Chapter Text
While awaiting his father’s return in the alchemists guild, Galene had a lot of time to think.
The evil demons he was taught to destroy could be heard in those rooms outside the door.
Alfred told him to wait in there. So he waits like a good child should for his adoptive father. Minutes, hours pass. It doesn’t matter how long it will take; Galene is sure he will arrive soon.
“ʸᵒᵘ’ᵛᵉ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ᵃᵇᵃⁿᵈᵒⁿᵉᵈ ᵇʸ ᵗʰᵉ ᵒⁿᵉˢ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵒⁿᶜᵉ ᵃᵍᵃⁱⁿ.”
“ʟɛʄȶ ȶօ ɖɨɛ ǟʟօռɛ.”
The evil demons in his mind whispered; they had to be from his mind, as there was no one else there in the room with him. He must not listen. He will not stray the path god has given him.
Galene wonders where his mother is, right now. He still remembers her begging for help, to find him. It isn’t her fault, she was a good mother; the friend she confined in, who she trusted, had sold him to the alchemists guild. Well. Threatened him, then sold him.
The experiments performed on him hurt more than anything. Crystals tore at his throat until the insides were like ribbons, so speaking wasn’t an option for Galene for a while. Whenever he did, it hurt more than anything.
Anyone who spoke out would be locked in some room as punishment, or had worse done. Silence seemed like the only option for him. If he was silent, no one would get hurt or try to hurt him.
His prayers and pleas for God to do something, anything, to save him and all of his friends.. weren’t answered. Galene wouldn’t give up, however. He still believed God was listening, waiting for the right moment to grant them mercy. Gebel believed in God too.
His friend, Gebel.. the only boy who believed in a future away from the Guild. Galene liked him, quite a lot. More than any of the girls. Galene couldn’t quite understand it.
Maybe it was the way Gebel dressed or spoke, or the fact he cared the most about every shardbinder. He mourned every death quietly and put graves in the guilds garden for them. Galene could respect that.
His love for Miriam made Galene a little jealous, though. But he’d never admit it; he cherishes their friendship above all else, alongside Athe and Charlie.
Galene’s own questions to some alchemists about these feelings resulted in him getting beaten for thinking ‘sinfully’. Galene let them; Pain would purify his thoughts, surely.
It did not.
So he began to keep quiet about that, too.
His eyes snap open to the dark room again. The door is still locked. There aren’t any windows. Only him inside with his own thoughts.
Galene couldn’t recall what had happened to the guild, other than Alfred shoving him inside of the room. No one else beside him. He heard the screams. He heard the suffering. Why couldn’t he be let out, to help those in need? It’s his only purpose, as he was brought up.
“..please.. unlock the door..”
He only started begging when the hunger began to set in and his throat felt torn at the seams. The crystals creeping up his body felt heavier, more painful, with sharp pains shooting up his arms and legs and everywhere.
Cₒₘₑ ₒₙ, ᵤₙₗₒcₖ ₜₕₑ dₒₒᵣ..!
No matter how many times he screams
His pleas will not be answered
Only the demons whispers resound in the room.
As Galene counted the seconds and minutes until his father came back, wondering if he was still sane
He began to wonder
Maybe.. this was what his father wanted all along?
-
Aym had no reason to return to that disgusting place, but Gebel begged her to look for any survivors of his kind. She did not have to, merely.. Aym supposes more potential pawns would be beneficial to her plans.
The hidden room near the altar they used was easily found by her eyes; the corpse of a pale, starved boy falling out wasn’t what Aym had expected. At all. Claw marks litter the door. Bloodied.
He had been sacrificed during the ritual to bring her kin here, yet.. lived. Someone had to have locked him in that room so time finished the job for them.
Such cruelty towards humans usually causes her to smile, to imagine their suffering.
Yet.. she cannot feel any kind of smile etch onto her face.
Was this.. ‘pity’, she felt? For a human boy? A corpse laying at her feet? Aym did not know. Emotions are beneath her.
Aym had also suffered, like this child did. Locked in a small ‘room’ while the hunger gnawed at her bones for a drop of blood, a scrap of flesh. Begging for help that would never arrive. She was weak, useless, pathetic back then. She is better, stronger, having endured the suffering.
Her fertile, rose-gold coloured blood is poured onto the corpse from her cut open wrist. A few drops is all she needs, but she supposes the boy deserves more than a few.
“…Do not waste this gift.”
She leaves just as quickly as she arrived to the guild. Seconds tick by.
Eventually..
Galene’s eyes snap open again.