A small dark hut, located right on the edge of a cliff.
His hands and feet were wrapped in some kind of steel thread, similar to wire. He was tied to a chair.
And although the wound on his back was no longer bleeding and did not seem to bother him anymore...
He had been beaten to a bloody pulp.
His hair barely reached his ears and was gray in color. Remarkably, there were small flashes of pure black at the roots of his curls.
Many would call this shade ash... But it looked more like the hair had been stripped of color. The same could be said about his eyes. They were a dull blue, clearly resembling gray.
It seemed that his skin, like everything else, lacked color.
Lost from color — that was the best way to describe him. Nobody — that was what he called himself.
He seemed broken and barely understood what was happening. His mind couldn't accept the reality of the situation. He needed help.
*Crunch!* One blow from a steel glove turned his knee into a bloody mess of torn muscles and broken bones.
The consciousness awoke with...
"AAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
*Crushh!* A second blow turned his lips to mush and caused half of his teeth to crack and fly apart.
That was how his heart-rending scream was cut short.
"Hush, hush, little pig, they're not roasting you yet, so there's no need to squeal..."
The old man who had struck the blows stuck his fingers into the torn mouth and grabbed his tongue.
"!!!"
It was disgusting. It was repulsive. It was painful... Terribly painful.
His throat was seized by spasms. He instinctively felt that if he screamed again, the next blow would not be long in coming.
He tried to suppress the urge to scream by tensing his throat and trying to swallow. Sharp pieces of broken teeth penetrated inside and cut him from within.
His mouth was filled with blood, but he couldn't even spit it out. The old man was still holding his tongue, and his hoarse, bass voice sounded unpleasantly close to his ears.
It was maddening. He tried to suppress his screams, turning the sound from his mouth into something like a squeak. It sounded very much like a pig's squeal.
He could suppress his cries, but he couldn't stop the flow of tears.
"Let me tell you a story..." the old man began. "A little pig lived with his brothers in a wonderful zoo. Their home was excellent — the best that could be offered to creatures like them... But its owner was too noble and kind to dirty animals. The little pig and his brothers came up with a cunning plan. They decided to escape from the zoo and go to find something that would hurt the owner — a bold, unforgivable insult."
"...!"
He sobbed with his eyes wide open and let out a terribly painful squeal. He looked straight at the old man who was holding his tongue.
"Somehow, they succeeded. They escaped and hid deep underground. Where the zoo owner couldn't see them... But one day, the little pig woke up and saw that his brothers had been torn to pieces. The pigs didn't know that the land outside the zoo walls was wild. They fell prey to passing animals... And so the piggy was left all alone."
"P-p-pff..."
"Hush, Hush, little one, you haven't heard the end of the story yet..."
The old man squeezed and almost crushed his tongue, causing the flow of tears and blood in the captive's eyes to intensify.
"The little pig cried and squealed. He was left all alone in the world... He thought it would have been better to die with his brothers! And then he started to run. He ran through forests. He ran across fields. He ran over mountains… The piggy ran and ran in the hope of finding a beast that would end his suffering."
He didn't understand what this crazy old man was talking about. He didn't understand the metaphors, the context, or the obvious hints in this story. All he felt was excruciating pain and the gradual madness of his own mind.
"...At that moment, the piggy began to miss the zoo he had betrayed. There he was fed, clothed, and, most importantly, safe. The little pig was stupid and didn't understand that the cage he lived in was not a prison, but a shield. The zoo cage was a home where he was happy with his brothers." The old man's face contorted with disgust and contempt. "But pigs are stupid, dirty, ignorant, and greedy animals. By their actions, they insulted the zoo employees who loved them very much, and there was no forgiveness to be found."
The old man released the man's tongue and approached his face. Blood bubbled and spurted from his broken mouth. Some of it splattered onto the old man's face and mustache, but this only seemed to intensify the fire in his mechanical eyes.
"However, before the little pig met its desired end, it encountered an old wolf — one of the zoo's keepers — who had gone searching for him…"
The man, known as Mr. Nobody, looked him straight in the eye. His mind was ready to explode with horror, pain, and an endless stream of chaos.
"But the wolf was too kind, and also somewhat similar to this small and dirty pig. He did not kill the little pig. Instead… he gave him far more than he ever should have." An excited smile lit up the old man's face. "The wolf took pity on the little pig who had lost his brothers and said to him, 'I will save you from loneliness.' "
He couldn't help himself.
"Bwah...!" He vomited blood right onto the old man's face and clean white shirt.
While he was trying to cough up the bloody lump in his throat, the old man grabbed his head and pressed it against his forehead. The steel gloves squeezed his head so hard that it almost made his eyeballs pop out of their sockets, and his skull crack.
The old man pressed his face against his and began to whisper.
"You are my little piggy… mine. And I promise — I will take your loneliness away."
"?!!!"
Foreseeing the future, he clearly felt that death in a meat grinder or the jaws of a beast would be a very lenient end.
Lesson 5: Fear not solitude, but its absence.