Chapter 185: Deep Resentment
The man stared at the wrapped tool, then at Dylan, with hatred now tainted by a new kind of wariness. The stigma still throbbed faintly, a whitish glow beneath the bloodied skin, like a blind eye opening in the dark.
"You talk too much," he repeated, but the words rang hollow—an overused phrase. The twisted fascination had given way to cold frustration. "We’ll see if your tongue’s still that clever when the fever starts gnawing your bones."
He turned on his heels without another word. The metal door creaked, then slammed shut. The heavy bolt slid into place with the sound of a tomb sealing.
A thick silence settled—sticky, saturated with the scent of blood, sour sweat, and repressed fear. Dylan remained suspended, the weight of his body pulling on his dislocated shoulders, the chains creaking ever so slightly. The pain, briefly masked by adrenaline and confrontation, came roaring back in burning waves. But something else was happening—something as disturbing as the blade or the obsidian tool: a deep, insidious itching, crawling through his wounds.
He looked down. Along his thigh, where the blade had sliced clean through flesh, a faint glow—like the one on his arm—pulsed. He could feel the muscle fibers twitching, not from pain anymore, but as if tugged by some force within. The torn edges of the wound were... moving. Drawing closer together. Like magnets pulling at the skin beneath.
A strange warmth, damp and alive, replaced the burn of the cut. It was healing, yes, but not the slow, gentle healing of nature. It was a violent mending—brutal and raw, like being stitched with live wire.
Each pulse of white light came with a painful tug, an electric sting that made his teeth clench. The wound was closing, not into a scar, but a tight line—too neat, too fast—leaving skin that felt both new and painfully raw, etched with the memory of what had happened.
Alone at last... with the buzz of his own agony and the murmur of the stigma at work. The absence of the torturer brought a perverse kind of respite. The tension that had kept him upright, defiant, collapsed all at once. His head dropped to his chest, heavy. A hoarse groan escaped—long suppressed. Burning tears, made of pure pain, exhaustion, and impotent rage, slipped silently down his cheeks, carving clean tracks through the grime and dried blood.
"Breathe. Just... breathe."
He closed his eyes, trying to calm the tremors that racked his body. The physical pain was a roaring fire—but it was familiar. He could, in a way, contain it. Challenge it. It was the other pain—the one that dug a black hole into his chest when the obsidian touched his sternum—that still scared him. That sensation of being scraped inside, beyond flesh... and the toxic, instinctive answer his stigma gave in return.
But in the forced silence, in that crucible of suffering where even healing was a form of torture, another image surfaced. Not a thought. A presence. A feeling.
The smell of cut grass and hot metal, laced with a discreet, floral scent—sharp and soft all at once. The tall silhouette in the doorway, just before the fists struck, before the bag went over his head. Not moving. Not attacking. Just... there. Watching.
A voice. Calm. Too calm. Just a few words, spoken like a cold statement, a flat command: