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He should have kept his head down and run. But in a place where death was inevitable and blood stained your olfactory, he tried desperately to hold onto his sanity.
It was a mistake to leave home. It was a mistake to not check what was happening to his family. It was a mistake. Except it wasn’t.
He’d chosen to get away from them, he’d thought he needed space to grow. The only thing that grew was all the parts about himself that he didn’t like. So he went home. He went home but the only thing he found was blood, the same sour smell cloyed to him even now. He still roams those halls but now he can’t escape for even a moment without adding to the gore already smeared on the walls.
Another trial, another killer, another escape, another death. Hopefully, he wouldn’t die this time but from the looks of it, one of the other survivors was close to the permeation of rot. Her arm was mangled and the hook very nearly was impaled through her lung. Of course, Nea had to get caught right when the gates opened, it was no surprise that everyone other than him had cut and run. But he didn’t want to do that to her, she was the only one who didn’t say he was a coward.
There weren’t any traps earlier so it wasn’t one of the usual killers. In fact, he thought he’d seen a bright yellow coat and flicks of blue in the distance before. Someone new?
Nea’s head was lolling sweetly, like a flower in the breeze. If only she wasn’t bleeding out and was instead on a bench surrounded by trees, she would have looked peaceful. That’s what he thought about as he lifted her from the hook, giving her a bandage before she decided to run off.
Maybe he should have been more worried about himself because in no time at all he had a blade to his throat. Sinewy arms held him in place with a threat of violence. Bubbling laughter melodious in tune crept into his ears so loudly it was akin to a sharp stabbing sensation. The body behind him spoke but it wasn’t a language he understood. All he could do was stay immaculately still.
When there was no response from him the blade was pressed harshly into the softness of his throat. The killer hummed mockingly as their head craned around his back. Lavender silver hair dropped into his periphery along with the nauseating smell of iron. The amount of stimuli he was intaking was too much for him and he abruptly found himself losing consciousness with panic clogged in his pores. An indignant huff was the last thing he heard.
The air was acrid when he woke, an inconsistency in his recollection. The feel of rope digging into his wrists was a reminder of his predicament. This killer wasn’t like the others, this one liked to play with its prey. “Awake, are you, little sleepyhead? Good.” It was the same voice from before he lost consciousness.
He stared mutely at the hay bale in front of him, they’d been moved to a different trial. It was easy to disconnect from himself. A smooth transition from his previous state of unwake into the nothingness of his mind. His quietness must have been agitating to the killer who stood at Matais’s back because he vaguely registered the feeling of a blade burying itself in his side. It was such a faraway sensation that Matais didn’t scream or flinch. “Answer me.” The killer mocked his earlier fear before dropping in front of him to observe with a wide smile on his face.
The killer, in a bright yellow trench coat slathered with blood, looked as if he’d gotten a lemon shoved in his mouth upon seeing the passive expression on Matais’s face. “What’s the use of this inane game?” The killer tilted his head at the question and stood before rolling his neck, it popped sickeningly. Matais looked on as the man searched for a sign in the beams of the barn.
“It’s art. The music made when someone is dying, it’s the epitome of everything I search for.” Amber eyes stared piercingly at him with a fervor of obsession, blood stained the man’s cheeks with twisted joy. “So won’t you scream for me?”
He stared into those amber eyes without a word, taking in the sight of a seemingly normal if not conventionally attractive man who was highly unhinged. “I refuse.” The man seemed almost disappointed with the words, as if there would have been any answer other than no. “Too bad, I suppose I have to get it out of you somehow.”
The rope was starting to irritate his wrists and about halfway to taking off the skin there. That was what he focused on as knives were strategically stabbed into his body in an effort to draw out “music” from his throat. He couldn’t scream. Every time he tried he would choke and hack on nonexistent syllables, the harshness of a single sound. He wished he could grind out even a single exclamation of pain as he perspired with blood dripping into the fabric of his clothing.
The pain had seeped into his disconnected reality and he so wished for it to end but screaming would be the end to a punishment that had been stewing for a long time. He was the reason everyone was dead, he wasn’t there to help them, he deserved the pain. He deserved the constant reminder of what he’d caused through his absence.
At some point, the man’s excitement died down to the point he’d thrown his yellow jacket on a wheelbarrow before continuing the attempted torture. He stabbed into Matais’s shoulder before fighting against the bone of his ribcage. When that didn’t cut the man brought out a modified baseball bat and banged it into Matais’s chest with purpose. He banged and banged while Matais sat motionless, watching the destruction of his body with a small smile.
His bones were broken but he still breathed easily, the entity wouldn’t let things be dull by allowing him to die. The man pried open Matais’s ribcage, breaking off pieces here and there. Then he reached in and tugged . Matais felt something give and the man pulled out a wet pulsating organ, his heart. “I wonder if this will make the music I’m searching for.”
Matais couldn’t help it, he laughed. He laughed because he well and truly had nothing. He laughed because he was in hell. It must have been for this angelic man to tear out his still-beating heart and blabber about making music with its cacophony. And it was a cacophony because after dying over and over again the sound of his heartbeat was maddening. It was this madness that drove him to propose insanity. “If you give me death, a final death, I’ll do anything you want. If it’s you it might work.”
The man peered at him, measuring his words. “Why would I do that, you stupid man?” The matter-of-fact tone made Matais smile wider. “Because you can do anything with me. I’ll allow it, I won’t even run away during the trials. After all, a willing participant in your search for perfection may be what you’ve been missing. I may not be physically capable of producing a scream but I can make every other sound, and sing a tune that you can twist into a haunting melody. What do you say, stranger?” The stranger grinned before kissing the heart in his hands.
He bent closer to Matais, close enough for Matais to tell that one of his eyes was lighter than the other. “Ji-Woon Hak, I look forward to the future, partner.” The taste of copper invaded Matais’s mouth as the man, Ji-Woon, kissed him hard and deep. It made him shiver and once he ran out of air in his lungs the taste changed into a flowering perfume that threatened to dull his tension. This would be a fun deal.