[???] "Make sure it's tight... We don't want him to get away."
My head—ringing.
Voices... muffled.
Vision... blurry.
I can hear some voices, but my vision is still blurry, it feels as if something hard had hit my head...
Did I faint??
As I slowly regained my consciousness, I realized it was not the same place anymore; I wasn't at that bloody house anymore.
My vision is still quite blurry, and a single thought of annoyance drifts through my mind...
Ever since that damned Author brought me to this place, I've been transported back and forth. I don't even know if this is Earth anymore...
[???} Yes, my lord... the graphs are also ready... we just need to wait for him to wake up...
[Kamryn Hall, Artiste - Confessor of the First Seeker Cathedral] spectra: Green
Kamryn Grinned-
"Do we? Why not just give him a little nudge?" A sadistic smile enveloped his face as he manifested a thought-
My back began to shiver, my hair rose, at first it was tickling, then-
*KZZZRRRAK
Painful burst of Lightning surged through my body, every muscle, every bone, I was petrified from shock, and the Pain, the pain woke me... as I gasped for air...
A figure of a Man, wearing A robe,
I've seen them before, once back at the Chapel near the school,
a priest?
"See Now that He's woken up"
So shall we begin?...
As his final words hissed out of his mouth, the people who seemed to also wear a- an attire similar to him, Not a robe but each embellishment looked same, and in the middle a design or a logo so I think, resembling that of an Eye, dominating every other design, bowed and relieved Him of their presence...
With the exception of one Man— a shadowy figure emerged from the very corner of the room, sitting in some sort of Throne, Parallel to my seat...
He was slightly tall, I'd say 5'9, his features are distinct, He had a beard all over his face as if some old guy, but by the looks and his stature, He seemed to be in the mid-60s, old but not too old...
"Begin the Interrogation," He said.
"Yes, your Highness."
.
"Nicaisse Kholer. Age: 24. Male. Fourth son of House Kholer. Visionary – Spectra: Violet.
Main and only suspect in the massacre of House Kappel."
The man paused for a second, His eye gleaming from excitement...
HOW DO YOU PLEAD?
"What??"
How. do. You. Plead. Nicaisse Kholer?
Who, before I can finish my thoughts, as if in some instinct of a victim, had my words
It seems to be a Misunderstanding,—I spoke in a trembling but Hopeful Voice, "I'm Rylee... Ryle Caldwell, I don't know anyone by the name Nic-aisse? Kholer "
Rather than resolution, my words seemed to cause some confusion, a confusion not from someone who had misjudged others but from someone as if staring at a delusional, psychotic, crazy person...
"Not a Kholer?"
Ha... BWAHAH—BWHBAHBWHBAHBAWHAWBAWHBA!!!!
The man on the Throne-Seat laughed vigorously
"Kamryn, what spell did you cast on this boy? This is not mere delusion."
Kamryn's tone sharpened with forced respect.
"No magic, your highness. The reports said his mind nearly shattered from overextension. Before the Stigmata manifested, it seems he had lost some of his memories due to overuse of his power."
After all, to fight that many Witnesses and a Visionary all at once, even someone of his caliber wouldn't not suffer the consequences...
As he continue to speak in explanation, as if trying to appease this Highness guy... the Man in robes who appeared to be called "Kamryn" rolled a cart with some instrument— I've seen that before but not exactly what I remembered; it resembled an Autorefractor a tool used by ophthalmologist to see the refractivity of the eyes, but it seems that this apparatus he was pointing at my eye is of different use...
"Let me see, open wide-"
He began to poke my eye with the instrument; it wasn't painful or anything, at least, but it was kind of irritating; it looked as if he was measuring something.
"This is impossible, Nicaisse Kholer, his reading is... Red? That's beneath a novice."
He looked at me with disgust and awe, like I was a collapsed god.
"A Visionary of Violet—downgraded to Red, what utter defiance of logic."
Apparently, he was looking at the color of my Iris,
I remembered
One of the truths that the author showed or had written in me was that in this world, People's Imagination manifests into reality, or at least my mere understanding of it. Apparently, it was some sort of "gift" from the authors; the authors called that power "CLAIRVOYANCE"—
and the level of tone's mastery over this power can be seen on the reflective light shown in their irises, it's as if a brand of the Authors, a Signature...
"I see. Then there won't be fun here... Kamryn be a lamb and call me once he confessed... I'll play with the others in the meanwhile," expressing his words in a dissatisfied tone.
"Your will is my service, your highness." Kamryn bowed in respect
"Now, why don't we have fun and play a little game called—"
You tell me what I want to know, and let's see... You don't get to experience Pain far worse than you will ever be...
What—
"Don't worry, even if you lost some of your memories, I'm gonna make sure you remember each piece of it," Kamryn confessed.
Question One: Look in the mirror and tell me—
WHO ARE YOU?
Only a sliver of light flickered above—
a rusted bulb, swaying slightly... humming faintly...
And for the first time since being dragged into this place—
I saw him.
A stranger. Not me.
Not Rylee.
I step back, lips trembling, throat dry.
This has to be an illusion. A trick. A spell.
I won't accept it. I won't.
"I AM ME. RYLEE CALDWELL. NOT SOME NICAISSE.
NOT A MURDERER—ME, I AM M—"
SKLRTCH!
Before I could finish, white-hot agony slammed into my fingers.
I gasped—but the sound died in my throat.
I looked down.
The pliers in Kamryn's hand were soaked red.
One by one—ripped. Torn. Flung.
My nails.
Torn from their roots, blood jetting from nailbeds like burst pipes.
"HHHNnnng!"
"Rrhhhhaaa!"
...ha... ha... ha...
My body curled into itself—muscles tensing, teeth grinding.
My toes curled so hard they spasmed.
And before I could even lose consciousness—
They grew back.
My nails.
Regenerating.
"Familiar with it?" Kamryn smiled.
"Restorative Manifestation"
The same technique used by Doctors to save life, apparently, can be used to take the very life from someone wishing to be DEAD, so don't be saddened.
We aren't stopping coz you'll never gonna end up DEAD.
At that very moment, Reality sank.
My brain collapsed in despair, not from the Pain of the Moment— but from those to come.
Question two: WHAT DID THE STIGMATA SHOW YOU?
I answered in exhaustion, "Stigmata?", I answered despite knowing that if I was unsatisfactory, he would continue the torture, but in the end, if I don't answer—
"Alright, I'll give you that one. Since not everyone knew Stigmata, I will give you a clue:
It was the words that appeared in your hands, Remember the Pain? The feeling? That was the very gift of our Authors, so to feel one, Oh I ENVY, you must be adored by those above,
You must have felt Honor Right??? so tell me, what did they tell you?
Bull!@#$% I should feel honored by that?!!!— As began to speak what I remembered a headache shoot my very brain, my ears ringing, my vision shaking it wasn't so painful but it felt—stopping, as if Something is preventing me from Accessing my Memories....
"Why...?!!" I cried in anguish.
"Why give me all this pain, if I'm not even allowed to remember?!"
It must have been a Hallucination, but I felt like an echo of a whisper from the farthest of places. "In time, you will remember every answer."
A short while after, I felt normal again, but in front of me was a dissatisfied face of Kamryn. I knew that moment everything was pointless... all I could do was accept the pain.
Kamryn frowned as He reached for the hammer.
"CRKK!" my thumb
Broken, cracking, and creaking
"CcRKK!" then the Pointer
from each strike of the hammer in His hands
"CRrKK!" The middle
again
"CRKK!" "THRAKK!" and the rest followed, and again,
"CRkKK!"
Repeatedly in a manner that seemed forever, and Repeating as my hands heal rapidly one after another...
The chair creaked with every slight movement I made—not that I had much room to move. My wrists were bound so tight the skin beneath had long since gone numb. My legs twitched occasionally, not by will, but from residual pain that refused to settle.
Kamryn stood across from me, wiping his gloved hands with a silk cloth already stained red. Not mine, maybe not even human—though at this point, did it even matter?
The Interrogation proceeded, but I wasn't myself anymore, not the usual of them insisting I am someone else, but rather delirium,
what? — I can't even hear the Questions anymore...
and for every wrong answer, every silence, every superfluous thought, is a toll, a torture...
Then came the manifestation—flesh and bone slowly reknitting like some cruel miracle, only for it to happen again.
"You're healing quite well," Kamryn said with a grin. "That's the beautiful irony of Restoration, isn't it? You can break a soul more easily when the body doesn't get to die."
Then my bones themselves suddenly twisted, sprouting in tendrils of ligaments, outward from my skin, each point of my joints, each end of my skin, as if being barbed from inside, skewered by my own bone.
Another question... then pain... then question... then Pain... then Pain...
Finally, for some godforsaken relief
"You don't say, it seems your mental fortitude is far greater than anticipated, I guess I don't need to give you the elixirs then... but still it bothers me... if you had such a strong will, how did you regress from a Violet to red??"
Well, it doesn't matter you'll be here forever, so... I can just pry you open every single day...
By the way, don't bother thinking your Family will rescue you, your father is away, and your siblings, well, what can they do? After all, after all, this is under sacred grounds and you are officially our prisoner... He sighed in some relief.
Then the doors closed shut and the Lights went out...
In that small, empty room, all that remained was my aching body, the stench of my blood, and the pitch black darkness that swallowed every inch of light.
.
.
.
In this madness, I can't even sleep; the pain won't let me
"I have to get off this miserable place, I too am CLAIRVOYANT, I just need to conjure the manifestations..."
I need some light, FIRE!, I need to imagine it, fire... burning.. I can see it clearly just like I used to...
ARRRRRGGGHH!!!! —
Nothing?
How... Whyy???
Is it what that man said? That I'm "Red"?
Is it really that useless—like having a gift sealed in chains? A false sense of power?
Then—
A memory surged... One of those that I wished had come earlier, the saving grace that had failed to emerge, a memory that was engraved by the author.
One of the principles of this power,
Right, it's not just simply imagination that brings the manifestations, it is the understanding of it...
"Intellect predates wisdom.
Knowledge is useless in the hands of ignorance.
For its strength lies not in what it holds,
but in how it's wielded."
—L.S. Sight
Yes. I remember. The Lesson.
Fire isn't summoned by desire alone.
Fire is a science.
Heat is energy.
When particles accelerate—when they vibrate—they gain kinetic energy.
The more energy, the more heat.
And from heat: fire.
as one of the laws of thermodynamics, the law of energy conservation: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, for it can only be converted from one form to another, and if the system is not isolated, the change in a system's integral energy is equal to the difference between the heat added to the system from its surroundings—
So first, imagine...
Start with the moisture in the air—hydrogen particles—spinning, colliding, heating—
Faster. Tighter.
Condensing into something bright, volatile. Alive.
Then I felt warm, finally, for the first time, it wasn't painful but welcoming. As I open my eyes, finally, as if a shed of hope shone.
And there it was.
A single, blue flame.
Mesmerizing. Floating. Flickering. ever-burning
A spark of thought made manifest. A beacon of possibility.
But I cannot hinder myself in admiration or awe that somehow magic like this, power that is only wielded by those in fiction, is now my reality...
Now I just need to readjust my imagination, where to put it, how strong and big, the size, the shape matter...
But before I can continue
AGHH!
My Mind shattered in pain, and my memories became fuzzier
Right, because this power is not free, it comes with a price. For each manifestation, a conjurer's Memory becomes its currency, and when one thinks too much or too many, that memory becomes fuzzy, like an old person begging to remember what is and what to be.
So I sat again in silence and darkness, the same kind of darkness that brought me, but this was different,
now.
I am waiting...
for Kamryn...
Because now I have a shot, a power. I chance. A hope.
Just wait and see... I'll burn you, your blood will boil, and your bones ignited,
I will not just Kill you, I will make you suffer.