When Aivena returned to her lab, she acted like her last experint was no more odd than the one where she compared the red and the blue parts of my hair. She had to force to pull a strand of each out with a threat of punishnt first, of course.
I did the sa. The fla of hope I had in was for alone. I held onto it and hid it from her eyes. That would've only made my imprisonnt worse. That hope filled where simring anger burned out charred hollows inside my soul and helped to bear my current state of existence. But for anyone's eye, I beca only more tired and despaired, for which I had a lot of reasons.
I couldn't say what was worse—when Aivena was around or when she wasn't. Her presence ant more humiliation, tornts, and looking in her bitch face. She didn't try anything sexual again, but he had plenty of imagination when it ca to doing things to I didn't like.
Without her, there was only boredom. It was not sothing I was accustod to. This wasn't a boredom of an ambush, where your thoughts would focus only on the prey and on the ti to strike. This was just boredom of having absolutely nothing new to do. There was no intellectual stimulation in my cage.
I never thought I would descend to just conversing with Pest for the sake of conversing, but… it was him or no one. Who knew that at so point, his opinions on things would actually bother unless they were sohow useful?
We both agreed that being imprisoned sucked. Draining curses didn't suffer from boredom the sa way humans did, but the lack of action on my side ant the lack of action for Pest, too, and he much more liked when I did things he could observe.
I still wasn't going to release Pest from his slavery, which also sucked in his opinion, but was only practical in mine. I didn't trust him to be free in my head and my body.
We both agreed that Aivena deserved a painful and slow death. So of the best tis we spent together with Pest were filled with trashing her for real and imaginary faults and imagining new ways to tornt her after we got out.
Pest also had so interesting tales he rembered from his genetic mory (though, could it be called genetic if draining curses didn't even have genes, or bodies?). He told tales of faraway places. The mortal realm was much bigger than the small bit of it where I wandered for the last few months, and one day, I was going to explore it and its pleasures.
On his side, Pest was very curious about Hell—like soone who knew he would never end there. I had plenty to tell him—about the monsters native to the place, about dead souls, demons, and the Nine Hells.
We spent many long hours on conversations like these, and on playing word gas that I could rember or co up with. Days passed one by one after Aivena's perverted experint, and the only thing that was keeping the fla of hope alive in , besides my efforts, were the lines she left in her journal.
One day she wrote, "Devourer almost stopped snarling at when I give him commands, though sotis he still needs additional stimuli to follow them."
Another, she ntioned that, "Devourer seems to have accepted that he can't break my barrier, because I don't see him trying to anymore."
Then she had a gall to write, "At last, Devourer started to follow my commands without questions or insults. While bringing him to heel like a dog had been amusing and brought mories of the old tis, this is much more convenient for the conduction of my experints. If he continues, I might be done with him in a few more weeks and finally claim my reward."
That bitch! Like a dog? I wanted to break all the progress I made and throw so insults at her just for the hell of it. It was a genuine effort to keep them in and don't even snarl when Aivena ca to see again with that smug smile of hers and an empty wooden bowl in her hand.
"Hello, Devourer. How are you today?"
I gave her a practised tired look. "Fine. Why would you even worry?"
"I wouldn't want you to feel bad for my next experint. I need a sample of your flesh for it, and a specific one." She lifted the bowl and then threw it to through the bars of my cage and the barrier, which always ignored her or her tools, but not . "I need you to cut off your finger and put into the bow. Any finger will do."
A finger now, huh? The audacity. I forced down my anger and hid the glare I wanted to send at her by bowing my head. "Fine. Whatever."
"I'm glad that you finally realised that compliance would improve your quality of life, Devourer."
'Keep thinking that way, bitch,' I thought to myself and lifted my lower-left, the least used, arm. With one quick, decisive movent, I severed the pinky finger with a claw and let it drop into the bowl, where it imdiately turned into a puddle of flesh. Ignoring the pain in my hand, I pushed the bowl out of my space.
"Happy now?"
"Yes, I'm most pleased." Aivena didn't hurry to pick up the bowl. Instead, she pointed a finger at , and I tensed on reflex, expecting an attack. But what she said instead was, "Regeneration."
A wave of energy washed over , more revitalising than dunking in ice-cold water. I didn't need to look at my hand or on my HP counter to know that I was rapidly healing. My finger was growing out like I never had to cut it off.
Aivena's healing magic, when she ever used it on , was pretty amazing. I had no gratitude, though.. Only suspicion. What agenda she had this ti?
Reviews
All reviews (0)