of sedation and treatment while trying to resist, before being returned straight back into the prison population.

He wasn’t sure which one he hated more.

It repeated again.

And again.

And again.

It was torture disguised as routine.

As Ethan walked through the familiar concrete corridors, a strange sensation settled inside his chest. It wasn’t pain, but an emptiness, like someone had stolen something important from him.

He frowned.

"It’s like..."

He rubbed his chest.

"...I’m forgetting something important."

The thought lingered only briefly.

A shout echoed somewhere nearby, metal slammed against concrete, and someone screamed. He was quickly reminded that dwelling on emotions got people killed, his expression hardening once more.

Whatever he was forgetting could wait.

Surviving today came first.

-

Elsewhere, the golden illusion continued.

Every member of the clearing squad had forgotten the gate, one another, and most of their memories. To each of them, their nightmares had become reality, an endless one that tormented them.

But some definitely seemed more extreme than others, with Ethan expectedly getting the short end of the stick...

-

The giant, grey-skinned Titled who dubbed himself the Bulldozer returned to his younger years. He cried out as another pair of hands shoved him violently, stumbling across the school corridor before crashing face-first into a row of metal lockers.

Laughter erupted around him.

The scrawny teenage boy pushed himself upright, clutching his bleeding nose. He looked nothing like the hulking man who received the Title Raging Rhino.

He was painfully thin, short, and awkward - simply pathetic.

"There he goes again!"

Someone kicked the back of his knees.

He collapsed.

Another student dumped an entire trash can over his head, rotting food spilling across his shoulders, yet he didn’t react.

Everyone laughed again.

Someone then grabbed his backpack, throwing his books across the hallway.

He chased after them desperately.

"Please..."

His voice cracked.

"Just give them back..."

A fist slammed into his stomach, and he folded over.

He was then pushed around by a bunch of kids his age, like something straight out of a cliche school drama. Nobody helped, and his torment at school continued constantly.

The Golden Flutterer seemed to have drawn upon what they hated or what had traumatised them most. It now made sense why the grey-skinned man had such a short fuse and such an inferiority complex, though he knew better than to mess with those higher-ranked than he was.

And while his nightmare stemmed from bullying, Dave’s was from losing something most had, yet he cherished so much...

-

There was darkness.

Complete and utter darkness.

Dave reached desperately through empty air.

"Hello?"

There was nothing.

No mana, no colours, no unique sixth sense.

And this wasn’t the absence of light either... he was blind again.

’No, it can’t be.’

Before receiving his Title and unlocking the unique passive trait of being able to see mana, which essentially granted him sight, Dave had been blind. And he had been so for his entire life, as such didn’t know what he was missing.

But after being granted vision, one arguably even greater than normal, he had naturally grown accustomed to it. Now that it was taken away, he wasn’t just disoriented... He was distraught, maybe even more so than someone who always had their sight and then lost it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, footsteps surrounded him.

He couldn’t tell where he was, obviously, but it was bustling, maybe some sort of landmark in a city. And it almost felt deliberate how many people were bumping into him, some even laughing.

"Watch where you’re going!"

"I can’t..."

Dave reached outward helplessly.

"I can’t see."

That only earned him more laughter.

Then another voice jeered.

"Oi!"

"Look at his underwear!"

The crowd burst into hysterics.

"They’ve got bananas on them!"

Dave’s face burned scarlet.

"I..."

He reached down, and sure enough, he was only wearing the ridiculous banana-patterned underwear Ethan had mocked earlier.

The laughter grew louder.

Someone shoved him, and he stumbled into another person. Then he was taunted further before being thrown around helplessly. And though externally he was only being pushed around and laughed at while blind, it was literally Dave’s worst nightmare.

But unlike his and the Bulldozer’s, which were comedically lacklustre, the others were experiencing much harsher torment in their minds...