Frost lay on the ground, his cheek pressed against the damp stone. His jaw throbbed with unbearable pain, each heartbeat reverberating through his temples. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. His breath was short, ragged, and his eyes, blurred with burning tears, struggled to make sense of what was happening around him.
A sudden gust of air shook the cell. The red-haired boy, who had humiliated him moments before, was hurled against the wall with an invisible force. His body slumped heavily, lifeless, like a broken puppet.
Only then did Frost lift his head.
A silhouette emerged in the flickering torchlight. It advanced slowly, each step echoing in the silence like a silent threat. The figure wore a full mask of dark green, polished and cracked in places. Its sculpted contours seemed to depict a face frozen in an unreadable grimace, somewhere between serenity and cruelty. Thin slits hinted at eyes, but their glow was invisible, swallowed by impenetrable darkness.
The mask alone inspired icy terror. But it was the presence—the aura enveloping him—that petrified Frost. A heavy, inescapable presence, both charismatic and monstrous. A force that could neither be challenged nor ignored.
Frost's heart clenched. Memories of his family came crashing back, brutal and merciless. The explosion. The blood. His sister frozen, unable to move. His brother thrown from the house. His throat tightened; he wanted to scream. To scream his anger, his pain, his fear. But when he opened his mouth, no sound emerged.
Absolute silence.
No echo. No breath. Even his own heartbeat seemed stifled. The same magic as before, the same invisible prison. A sonic void that reduced him to powerlessness.
The masked man approached, measuring his steps with calculated slowness. Every movement exuded controlled strength, a frozen discipline. He stopped in front of Frost, leaned slightly, and in a deep, muffled voice distorted by the mask, said:
— Follow me.
Two words. Simple, relentless. They struck Frost's mind louder than thunder.
He wanted to refuse, to retreat, to struggle. But his legs trembled, his muscles refused to obey. One certainty imposed itself on him: he had no chance. He was weak, far too weak.
With great effort, he pushed himself up against the wall and obeyed.
They left the cell. The corridor stretching before him seemed endless. The stone walls wept moisture, the air heavy, saturated with the smell of mold and iron. To the left and right, cells lined the passage, each containing crouched figures.
Some prisoners stepped toward the bars, their eyes wild, greedily fixing on Frost. Their lips moved, but no sound emerged, stifled by the same magic. Emaciated hands clawed at the grates, scratching the stone and leaving dark traces. Others remained still, eyes empty, extinguished, as if their minds had already been consumed by this place.
Each step through the corridor tightened the vice of anxiety around Frost's heart. He found himself thinking of solutions, escape routes. But deep down, he knew there were none. His weakness was glaring, naked, exposed to every gaze he met.
Finally, they reached a massive, metal-reinforced door, which the masked man opened effortlessly.
The room beyond froze him with terror.
At its center stood a metallic stretcher, covered in dried blood. Around it, on stone tables, lay surgical and torture instruments: sharp scalpels, forceps, hooks, gleaming blades. Some were rusted, others looked freshly prepared. The acrid smell of coagulated blood and metal filled the air, suffocating.
Frost's legs refused to move. His breath quickened, his chest burned with panic. But the green-masked man placed a firm hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward.
Frost stumbled back, trying to resist. In vain.
He was forced to lie on the stretcher. The thick, coarse straps tightened around his wrists, ankles, and chest. Each metallic click resonated in his mind like an irrevocable sentence.
Lying there, unable to move, Frost looked up at the blackened ceiling. His heart pounded so hard he felt it might burst. Fear seeped into his veins, cold, relentless.
For the first time, he realized he had crossed a boundary. Here, in this room, he was no longer merely a prisoner. He was prey.
The straps tightened with a sharp click. Frost struggled again, but his strength deserted him. Panic, pain, fatigue… everything conspired against him. He was pinned there, helpless, at the mercy of the masked being.
The man in green did not speak. He simply approached the table of instruments, selecting a fine scalpel with terrifying slowness, its blade glinting under the flickering torchlight. No words. No hesitation.
When the blade touched Frost's skin, a searing pain pierced his chest. He would have screamed, torn the air with his cries… but no sound escaped his lips. The total silence choked his suffering, making it unbearably sharp, as if the world itself denied him the right to feel pain.
The metal carved a red line across his torso. His body writhed under the burn, muscles tensed, but the straps held him firmly. His wide eyes filled with tears, blurring his vision. Every movement of the scalpel tore a piece of his being.
But it was not only his body that the man was opening. Frost felt it immediately.
Something deep within him, long buried, was tearing apart. His mana flow, the energy he had always felt vibrating deep inside, cracked and dissolved. His magic, his last link to hope, to the possibility of fighting back, vanished.
He tried to resist, to hold on to what was slipping away, but it was like trying to hold water in his hands. The mana poured out, drained, annihilated, as if his very existence were being rejected by the world.
Horror mingled with despair in his eyes. Everything he still had: lost.
His father and mother, murdered by three strangers whose shadows he barely knew. His brother and sister, vanished in chaos. And now… his magic. The only weapon he had to hope for vengeance, the only light in his abyss.
Everything collapsed.
He felt empty, hollow, like a shell stripped of its contents. Nothing burned within him anymore, nothing carried him. The world, his dreams, his promises, his anger, his regrets… all disappeared into a black void.
Tears streamed freely down his cheeks. The open wound across his chest tore waves of unbearable pain, but it was nothing compared to the void consuming him.
He was no longer a fighter.
He was no longer a mage.
He was nothing.
The green-masked man straightened, scalpel dripping with blood in hand. Frost, strapped to the stretcher, could only lift a broken, hollow gaze—one in which anger and hope no longer existed. Only fear and abandonment remained.
And in that absolute silence, where even his cries had been erased from the world, he knew he would never again find the light.