Tristessa woke up in a damp, very cold and dark place with a strong sll of raw at, and no possibility of movent. Strong ropes were tying her hands are feet, so tight that with just a little effort the pressure began to cut into her skin.
She couldn't see because her eyes were bandaged with layers of black fabric, and she couldn't scream or call for help because her mouth was stuffed with sothing soft like cloth, and a rope was keeping it between her lips, denying her the possibility of spitting it out.
“...!!!”
Not a single syllable. Everything was absolute silence, so solid and so oppressive that it was deafening.
“TIARAAAA!” she scread inside her head, the only place where she still had any freedom. “Why?! How could I fail so quickly?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?!”
This new situation threatened to drive her towards insanity. Her failure to save the rcer-Archeos family was so resounding that she couldn't believe it.
Hadn't Tiara believed a word of her story? Had she never intended to believe her?
“But the attack is going to happen! It's not a lie!” she thought, shouting uselessly into the darkness of her mind. “No... How long has it been? What day is it? Did they run away...? Fuck, fuck, fuck…!”
Before she could continue asking herself useless questions, the creaking of a wooden door broke the prevailing silence. She heard several footsteps and, feeling a rough handling above her head, suddenly light invaded her vision.
Tristessa saw that she was locked in the underground warehouse where the family stored cured at from the animals Jin had hunted. These chunks of ats were hung from the ceiling on tal hooks and surrounded by small crystals of power that emitted a faint white light but a very strong aura of extre cold that, fortunately, didn't fully reach the ground where she was immobilized.
A silhouette passed by her and leaned against a large wooden barrel: arms crossed and wearing the sa dress as always, Tiara regarded her prisoner with disdain and perpetual loathing.
“You're awake. Fine, we can start right now.”
“STUPID, FUCKING BITCH! YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR FAMILY AND RUN!”
That’s what Tristessa tried to scream, alongside more insults and warnings of the doom that was coming, but everything said was muffled against the clumped bundle of scraps of old clothing Tiara had blocked her mouth with.
With almost bulging eyes, she saw the woman coming towards her: Tiara grabbed her cheeks tightly, digging her nails in and forcing her to look up into her eyes filled with deadly ice.
“I will ask you a series of questions, and you will answer honestly. You will only answer my questions. If you lie, I will know it, and I will break a phalanx of your fingers for each lie you tell. If you speak out of turn, I will break a phalanx of your fingers according to my discretion. After your fingers, I will continue with your toes. You don't want us to move on to the next stage after all your fingers and toes are broken.”
The rules of the deadly ga were set. The pregnant woman freed her mouth and Tristessa coughed, spitting out saliva and shaking off the nausea she had been feeling. She couldn't even get a word out as Tiara went to where her hands were tied at her waist and took the top of her right index finger.
“What is your na?”
“…T-Tristessa Irandell,” she replied, feeling her heart pounding as Tiara tightened her grip around her finger more threateningly.
“Where do you co from?”
“I don’t know.”
Wrong answer. Tiara recognized her lie with ease and with a swift movent, snapped the upper phalanx of the finger in two. The force applied was so strong and violent that the broken bone pierced muscle and skin.
“AAAAAHHHH, FUCK! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!”
Tristessa’s agonized screams echoed throughout the house, followed by her inconsolable wailing which Tiara did not mind at all.
“Are you a [Stranger]?”
“Ugh…ugh… I-I don’t…know…”
No rcy. Tiara closed her hand around the lower phalanx and perford the sa brutal movent, leaving that part of the finger also fractured and provoking another high-pitched scream from the girl.
The pain was so unbearable, setting fire to her nervous system and attacking her consciousness with such impunity, that her mind was unable to continue, and everything faded away. But Tiara had no intention of stopping there, and she brought a small vial with white liquid to her nose, and when she breathed in, it instantly reactivated Tristessa's brain.
“W-what...? Ah...Ahhh...AHHHHGGGGH!!”
As her mind began to work at breakneck speed, so did the nerve signals coming from her useless, blood-covered finger.
“Fainting just from that... You're so pathetic,” the woman told her, without a hint of guilt in her voice.
“SCREW YOU, YOU CRAZY FUCKING BITCH!” Tristessa shrieked in return, her bloodshot eyes spilling tears. She squird, kicked, and did everything she could to free herself from this confinent where only more pain awaited her. “HELP ! JIN! SEV...!”
Grabbing the girl by the hair, Tiara slamd her head against the ground, silencing her. Tristessa felt extre heat flow into her broken nose, as well as the inside of her mouth, quickly numbed by several of her broken front teeth.
“Do you know anyone by the na of Daiana?”
“N…n-no…” she replied, her words laced with foamy saliva, bubbles of blood, and bits of teeth escaping between her lips. She felt Tiara’s hand encircle her middle finger, and panic gripped her. “Wait! I know that na!”
Tristessa thought like never before, feeling drops of sweat running relentlessly down her face from all the fear she felt and the pain emanating from her hand.
“Where did I hear that na?! Where?! …Ah…”
She rembered. Tiara was the one who said that na, back when she went mad, in that nonexistent past in which Tristessa had learned the hard way that revealing her ability to return from Death was fatal: those who heard that truth went mad, and before taking their own lives, they tried to kill her by any ans necessary.
“Where did you hear that na? Do you even know Daiana?” Tiara's voice suddenly filled with inhuman fury, shattering that face of an indifferent torturer. She gripped her finger so tightly that Tristessa thought she would break it with just a squeeze. “Tell !”
But Tristessa remained silent, a trickle of blood falling from the center of her lower lip, unable to co up with an excuse: she knew perfectly well that she had no way of telling Tiara that she had revealed that na to her, back in a temporal line that existed no more.
Therefore, her punishnt was more pain. Another broken phalanx, more screams, and more tears.
“Enough… I beg you, Tiara…p-please…”
At her plea for rcy, Tiara pushed Tristessa with her foot, leaving her face up. So that she could see her face, sweaty, breathing with so fatigue, but completely determined to continue until the end.
“You will tell the whole truth. I will beat it out of you if necessary, I will wake you up as many tis as necessary,” the woman warned, pushing Tristessa deeper into despair with each word she spoke. “Until you tell who you really are and what your goal is… Servant of the Dark Lady.”
That accusation again. Tiara again coming to that sa conclusion, no matter what Tristessa does differently…
In every loop, in every reality, was there no way to break the trend? Was Tiara always going to be her enemy, without exception?
Tristessa broke down in sobs, her tornted soul forcing her to scream at the top of her lungs:
“I WANT TO SAVE YOU ALL! EVERYTHING I SAID ABOUT THE ATTACK WILL HAPPEN! IT’S NOT A LIE! WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE ?!”
Spitting out words, saliva, and blood alike, the black-haired girl opened her heart. Frustration ate at her from the inside. How powerless she felt, how weak and useless she saw herself, unable to overco this first obstacle that had presented itself in front of her.
That obstacle that had regarded her with contempt and animosity from the mont she set foot in that house, after her first Death.
"WHY DO YOU HATE SO MUCH?! WHAT DID I DO TO EARN YOUR HATE?!” she shrieked. “I NEVER ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS! JUST STOP HATING , PLEASE!”
Tristessa cried before her immutable torturer, and her screaming soul, shattered and beyond repair, kept seeking deliverance that it would never found.
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