"That's easy; I can read your thoughts," he answered the question I'd just asked myself, catching me entirely off guard. I felt my eyes widen in surprise and the realization that this person, whoever he was, was much more powerful than he was letting on.
"Now, I'm sure you're very confused by all of this, so I'll try to keep this simple," he said, rising from his kneeling position. As he entered the octagonal ring, the markings on the floor immediately responded to his presence, glowing the same sickly green color present in his eyes.
"Your father has told me a lot about you, but even with all of the information he's given me, there are still two more things I need you to confirm in his stead. Don't bother trying to hide it, as it won't work out well for you if you do. Do you understand?" he asked coldly as he sat on his heels, gazing into my eyes intently as he raised a pair of fingers.
I swallowed dryly and nodded my head, instinctively knowing that any other answer was likely to cause me pain. I don't know how I knew, but the feeling I had when looking at my father's pendant was present again. Even though he told me I didn't have to fear him, there was no other feeling I could comprehend in that moment, which sent another chill rolling down my spine.
"Good. The first question I'm going to ask you is a simple one: What do you see when you look into my eyes?" he asked, leaning in a little closer as the green color in his eyes flared. "I only see green, sir," I answered truthfully. For some reason, I was unable to see the black tendrils anymore, though he seemed satisfied enough with my answer, as the same, toothy grin reappeared beneath the cloth.
"Excellent, Thoma. I see you took my warning about answering truthfully to heart," he nodded slowly as he began to chuckle to himself. As he continued to laugh, I couldn't help but grow even more confused by this strange display.
"What about the second thing, sir?" I asked, hoping to get whatever this was over with as quickly as possible. His chuckling immediately halted, and I could tell he'd closed his eyes beneath the cloth. "The second question is: What about now?" he asked, suddenly grabbing the top of my hair and pulling my face towards his until I was at eye level with him.
The green color in his eyes immediately swarmed with the same black tendrils from before, only this time, they were much more pronounced. They flicked around violently, disrupting the glow in his eyes wherever they appeared like oil to water. Suddenly, the tendrils' sporadic movement quelled, and they began to swirl and flow counter to one another as if in a macabre dance.
"Tell me what you see," he said, still piercing my gaze with his own, prompting me to shut my eyes out of fear and shake my head. "Thoma, tell me what you see," he repeated more impatiently, but I held my eyes tightly shut and shook my head. "Tell me what you see!" he screamed in my face as he shook my head. A jolt of pain passed through my body like a saw tearing at every muscle, tendon, and bone in my body.
Why are you doing this? I thought, unable to vocally form a word since the pain was unbearable.
"Because you're not answering the simple question. The pain you're feeling will end when you tell me what you see. You're the master of your fate here, Thoma, and you can end this whenever you want to. I didn't want to have to resort to this, but you've left me no choice. Now, tell me what you see!" he shouted as he shook my head again, but the pain I felt from him nearly ripping out my hair was nothing compared to what was happening aside from that.
Through his shouting, I could hear what I thought was a stone being torn from the ground, and the light of the small candles around me began to grow more brightly as the air within the small shack began to tremble. The water from the nearby washing bowl splashed violently onto the floor, but whether that was my doing or his, I had no idea; however, I could feel it all happening.
The room continued to shake and tremble as my mind searched for a solution, any solution, to my current predicament, but nothing came. Nothing except the need to endure whatever this horrible test of his was.
I know I can't escape, but my only other option is to outlast this, I thought, not worrying about whether he could hear it.
"You can struggle all you want to, Thoma, but I will get an answer from you one way or another. If this continues much longer, you'll end up dying, or is death something you're starting to welcome?" he asked, but I didn't answer. My sole focus was to keep any other thoughts scattered and without order, so he wouldn't find the answer he was looking for.
Time seemed to come to a crawl as the pain riddled my body. There was little more I could do except try my best not to lose consciousness, but as my attention shifted back inwardly with another jolt of pain, I could feel that the pain had somewhat lessened when the room began to tremble. It was only after the pain had begun to subside that my jaw unclenched enough for me to speak the only words I knew would either put an end to it or me.
"W-Why do y-you need to know?" I barely managed to ask within the slight moment of clarity through gritted teeth, prompting him to suddenly release me from whatever it was he was doing to me and quickly get to his feet to leave the octagonal ring. As the pain receded, I was abruptly thrown into a fit of coughing, as blood poured from my nose and the corners of my mouth.
I coughed a few more times before I managed to look up at him, but the look on his face wasn't one I was prepared for. It wasn't fear, or anger, or any of the other expressions I could quickly recognize.
Instead, just behind the slits of cloth, there was hope in his eyes.
"Well done! Well done, indeed, Thoma," he said through an astounded chuckle as he began to clap. "I've been looking for someone like you for a very long time, you see, but I never would have thought you would have been right here all along. Your potential and levels of defiance are exactly the things I'm looking for," he spread his arms widely while I coughed up more blood, and spat whatever was in my mouth onto the ground as I began to double over.
"No, no, no! Don't do that. Your blood is much too precious to be wasted so frivolously. I apologize for your injuries, but your insubordination was the cause of them, after all," he said, moving forward to help me sit upright once more as a sickly-green glow emanated from the palm of his hand and into my chest. I could feel the exact opposite of whatever was happening to me before race through my body, as the same muscles and bones felt like they were being stitched back together.
"There, all better now," he said with another grin filled with rotting teeth as he removed his hand from my chest. I was still breathing heavily as a result of that experience, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't grateful it was over.
Or, so I thought.
"Why did you do this to me? What kind of answers were you looking for?" I asked bluntly, not bothering to be polite to him anymore, but my question caused him to place a finger on his matted beard and twirl it loosely as he thought of an answer. After a few moments, he removed his hand and leaned in toward me once more.
"Because I needed to know if you would be of use to me. Your father made some bold claims about you, though I will say, I didn't expect them to be true," he said loosely, but no matter what tone of voice he used, I still felt apprehensive about him. There was something about his nature that was unpredictable, and I didn't like it at all.
"You want to use me for something?" I asked, trying to gain a better understanding of what he meant. "Not use you, per se, but form an alliance with you," he explained. "What's an alliance?" I asked, not knowing the meaning of the word. "Think of it like a friendship. You do have friends, don't you?" he asked, but I suppose the look on my face when he said the word friends told him everything he needed to know.
"Ah, well, I suppose we can't have everything in life," he said, backing away to sit on his heels once more. "How about I become your first friend?" he asked after a moment's pause, catching me by surprise. "Why would I want to be friends with you? You just hurt me," I sneered, but it had little effect on him.
"That pain was your own doing. I told you to answer me truthfully, but you refused to do so. You forced me to do that, you see. So, what do you say?" he asked with a nonchalant shrug, but I didn't immediately answer.
Everything about him was strange, and his unpredictable nature, like before, caused me a sense of unease that I didn't understand at the time. I didn't know what would happen if I flat-out refused, but I also knew that he wasn't going to let me walk away from this easily.
What should I do? I asked myself without voicing the words in my head.
"I'm waiting," he said in a sing-song voice as he tapped a dirty finger on his thigh, as his impatience began to grow again. The obvious choice would have been to accept and be done with this strange encounter, but after everything I'd heard, felt, and seen, I couldn't bring myself to trust him at all.
"I don't think it's a good idea for me to be your friend," I shook my head, mentally preparing myself for whatever came next. While I couldn't see his entire face, his body language told me he was disappointed in my answer as he let out a heavy sigh. "Then suffer the consequences," he said maliciously just before dashing forward and placing his palm on my chest again. There was a bright flash of the pale green light before I felt the same pain from before. This time, however, it was only focused on a single region of my chest, just below my heart.
I screamed in agony like before, but as the intensity of the pain grew, I tried to recall the same feeling I had from before to fight against it. The room trembled and the air swirled like before, and I could tell that whatever I was doing was working, because he began to grit his rotten teeth in exertion as well.
I did what I could to struggle against him for a few moments, but as the glow in my chest intensified, I looked into his eyes one last time. There was no hope in them, only a slight hint of fear over something I couldn't identify in the time I had before the energy between us exploded. I was sent flying backward into the far wall, and I saw he was knocked onto his back just before I blacked out.
I don't know how much time had passed, but it couldn't have been very long before I regained consciousness and noticed something was missing that I'd never realized I had before.
What just happened? I wondered, feeling incredibly weak as a sharp pain in my chest sped up my regaining of consciousness.