Kilian awoke to one hell of a pain. In a sense, waking up was the greatest torture that anyone could subject him to. Every inch of his body was burning as if a liquid fire replaced all the blood in his veins.
'Fuck!' Kilian thought, tensing his entire body up. Yet, despite all of the overwhelming pain, there was something he was insanely grateful about.
His body was still there.
What's more, Kilian could feel his body!
Not much came from his attempts to move it. The pain was just too severe. If Kil was swimming in a sea of torture without moving, he felt as if he was only fanning the flames when trying to move. Even the slightest twitch made it feel as if his body would fall apart into thousands of pieces.
'Huh?' Kilian suddenly froze when a sudden thought invaded his mind. 'It feels like this happened already...' he thought, puzzled by this feeling.
With all the paint shrouding his mind, he had no use of his senses. It's not like they worked properly, but even if they did, attempting to hear, smell, see or touch anything was just too much of a burden.
In the sea of pain, nothing that he could sense would even reach his mind, pushed to the shadows by the constant torture.
'I can't hold it,' Kilian thought, feeling how the constant waves of pain washed his will to live away. Enclosed in this cruel feeling, it felt as if he could not see the light of happiness ever again. 'If that's the case... Is there any use in living anymore?' Kil asked himself, only for his brain to tremble, shaken by yet another wave of pain.
Yet, just as the young man was about to give up, a blessed nothingness took over his sanity, lulling him to the comfort of the sleep.
Even if only for a moment, he could take a rest from all this pain.
Tac, tac, tac, tac.
Kilian awoke once again to the rhythmic noise. It came from everywhere around, shaking his body to this weird rhythm.
Sadly, along with his consciousness, the overwhelming pain returned. And no matter what this noise was, Kil could no longer spare it any thought.
'It's like those chains breaking,' he thought as the wave of torture bent his will. With that in mind, he finally recalled the nightmare he had after falling asleep.
During this dream, Kilian was stuck in a perfect nothingness. There was nothing that he could see, nothing that he could touch or smell. Only this constant sound of the chains shattering.
'Maybe I dreamed about those chains because of this noise?' Kilian thought as he slowly grew used to the constant torture. Bit by bit, his mind was reclaiming its right to operate even in this devastating situation.
"Je tarteria nahare!" A voice somehow made its way into Kil's ear. Sadly, it didn't carry any of the few languages that Kilian could understand.
Then, once again, he felt the comfortable bliss of sleep overtaking his consciousness.
'No,' Kilian suddenly thought.
The pain that constantly plagued him was overwhelming. He would be willing to do anything to get away from it.
But allowing the sleep to ward this torture off wouldn't change anything. It would be but a momentary relief, one that wouldn't make any difference in the long term.
'I need to resist it,' Kilian thought, pushing against this soothing force.
For a moment, the relief of sleep clashed with Kil's fragile will. Yet, against the concentrated effort of the young man's consciousness, it had no chance at all. Even though it was far stronger, it wasn't in this force's nature to push against anything in the first place.
'How do I even know this?' Kilian suddenly thought, puzzled by the situation.
"Namare!" A voice once again invaded the privacy of his mind. Still spoken in some unknown language, it led to the sleepy force suddenly pulling out.
Someone touched Kil's face. Amidst the sea of pain, the young man somehow recognized the sensation of five fingers gently resting on the skin of his face.
It wasn't an unpleasant feeling at all, yet it was but a small drop of experience amidst an ocean of torture.
"Coere!" The voice went at it again. This time, it caused a delicate veil of mana to fall on Kilian's lips and ears, tightly shutting them out from the rest of the world.
"Can you understand me now?" The voice from before appeared once again, this time, speaking the language of Kilian's homeland.
He couldn't speak. Opening his mouth was a monstrous task all on its own. Pushing air through his throat, tightening his lungs to make it happen... Each of those small actions that one would normally do without even the slightest effort were now challenges that Kilian couldn't overcome.
'I need to...' A vivid thought appeared in Kilian's mind. If someone was trying to communicate with him, he had to make them somehow know that it worked. 'Who knows how many other languages they will try if I fail to inform them now,' Kilian thought, scared of this possibility.
His situation was pathetically bad. He couldn't move his body even an inch. Just being able to hear or feel stuff was a massive blessing in his state.
And that meant that left all alone, he would instantly succumb to either the weather, wild animals, or some stray souls seeking easy fun.
'While I still have trouble making sense of what I remember, this place definitely isn't as gentle as the earth was,' Kilian thought, pushing all his doubts aside.
'I'm in another world,' Kilian thought. As massive and hard to accept this new reality was, turning his back on it wouldn't change a thing. 'There are some people with me,' he thought, summing up his situation. 'And without their help, I'm done for,' Kill added, forcefully calming himself down.
The constant pain made it quite hard to even think straight.
"That's weird; the spell should work just fine," the voice appeared once again, relentlessly reminding Kil about his situation.
'I have to tell them!' This thought lingered in Kilian's mind, knocking the young man into action.
Kil's body twitched. It was an effect of the young man using all his strenght to nod his head. And after achieving absolutely nothing, Kilian's mind wavered when a fresh fire of agonizing pain exploded all over his body.
"RAAAAAARGH" A wild outcry sounded in the area. 'Huh?' Kilian's mind petrified over a sudden idea. 'Was that my voice?' he asked himself, hardly capable of believing this. For this animalistic, wild voice to come from his own throat?
"It's okay," the unfamiliar voice from before appeared once again. With nothing better to do, Kilian focused all of his attention on its sound. Even if just a little, it alleviated his pain. "Just rest for now. You are injured all over the place." With each word, Kilian's hearing turned sharper and sharper.
'It's a female,' he thought, recognizing the gentle timbre in the sound of the voice, one that easily betrayed the gender of his caretaker. Then, he suddenly felt a gentle warmth covering his right hand.
"I will be there for you," the girl said, taking hold of his fingers. Within the enclosure of his lacking senses, Kilian could every crease and crevice of the skin of the girl's fingers.
'How delicate,' he thought, despite being fully aware how those gentle hands could snap him in half. That's just how weak he was right now.
"For now, just go to sleep," the voice requested before the familiar wave of sleepiness took over Kilian's mind. Yet, for some reason, this time, he didn't resist.