Chapter 90

Chapter 90

I choked and struggled.

Antares smiled an evil smile. My vision was hazy. I could barely see anything. Beyond the haziness, I saw Kaichen. It was a hallucination when he rescued me in the past. He had said I wouldn’t have any more hallucinations. The illusion made me desperately miss him. I had not felt terrified at all till now, but now the thought of losing him caused me pain. I bit my lips and endured. It was useless.

“You have an extraordinary memory. Now I want to dig further to find out what happened.”

That was the last thing I had dreamt. D*mn Antares! You rotten bastard! I spit out curses multiple times. But my eyes rolled and drool dripped down my chin. I couldn’t see anything clearly anymore.

I could feel the heat. It was so hot. My body was burning up.  Then it was freezing cold. What’s happening? It was hot and it was cold to the extent that it might even freeze my bones. Was the human body able to feel both hot and cold at the same time? Fire and ice? Am I being burned at the stake or frozen in ice? I don’t know. It’s hot. It’s cold…

My thoughts and sensations were all mixed. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Something was causing me pain. Something black and wet and slimy was swimming in my mind. I heard a conversation from not so far away.

“Can you stand at least this much?”

“P-please… please no more…”

“You can’t? Um, can you move your arms?”

“Please… just k-kill me…”

“It isn’t working! Should I just use this medicine then?”

It wasn’t a conversation. It was me. I was conducting an experiment on someone while muttering to myself while they begged for reprieve. My face looked serious. The man was sobbing and begging me to kill him. I didn’t listen.

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t do this. No… no… no. But the visions didn’t go away. I could see everything even with my eyes closed. It was in my mind. I could hear and see even with my eyes closed and my ears covered.

“Crazy bitch! Murderer! Why are you doing this to us? What did we ever do to wrong you?”

Someone’s scream rang in the air. I had just ignored them. They were in my memory. I wonder what they thought of me. I have died a hundred times for my terrible deeds. I have died at the hands of people of Acrab as well. I was stabbed a dozen times. I was thrown into a raging fire. I was buried alive. I was stoned to death. I was drowned. Human anger was incredible. It makes people do the cruelest things.

Anger is the driving force in everything. Power, magic, love…. I thought it was understandable to be captured and killed for what I had done to them. I did experiments on them, in return I accepted death on myself as another experiment on myself. It didn’t matter. I had wanted to die. But the next day I would open my eyes and nobody would remember anything… except me. No matter how many times I had experimented on them and they had ripped me apart, they would smile kindly the next day. They would have forgotten everything. It was the same day for them. But for me, I remembered everything.

That was how I used the days to gain more knowledge because there was nothing else to do in that godforsaken place. I combined drugs into medicine, poison and magic. I did not hesitate to die, kill or slaughter. I tested the medicine on children, adults, and the elderly I knew I had done things that I would be never forgiven for. I had killed and made people suffer.

I knelt down. Please… please…. Stop it! I can’t do this. I can’t! I knelt and begged. I didn’t know who was in the room anymore. I just begged and begged for someone to take me out of this hell. My tears were dripping. I was drooling. I must have been hideous to look at. But I didn’t care. I wanted this to end. My memories were more hideous than anything else in this world. I looked at the flames burning Acrab. I had done that too. I had burned the whole town to see how long it took for the mighty place to burn to nothing.

I’m… not even a human. That was the first word I uttered when I came to my senses. I couldn’t indulge in the luxury of thinking that this was all an illusion. It was real. They were my memories. I had done all those things. Maybe others could believe that everything had been an illusion. But not me. I was the medium and my memories would haunt me forever.

I had brazenly declared that I was a genius and that the magic I had was innate. It wasn’t. I was a scum, a pretender. I had mastered my magic over a hundred years, most times at the expense of people’s lives in Acrab. It had been a century of madness. I was the madwoman.

Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Somebody… Please… Help me…….

My mind erupted in a brilliant gold light. A golden light that cut through everything. I remembered that light and held onto it. I waited for him. He had promised he would grab hold of even the most rotten rope if it meant he could save me. Kaichen Tenebre. Archmage. The greatest disciple of Matabju. Friend to the Crown Prince. Mana Monster. The Golden Magician.