one hundred and... five. one hundred and... six. o-one hund- a-ah uhhh...
The child, known as experiment number 1009, trembles under the pressure of the father's presence and the sword that has been hitting slowly and controlled to give him the time to say the numbers out loud. And the father punishes him with a harder hit on his head, making him dizzy and the feeling of throwing up, but nothing comes out because of how empty he is. Starving, crying but no tears; there's no water inside his body at all.
And after reaching such a big number, the father stops exactly at the number one hundred and nine.
He stops here and turns around, reaches outside the room, leaving the child inside the cold and small room, alone and about to collapse. The father returns, not empty-handed, but with a small package of food that looks like it came out of the trash.
The father reaches his hand inside the bag and hands the food straight to the child's mouth, not aggressively, but not how a father would feed his child either; it feels forced, and the child is lost in his thoughts, wondering if this is what he meant to be or if the world is just that cruel to only him.
And the torture continues where it stopped; it didn't restart, just resuming. The father holds the sword and stands right in front of him, towering over him, and he waits for the kid to start where they stopped, but the child is just more confused; he doesn't know whether to restart or guess.
And after waiting one whole minute, the father hits harder than any time before, choking the kid, making him lose consciousness at this moment.
The father stops completely; he just turns around and lies on the floor as if he was told to do that, waiting patiently for the child to wake up again so the torture can continue as "planned".
And the child was collapsed not for one day, but for weeks, and sometimes it even reaches months. Just to recover his broken body that has been abused for a long time, his body is already giving up, and we are not even half the way yet.
Now the child is at the age of seven, still counting the hits and still getting brutally tortured.
Four hundr-ed and one... four hund... four hundred a-and... and...f-four hundred and...
The child stutters, his voice cracking, unaware and lost. And a strike hits the left side of his body, making him swing back and forth.
The room is now filled with random bags in the corner, filled with bugs and rats roaming around searching for food while the father is just doing the torture, unaware. And it just continues...
s-six hun-hundred and... f-fifty four... six-six hundred a-and- and fifty... five...
The numbers just climb up throughout the years, finally reaching the endpoint of this torture.
o-one... one thousand... o-one... one thousand and one... o-one t-t-thousand a-and... two... one thousand... and three...
The child continues and finally reaches the promised number; he never knew it would even come to an end.
One thousand and nine.
The father stops completely; he stands still, watching his child tremble. While the child is waiting for the next hit, but it just stopped.
The father turns around and leaves the room quietly without looking back. He just stopped out of nowhere.
And right after the father left, someone else entered: the scientist.
After nine years of living under one roof with a cursed father and food that came out of the garbage and torture that kept going for three whole years, the child is finally free from this phase one of torture, and the next one will start.
It's not torture under one roof... but torture of just existing in this world...