The silence of the cellar was my new reality. My mouth felt like a hollow, parched crater. The bleeding from where my tongue used to be had finally subsided into a thick, copper-tasting crust that coated my teeth. Down below, my left foot was a distant, pulsing ghost. I looked down in the dim light to see my severed toes scattered on the cold stone, already turning a sickly grey-green. They were rotting, the air thick with the sweet, cloying stench of decay as maggots began to writhe over what used to be a part of me.
I couldn't even find the energy to be disgusted. The pain had moved past searing and into a cold, heavy numbness. I was a broken thing, waiting for the end.
Clang.
The iron bolt screeched back. The door swung open, and the heavy, rhythmic thud of boots returned. I squinted against the intrusive torchlight. Dominik and Lara stepped into the damp air, but this time, Lara wasn't carrying the shears. She was dragging a heavy, iron-headed sledgehammer, the metal head scraping against the grit of the floor with a sound that set my nerves on edge.
But they weren't alone.
A third silhouette stepped into the light. A man with a cold, aristocratic bearing and eyes that held the practiced indifference of a butcher. Bernard Callus.
"Look at our little mute, she's quieted down quite a bit, hasn't she, Lara?"
Dominik sneered, his voice echoing off the damp walls. He kicked one of my rotting toes toward the center of the room, watching the maggots scatter.
Lara leaned on the handle of the sledgehammer, her eyes tracking the movement of my chest as I struggled to breathe.
"She's boring like this. No screaming, no begging... just that hollow stare."
She looked up at Bernard and gave a cruel, mocking curtsy. Then she continued.
"Lord Bernard, thank you for joining us. We thought you'd appreciate seeing the Bureau's darling in her natural habitat."
Bernard walked a slow circle around me, his boots clicking on the stone. He stopped in front of me, using the toe of his boot to lift my chin, forcing me to look up at him. I tried to pull away, but the magic-dampening chains jerked me back, the iron cold against my raw wrists.
"So this is the girl who caused so much trouble, A messy job, Dominik. Efficient, but lacks... artistic flair."
Bernard said, his voice smooth and devoid of any warmth. He looked at my ruined mouth, then down at my mutilated foot. He looked at the sledgehammer in Lara's hands and then back at my legs.
"I believe we are here to discuss the structural integrity of a hero, are we not?" Bernard asked, a thin, terrifying smile ghosting over his lips.
I tried to scream, to tell them to just kill me and get it over with, but all that came out was a wet, pathetic huff of air. I thrashed against the wall, my eyes wide with a new, fresh terror as the weight of the sledgehammer was hoisted from the floor.
"Hold her steady, Dominik, I want to see if she makes a different sound when the bones turn to dust." Bernard said
The air in the cellar was thick with the scent of my own rotting flesh and the copper sting of blood. I watched, paralyzed, as Dominik hoisted the sledgehammer over his shoulder. He took a wide stance, his muscles bunching as he prepared to bring the heavy iron head down onto my remaining good leg. I closed my eyes, bracing for the sound of my bones shattering into dust.
But the blow never came.
"Wait, Dominik. Stop," Bernard commanded. His voice was smooth, cutting through the tension like a razor.
Dominik grunted, his momentum interrupted. He lowered the hammer slightly, looking back with a confused, bloodthirsty grin.
"What? I was just getting to the best part."
Bernard didn't answer him. He stepped over the maggots and the filth, moving into my personal space until I could see the fine embroidery on his sleeve. He was holding a scroll, the parchment looking unnervingly clean in this den of rot.
"Well, well, well, Roxy... or should I say, Eirene? I have some good news for you,"
He unfurled the scroll right in front of my face. My eyes struggled to focus in the flickering torchlight, but the words burned themselves into my mind. At the very top, written in the official, cold script of the Bureau, were the words:
Eirene Rynd: Deceased.
My heart stopped. I tried to shake my head, a desperate, gargled sound escaping my ruined mouth, but Bernard gripped my hair, forcing me to look.
"At Town Allure, your little friend Mochi and the rest of the Flower Guild have already moved on, they conducted a funeral in your name yesterday. Black veils, somber prayers, tears in the dirt. They think you're ash and bone, Roxy. They've said their final goodbyes." Bernard mocked with pity
Dominik let out a bark of laughter, leaning on the handle of the sledgehammer.
"Eirene Rynd? What a cute name. I knew you were a little liar, but deceiving everyone about your very identity? That's rich. Better yet, your identity is erased. Roxy doesn't exist anymore. Eirene is dead. You're just a ghost in a cellar that nobody is looking for."
Lara joined in, her laughter high and melodic, ringing out like a death knell against the stone walls.
"Can you imagine it, Roxy? Mochi crying over an empty casket while you're down here, rotting and mute? They aren't coming. Why would they search for a girl who is already buried?"
I felt a coldness spread through me that was far worse than the pain in my foot. The realization was a physical blow. To the world, I was a memory. To my friends, I was a tragedy they were already trying to heal from. I was truly, utterly alone in the dark.
"You're a non-person now, a shadow. And shadows don't need tongues... or legs."
Bernard rolled the scroll straight to my face, he stepped back and nodded to Dominik.
"Now," Bernard said softly. "You may continue your work."
Dominik's grin widened, the torchlight dancing manically in his eyes. He tightened his grip on the long wooden handle of the sledgehammer, the iron head glistening with a thin layer of damp cellar grime.
"Let's get the party started!"
He didn't hesitate. With a grunt of exertion, he swung the heavy tool in a wide, brutal arc. The impact was sickening, a wet, crunching thud as the flat head of the hammer connected squarely with my right shin.
"Ahhhhhhh…" I screamed
The scream that tore from my throat was a jagged, broken thing, vibrating in the hollow space where my tongue used to be. I could feel the bone shatter into a dozen jagged shards, the skin spliting under the sheer force of the blow.
I coudnt speak fluently, i was just a wimping dog. It was inhumane, a white-hot agony that bypassed my numb nerves and set my entire nervous system on fire. I thrashed against the wall, the magic-dampening chains clanging rhythmically against the stone, a metallic accompaniment to my soundless suffering.
Dominik threw his head back and let out a manic, chesty laugh.
"Did you hear that, Lara? Like dry kindling snapping in a fire! You're not so tough without your Bureau badges and your fancy swords, are you, little flea?"
I slumped against the wall, my breath coming in ragged, bloody hitches. The pain was so intense it felt cold, a freezing void where my leg should have been.
Lara, however, sighed, looking down at her manicured nails with a bored expression.
"Honestly, Dominik, the sledgehammering is getting a bit boring. It's so... messy and loud. Let's do something a bit more unique. Something that really shows her how little she has left."
Dominik's gaze shifted, traveling slowly up my body until it rested on my tattered, blood-stained maid dress, the last remnant of my life at the Flower Manor. A cruel light sparked in his eyes.
"Nice dress you got here," he whispered, stepping closer.
Before I could even attempt to shrink away, his hands shot forward. With a surge of brute strength, he grabbed the neckline of the fabric. The sound of tearing silk filled the room as he ripped the dress to shreds with his bare hands, the fabric offering no resistance.
"Oh Eirene, your cute. I didn't knew you were flatter than mine. Do you like mine, Dominik?" Lara questions Dominik
"Certainly my beloved wife, I despised flat-chested women's like you, Eirene."
In an instant, the last of my dignity was stripped away. Chained to the wall, my left arm a mutilated stump and my right arm pulled taut by the cold iron links, I was left completely exposed to their hateful stares. I tried to curl into myself, my long, matted brown hair falling forward in a desperate, tangled curtain to cover what it could, but there was no hiding from their malice.
Lara leaned in, a triumphant, ugly sneer on her face as she looked me over.
"Look at you. No name, no friends, no tongue, and now... not even your clothes. You're just a broken animal in a cage, Roxy. Or should I say... Eirene?"
The cold air of the cellar bit into my skin, but it was nothing compared to the freezing realization that they had truly taken everything. I was no longer a person; I was a canvas for their cruelty.
After that, Lara spat my face one last time then the trio left the cellar, I was losing hope at this point. I wanted to die. I wanted to leave this fantasy world. I wanted to return Earth.
I was no longer Roxanne. I wasn't even Eirene. I was just a collection of sensations and hungers.
I looked down at my left foot. The toes were no longer recognizable as parts of a human being. They were just yellowed bones and grey, sloughing flesh, a banquet for the maggots that writhed in a rhythmic, undulating carpet over the floor. I watched them with a hollow, detached fascination.
"They are eating better than I am,"
I thought. The realization didn't even make me nauseous anymore. It just made me jealous.
The pain from my tongue had vanished into a heavy, leaden numbness, leaving my mouth feeling like a dry, cavernous tomb. I tried to remember the sound of my own voice, but I couldn't. I tried to remember Mochi's laugh, or the way the sun felt on the training grounds of the Flower Manor, but those memories were like photographs left in the rain, blurred, bleeding, and unrecognizable.
I was almost entirely nude, the cold dampness of the cellar biting into my skin, leaving me shivering in nothing but my tattered underwear. My long hair, once my pride, was now a matted, filthy curtain that I tried to use to hide my shame, but there was no modesty left for a girl who had been declared dead by the world.
Dead. That was the thought that broke me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them. I saw Mochi standing over an empty casket. I saw Maine back in our room, perhaps packing away my things, thinking he was touching the belongings of a ghost. I saw the Flower Guild moving on, their lives continuing while I was buried alive in this stone throat.
I was trapped in the realization that I had never mattered. I was a tool that broke, and the world had simply swept the shards into a corner and forgotten them.
A jagged, silent sob shook my frame, but no sound came out, only a sharp, dry huff from my throat. I leaned my head against the cold, slimy wall and stared into the darkness. I started to count the drips of water, but I kept losing track after three. One... two... three...
"I am Eirene Rynd", I tried to tell myself.
"No, you are nothing." the darkness whispered back.