Embers of Hope Part 2

“GO HOME YOU FAKE”

“YOU ARE ALL THAT’S WRONG WITH THIS SCENE”

“YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE”

Building trust is an uphill climb ... .doesn't matter if it’s a single person, a group of people, or a massive community…..and just like a house, you have to lay brick after brick. It’s only that day I learned that while it may take years to build, it only takes a few seconds for it to all fall apart….and the taller you have built it, the more things it knocks down along the way.

The Absolute Zero…. My legacy… and my greatest curse.

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“…akamura….nakamura….” the faint callouts I was hearing in the pitch blackness.

My vision was coming back to me, but my hearing was slower on the recovery

“Nakamura….NAKAMURA!” The screams of my name was the first thing I heard as soon as my hearing returned to me.

I looked around as my vision recovered to the welcome of the glow of a single flickering lightbulb above me. My chest was bare with neither my trusty jacket nor the T-shirt under it. And to add to the mystery, my shoes appeared missing as well. My arms and legs were secured to a chair, so much so that my movement was completely restricted apart from some wiggle room, and I looked up to see another mirroring my predicament and I soon recognized who it was as my vision fully returned to me.

“Riley?” I said, still trying to piece together the whole scenario

“Please tell me you got help… before he nabbed you” asked Jayden with his tone oozing desperation. But his question received an answer, but not by me.

“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, Jayden” he appeared out of the darkness, with the difference being him having a blood splatter decorated lab coat on top of his semi-formal looking outfit and a sledgehammer in his hands. He came in between us and turned to face me “Just to bring you up to speed, for the three days you’ve been dozing off, the salvation you were hoping for arrived ... .too bad that he is way too trusting of his beloved senpai.”

“Nishigaki…. You bastard” I said and struggled in the futile hopes of loosening my binds, but neither them nor the chair would even budge an inch.

Yamori crouched in front of me “ I gave you all the chances you needed to come clean, Akio….” He traced his fingers from the top of my chest down my arm and onto my gauntlet “….but if being the good cop isn’t working out, time to bring out the other one”

I had my focus fixed on him, not letting my fear show. “Since when were we on a first name basis?”

“Since you decided not to cooperate with me, and ever since you poked your head where you were not supposed to” he replied “What? No…. Why are you doing this Nishigaki-san?...That’s what the other two asked me on their first day here” he taunted me

“I thought you learned how to read me… Guess you are as full of shit about that as much as your ability to count” I fired back

“Hm? Oh… I almost forgot the one on the floor over there” Yamori left, dropping the sledgehammer right next to me…..upon closer inspection, I confirmed that it was not his second CyberGear.

A moment later, the sounds of faint groans of pain followed, and it was getting louder and louder until I met with the sight of Yamori dragging another victim towards me and into the third empty chair beside me and Jayden. Unfortunately, it was another one I recognized.

“Tsuneo?” my voice said what my mind was thinking

“You remember him? I mean, of course you would.. You are the one who helped me catch him after all” Yamori said while restraining his lifeless body the same as he had done to me and Jayden.

Tsuneo lifelessly tilted his head to look at me “No…. haven’t I suffered enough” his faint voice was an indication of what he had gone through while I was passed out. But as finished saying that, he weakly started coughing, followed by a blood splatter out of his mouth and staining his lower lip.

“Right…Time for your shot, don’t want you passing out on me this soon, Tsuneo” said Yamori, taking out a syringe of green liquid and plunging it into Tsuneo’s thigh. Yamori got back up and grabbed his sledgehammer from next to me

“Now, Akio….. let's get down to business shall we? I’ll give you one more chance for you to walk away from this…. Where’s Tadashi Chifuyu?” he asked, threatening me with the hammer

“Don’t listen to him Nakamura….. he’s lying, he has promised people that he’ll free them if they confess but end up torturing them to death anyways. I’ve seen it with my own eyes” confessed Jayden, but Yamori didn’t take it well as he looked irritated by that.

He turned around screaming…..and swung the hammer straight into Jayden’s stomach. Jayden clenched in pain, and he swung once again, and I could hear his shoulder blade crack from the force. Even with pain reduction, Jayden was screaming in pain and it was agonizing to listening to

“STOP!” I screamed to get the madman’s attention, and it worked “It’s me you want…leave him alone”

Yamori stopped his assault and threw the hammer into his other arm and pointed it at me…. “Oh I want to… as a matter of fact, I have a lot of things planned for you.” He suddenly charged up a swing with the hammer.

I braced myself for the impact and while the force was enough to interrupt my breathing for a moment, it was nowhere as powerful as the amount of force he put behind it.

“You see my friend, that is the problem right now. You have only been down here for three days and your Cyber-Shielding is getting in the way…. But a few more days away from the Cyber-Sphere’s energy will make that go away, and that is when I can start learning.”

“Learning? Learning what?” I inquired

“In due time…. But for now. Get acquainted with your new home.” Yamori lightly tapped me on the cheek a couple of times “…It’s the last one you will see anyways” and he walked away out of sight

The sound of the metal door closing and locking was the indication that Yamori had left the basement. I was still under the effects of the impacts from his hammer swings, if I had it that bad, I could only imagine how worse both Tsuneo and Jayden have had it, as their Shielding has long since dissipated.

“Riley-san...You still with me?” And the only response I got was heavy but steady breaths

“Why are we meant to suffer this much? I devoted my life to this game and this is how it treats me? I know I have done some underhanded things, but isn’t this asking too much as atonement?” Jayden is barely keeping his voice together “I can’t take it anymore, Nakamura…. I’m afraid of dying, but I wish you took my life that day on the pyre”

“We’ll find a way out of here. We were never ones to give up when faced with a-” but my attempts at trying to reassure him were in vain

“There is no way out. Noone knows about this, and I’ve seen the Sheriff kill by the dozens, dissolving their bodies in acid. But before that he just puts them through hell, devices, injecting substances… And it looks like he enjoys it all.” Jayden confessed

“What has he done to you? To Tsuneo-san?” I asked

“All that I just mentioned, and then some. Weeks upon weeks of agony, I don’t want to get hurt anymore, I just want to go home” he paused for a second “We never used to give up? This still a game to you, Nakamura?”

He looked straight up at me, eventhough he was clearly in pain doing so “Why?.... This was a game to me too until it started taking away everyone I knew, until it made me a murderer…. So why?...Why is it still a game for someone who has had it much worse than me?”

“Stop” I muttered

“Do you enjoy this? All the killing, the loss, the destruction…. Are you as twisted as that wannabe Sheriff?” Jayden kept barraging me

“I SAID STOP!” I yelled instinctively

My voice echoed off the walls, making it clear that my voice won’t leave the room no matter how hard I screamed

“I want to accept this reality…. But if I see this place as any other way except a game, what’s going to happen to me when we finally get out of this place…. What am I supposed to accept as real then?” My heart said, as this was something that even my mind didn’t know

Even after the first day took them from me and even now, I refused to accept this place as my new reality, even when I was convincing myself that I didn’t want to live anymore. But after the Tadanos, after losing to Tadashi again, and after confronting Yamori’s secret, most of my contradicting thoughts all started to make sense….. and my reply to Jayden was one of them.

“You really believe that we are going to escape this place, never mind this predicament? Wake up, Nakamura…. There was no hope of that to begin with. It’s been two months ever since we came here, and the silver layer hasn’t even been open yet.” Jayden reminded me

And in the middle of the conversation, in joined another exhausted sounding voice “Noone gets far without paying for their crimes, and here you are with us to die like the dog you are”

Tsuneo had recovered from whatever Yamori had put him through, and this conversation had turned into a three-way.

Tsuneo sat back on his chair and looked straight at me “What? Did the dog upset his master to be thrown into the cage with the rest of his animals?”

“Was the word ‘dog’ the only thing in your vocabulary or did that bastard Nishigaki hit you in the head hard enough to limit your words to that” I fired back, not having the capacity to endure anymore shit.

“Well that bastard was right when he said this place will be my living hell if I am going to be trapped here with you!” Tsuneo fired back

“Can you two not kill each other already, pretty sure that madman already has plans for that later”

“No way in fucking hell, Riley-san… I refuse to breathe the same air as the bastard who took everything from me” Tsuneo replied, with a gaze that is radiating nothing but intense hatred.

I mellowed out in that moment as the guilt was still haunting me “I didn’t know”

“You didn’t know? Like you didn’t know you didn’t belong at the top? Like you didn’t know that Tadano would kill Aya and Yuri…. LIKE YOU DIDN’T KNOW WHO YOU WORKED FOR WAS A PSYCHOPATHIC CROOK?” he screamed at me from his seat

And I was shut down as the overwhelming guilt kept shackling me further and further.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!...Fujisaki-san” Jayden reigned in Tsuneo

“You don’t know him, Riley-san…. Whatever this fake is involved in, it only just makes it worse…. And I don’t want to know what’s worse than this.” Tsuneo replied with his tone shuddering, as if the trauma of what he had endured was coming back at him with his words.

“Even if that is true, he is stuck down here with us. We can only depend on each other right now if we have any hope of getting out of this madman’s playroom.” Jayden said to take control of the situation

“Work with him? I would rather endure torture if it means seeing him suffer… What Nishigaki is doing to us here isn’t enough for what he must be put through. And even if he doesn’t, when I do escape, I will ensure your death is as painful as possible for what you did to me.”

“FUJISAKI-SAN!.... Calm down, take a deep breath… It’s clear you two don’t see eye to eye, but try redirecting that anger towards the bigger threat right now” eventhough Jayden is an underhanded scumbag, even he knows how to get others under control from the experience of the old days.

Tsuneo wasn’t happy with that, but he stood down for the time being. I remained speechless looking over my shoulder and contemplated what was in store for me when Yamori returned.

Considering the tension of the moment between all three of us, it was not surprising that no meaningful words were spoken or actions were done for the rest of the day, Tsuneo and Jayden passed out early due to the exhaustion and agony and there was not much I could do myself. My arm was healed but my movement was more restricted than when it was broken, and while the walls around me were made of the same stone as the basement I entered before, there weren’t any cells around me, indicating that this was past the door with the fingerprint lock on it. The lighting was dim enough for me to not be able to identify the object around me, but they ranged from towering to small. The whole place was like a massive dungeon but I was unable to gauge my exact position as I couldn’t see the end of the room with the low lighting, and I couldn’t turn my head around to look behind me. And with not a single odd in my favor, I had to do the one thing I didn’t want to…. Give up for the day.

Before I knew it, I had passed out, however waking up after that was far from pleasant…..Next thing I knew, a strong shock snapped me back into the present as Yamori pressed a stun baton to my chest. I could do nothing but scream in pain. He took away the baton but that only left me gasping for breath and a burning sensation on my chest. I look up and around to assess the situation with my blurry vision, and this time I was strapped to what felt on my back like a metal surface with my arms strapped and spread wide

“Good morning, sunshine” said the voice that I didn’t want to hear as soon as I woke up. “Looks like your shielding has finally given up…. which means I can start getting to work”. And he immediately turned around towards his computer setup

“So this is what you really are huh? A torturer?” I asked him, just to force a reaction out of him

Yamori halted in his tracks and turned around “Torturer? I already told you a while back what I really was didn’t I? The Judge…. the Jury….and the Executioner….” He said while preparing his tools on the table “And then down the line I thought if I really must be an executioner…. Why don’t I get the most out of it?”

“What can you gain from putting people through agony?” I asked

He looked over his shoulder at me “Well I have to kill them either way now do I?...Unlike you Akio, I never lied to you before I brought you here. I hate killing just as much as you do…. But if I have to do it either way, why not try to enjoy it?”

“You are not making any sense. Nishigaki-san, please…listen to me, you are not yourself. I saw this exact same thing with Tadano-san…. It’s Isaac, he gets under people’s skin and brings the worst out of them, and he has done the exact same thing to you” I tried to talk to any remaining remnant of the man Jun used to trust.

He grabs my chin with his hand “That’s where you are wrong Akio…. This is my true self, Isaac has nothing to with this….. because I was never on his side to begin with” and he pushes my face away and goes back to tending to his tools “You might be still confused on how exactly am I enjoying this…. And as much as I hate killing, I love being a scientist. And to think that this place has a fully functioning suite of discoveries I can find for myself down to the microscopic level ... .So what if I use the people I have to slay as test subjects? Why should I not borrow some of Sato’s rats if it means that it leads to discovery?

“Experimenting on living people? You are worse than Sato” but he didn’t seem fazed by my comment

He stops fiddling with his tools “Do you know what the Bubonic Plague was, Nakamura-san?”

I remained silent in confusion

“Didn’t expect you to know, this was ages before our times…. But in the previous century, disease had the capability to kill people by the dozen everyday. Unlike today where most diseases are an afterthought, even doctors back then had no definite solutions for when they struck.” He had in his hand a scalpel. “And they started doing all sorts of tests and treatments. Some were so unethical that even attempting to prepare for them today will instantly shoot up your psychosis index score up to a maximum.” He started walking towards me “People started to fear them…. So much so that these ‘plague doctors’ became a symbol for unethical practices.”

He pressed the scalpel against my bare skin on my chest and slowly moved the blade horizontally. I tried to endure it but considering how slowly he was doing it, I only ended up screaming in pain.

“Others , however, praised them. Since the risks they took lead to the discovery of effective medicine, they also made the line of what should be and what should not be allowed for practice. And in the end they were praised as heroes… valiant people that risked their personal reputation and wellbeing to take the risks no one else was willing to” He said, changing his tool for a hammer

“So you think that people will praise you for all this someday? You are more delusional than I thought” I asked

“I expected you of all people to understand me Akio, to understand the value of life and what you can learn from them. That’s why I even offered you to join me” he said casually

“Go to hell”

“Anyways since you are curious, I want to run some tests on your slowed healing, and guessing by that reaction for when I cut you, I’d say you left out the part where you also don’t have any pain dampening” He said

“How did you-?”

“I’ve done this enough to know what an authentic scream sounds like. And a regular player’s pain dampening only makes cuts like that feel as if they got snagged by a thin tree branch,…not severe enough to invoke reactions” He said and then approached me with the hammer. “We got an external wound to base our observations off of, now let's try something more internal.”

He suddenly swung the hammer and struck my forearm avoiding striking the metal on my gauntlet. I could do nothing but scream my lungs out, as I had no way to soften the impact of his strikes. I only felt less pain as one of his strikes struck my gauntlet and part of it shattered and dug itself into my skin. He kept striking me until I lost count of how many swings he took, but by the end. I had lost all feeling in my left arm, and any attempt to move it just caused me more excruciating pain. My ears were ringing, my vision was obscured by the tears of pain, and my breathing became much heavier while I was cursing under my breath for every ounce of pain I felt.

“Out for the count already, I thought you were much more resilient than that” he said to belittle me

But I was having none of it “Do you worst you bastard” I said barely putting words together fighting through all the pain

Yamori chuckled for a second and grabbed my face one more time “And this is what sets you apart from most of them. You never let anyone get one up on you…. Let's see how long that lasts” He let go of my face and let it drop down to its original position “As a matter of fact, why don’t I let you in on my side project as well…. It’s not everyday that I get my hands on a unique specimen like you”

“What?” I asked with barely any energy left in the tank

Yamori moves further back and loads something up into a syringe. He comes back and places his hand on my head and pushes it aside, stretching my neck, and injects me with it. And quickly, my existence turned into a living nightmare. My head started to pulse heavily causing an excruciating headache and I felt as if my body was getting rolled in glass. I could see that my veins were starting to show as they popped out in black all around my chest, arms all the way up to my bare feet.

“In my spare time, I also dabbled in a bit of shall we say… toxicology. And I’ve been studying all sorts of substances here, and there is no better way of observing their effects other than live test subjects…. Well that was Tsuneo’s role down here but I guess you can further validate my observations… Don’t worry about dying, it’s all laced with HP potions so you will only feel the effects.” Yamori confessed

My breathing became heavy to the point that I couldn’t even talk anymore, and while I flailed and struggled, Yamori was writing down his observations.

A few seconds later, the pain stopped spiking, giving me a moment to adapt and relax. “You son of a…. what did you do…to me?” I worded lifelessly

“Mhm… subject prime appears to have heightened reactions in comparison to all other former subjects” he didn’t pay me any mind and was in a world of his own.

“Nishigaki…” I tried to exclaim but my weakened physique didn’t let me.

“Subject prime to be left to incubate compound 1 in the bloodstream. Results will follow in 10 hours.” It turns out that he was recording as he stopped the video at the PC behind him. “Have to make sure no data goes to waste… right then, time for you to join the rest of livestock” He prepared another syringe and stabbed my leg with it…. The next thing I know, I was paralyzed.

He took off my restrains and let me collapse onto the ground, and then dragged me by the foot all across the floor. A few seconds of my face grinding against the stone floor, we were back at the previous room. I counted how long it took him to bring me back to the chair and it was much longer in comparison to the previous room. If I had to guess, this was a much larger room compared to the other two. He restrained me to the chair beside Tsuneo’s once more and to add onto that, took a blade out of his inventory and made a deep cut behind both my ankles.

“Oh don’t mind me…just severing your Achilles tendons just in case you slip out of your restraints somehow.” He said with a carefree demeanor and it’s only at that moment I noticed that Jayden was missing

But before I questioned him about it, Tsuneo had managed to slip free from his restraints and he pounced onto Yamori, striking him with his Tonfa Cyber-Gear. But to my surprise, I witnessed the weapon shattering right in front of us.

“How the hell?” Tsuneo’s thoughts were said out loud

“Did I forget to mention? It’s not only your shielding that becomes weaker when you are not exposed to the Cyber-Sphere for a while.” Yamori said without even a hint of panic in his voice

Tsuneo however panicked, and ran for the door….only to be stopped by the fingerprint lock…. He struck the lock, desperately hoping it would break but it ended up sawing his ankles off as a wire trap sliced them off clean, leaving him screaming in agony

Yamori approached the grounded Tsuneo “You really thought I would be dumb enough to not consider all your possible escapes?”

Out of desperation, Tsuneo also tries to fire his disk launcher, but the disk shatters upon impact with Yamori. “Stay away from me… you murderer”

Yamori showed no hesitation, he overpowered Tsuneo without even trying and dragged him back to the restraining chairs from his hair, leaving a trail of blood behind. Tsuneo struggled but to no avail….. and just like that, he was back in front of us.

“Looks like someone needs a reminder on what happens when they try to fuck with me… Time for some discipline.” Yamori moved to one of the barrels nearby and tapped some of it’s contents into a beaker… Wait those barrels, isn’t that what Isaac brought in on the first day?

“As a penalty, I’ll let you contemplate your actions tonight. I’m sure some acid on your fingernails will help with some…self-reflection” How does he even say all that without even wincing

“Please…. no. I can’t take any more” Tsuneo was almost crying

“You should’ve thought about that earlier” said Yamori, slowly tipping the beaker towards his hand.

“He’s had enough…. Please, Nishigaki-san.” I said gritting through the pain of whatever is running through my veins right now.

Yamori stopped and approached me with a cold look on his face “Has he now? Well someone has to answer for his defiance…. Are you volunteering?”

I remained silent as my body and better nature was screaming no against any more pain

“Well if you don’t want to do it, how about your old pal Jayden here?” Yamori asked but that is when I didn’t let him say another word

“Alright ... .alright, I’ll do it” I agreed hesitantly….. These guys have suffered enough and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if they were to suffer because of me.

Yamori chuckled as he tipped the acid on my only functioning arm. The increasing gnawing and burning feeling just layered up on the pain I was already enduring from the poison, leaving me screaming once again.

Yamori turned around and proceeded to leave but stopped before saying one last thing “Hope you are still with me? Because this is just the beginning, and by the time I’m done with you, not only will you have told me the truth, but you will be begging me to kill you”

And finally, the madman left. Leaving me with nothing but an agonizing night ahead of me.