The sounds of a struggled breath echoed through a seemingly empty room, the sharp inhales were contrasted by quick- panicked, exhales that sounded like the last breaths of an old man. However, it was a young boy curled up into a ball that was shivering and shaking, apparently fighting for his life if one would see the look on his face. His eyelids were pressed together so hard and perspiration built up under his eyes, as his mind being forced to go into a storm of severe emotional disturbances against his will.

 

This tribulation began with a sudden onslaught of unnaturally caused confusion, and the unique realization that his memories were robbed from him... He could feel that everything was wrong, like something crawling under his skin but that feeling in his brain. And trying to find out why this happened only lead to him discovering he could not remember a name, a face, any locations... Nothing at all. Only this confusion, pervading his existence.

 

But then sadness and frustration sent him into a tailspin, he didn't know where it came from but he felt like it was coming externally, again this unnatural emotional attack he couldn't understand. But this built up in him like a river's flood and he was unable to physically cope with the onslaught of emotional torture. He knew not why this was happening to him, he could only try to keep his head above water in this storm of intense dissonance.

 

As air crackled around his head a woman who looked to be in her mid to late thirties smoothly maneuvered her hands in a precise and focused manner. As her movements changed and flowed, so too did the air around his head; she normally tried to keep the physical aftershocks from appearing in the world but she did not care for aesthetics when she was too focused on making sure to not pass up on this great opportunity.

 

Her worry began when his body's ability to physically react to the spell was degrading rapidly, his lungs spasms increased in length and his heart rate could only stay at this speed so long before something broke inside of him. 

 

When he thought he could no longer keep his sanity, it stopped. 

 

His body was seemingly breathing its last but his head cleared and he could finally think straight. His relief only brought him confusion though as he could not understand why he would be relieved.

 

He took a look around and found dark and monstrous shapes moving about the room, spiking his fear when one of them rushed at his face and roared. He became temporarily deaf and his eyes widened beyond what he could have ever thought possible when he saw the horrific shape of the face that launched this auditory attack. Its face being a constant contortion of everything he feared, one second-half its face was akin to a lizard and a rotting corpse, the next it was a blank lifeless canvas which then shifted into some cosmic horror that drew his mind into its unending emptiness. 

 

"Hmm... OK, so not fear." The monster vanished into thin air and everything came back to him. 

 

The woman was standing at the center of a bright blue and white room. Her state of undress implied that she awoke in the middle of the night to come here just to torture him. He could not pin her eye color, at first he thought they were dark blue but then it seemed a light purple, and her tunic was made of two parts, a top and a bottom that seemed to be for sleeping as they were very loose and smooth. 

 

When his eyes met hers, he did not see anything resembling empathy or compassion in her, only curiosity and concentration beyond belief. Her combed black hair was tied in a ponytail behind her head but a loose strand hung in front of her face that swung silently as her head bounced as she made calculations on her next move. A small smile laid on her elegant face that only reignited his fear, 'What happened? Where are those monsters? Who is she? Did she do this to me?' He said internally.

 

"Please... I don't know... Please... Stop." He had to pause to prevent himself from breaking down into tears, he was still recovering and didn't know what she wanted from him but he was willing to do whatever she asked to stop the torture.

 

Her look changed slightly, but it did not gain a sadistic grin nor an unsatisfied look as he expected, but instead a knowing look that said a lot as she replied.

 

"OK, you just have to sign here." With a flick of her wrist, she summoned a piece of paper with white glyphs that shifted on the page and exuded a presence that shook him to his core. 

 

Realizing the dilemma as soon as he saw the paper, he broke down crying as a feeling of crushing inevitability came down. He could not understand anything on the paper but he could feel what was on it. And he immediately understood the entire situation, the paper was a deed to his existence and he could feel its connection to something deep inside his soul. 

 

She wanted to own him, literally have absolute ownership over his existence, recognized not by the laws of man but by the laws of nature. He didn't know how or why he knew, but it was like the cosmos was focused on this contract that she wanted him to sign.

 

She wanted to own him, but from what he could tell he was just a young child, with no physical, spiritual, or magical capabilities, so why she wanted to was far beyond him. But from the look in her eye, he knew that she was willing to do anything to him to force him to sign the paper. And now his memory loss, emotional distress, a hallucination of monsters, was all just to get him to sign the paper and make him hers.

 

And that broke him, not because he was willing to sign it, but because he was unwilling to sign it. His soul and spirit rallied his mental fortifications to prevent his acquiescence but he knew that in the end he would sign it, but not after going through whatever pain and anguish she would put him through.

 

She knew what was going through his head, she had played this game before. She was one of the strongest people she knew of and had lived a long time, so while breaking a soul while not killing the body was not enjoyable to her, it was something she had done many times to get what she wanted. One thing she did enjoy was his reactions and personality, whenever she had done something like this before they all usually cracked immediately because they understood the futility. But she could tell after spending some time in his head that he was aware that he was going to break, but he still has not given up yet and signed the contract.

 

So she raised an eyebrow at him, looking back and forth between the paper and his face waiting for the rejection, but he turned only turned to look away and try to stop his tears.

 

She felt a small rise in her chest when she realized she could keep pushing him, her curiosity burned brightest when she found an immovable object and his personality fueled that instinct. 

 

...

 

"Ok, so not fear, and not anger..." She had finished with the second round of memory wipes and spiritual torture before talking to herself aloud. He was gaunt this time, as his body had reached its limit by her stroking his anger and she knew he would die from the emotional backlash before he acquiesced. So she contemplated on what next she should try, the key being a personality defect that she could take advantage of and use as leverage to get him to sign over his existence to her before dying. And she was starting to get frustrated, but also even more curious.

 

... 

 

"Are you sure? Because the next one is the worst, pain..." She usually did not start with pain for a few reasons, the most important one being it usually caused a drastic and permanent personality change. 

 

He felt a strange apathy when he looked at her face because it still showed no empathy or compassion, he wondered if she was even human. And he felt his limbs numbing as a slight buzz rang through his eardrums as his shock wore off. She hadn't warned him of any of the others, and yet she was warning him now which only made him feel worse. 

 

...

 

As time wore on and she tried different methods of pain, she was surprised when he started hallucinating on his own without any magical help from her and she became slightly worried by that reaction because she could feel energy pouring from his soul that was disrupting her work.

 

She pulled back on the magic but didn't wipe his memory, she wanted him to keep the memories of the pain to emphasize the threat if he didn't agree. She also wanted to inspect the strange energy that caused this disruption in the first place, it seemed to correlate with his mental state as it occurred right when his mind was breaking so she wanted to probe for some information.

 

His mind was barely recovering from the torment when he noticed that she was sitting right next to him with her hand on his forehead and her eyes closed. Her nose was short and small while her cheeks were taut with a small blush, she was silent as he felt her hand's warmth against his skin. 

 

He was trying to stay in the moment to prevent thinking about the torture he endured, or the possibility of torture in the future. So he took a deep inhale and tried to memorize everything he could see just to distract himself.

 

The feeling of cold stone beneath him confused him because the room was soft blue and muted white, he could not see any indications of any material and if he were to be shown a painting of the room he would just assume it was of the sky.

 

'Great the room I'm trying to memorize is a fucking empty sky.' He turned to the woman and looked up at her hand on his head and then turned to her face. Her eyes were still closed but he still felt a shock of fear travel down his spine, he felt like he was sitting next to a sleeping bear doing anything he could to make sure she didn't "wake up".

 

Her white two-sectioned tunic was pure white, but now that she was closer he noticed threads of different colors running through. Some gold, a small amount of silver, and its top lace ended just below the collarbone allowing her arms to be unrestricted while she slept. Her lower cloth was also of the same material its top beginning where her blouse left off at her hip bone. But as her hands were held high he was able to see her abdomen and how emphasized her muscles were. 

 

'I wonder if she magically altered her body to get those or if she works out.' He thought to himself, this time appreciating her beauty. 

 

He froze when he felt her eyes open, and he realized that she had been using magic to heal his wounds as well as his mind because now that he thought about it, his fear was still sharp but his sanity had seemingly come back from the brink.

 

She looked over him again and nodded to herself, finishing a small checklist in her head for how and what she should heal. Reminding herself to keep him as physically healthy as possible while maximizing the emotional impact. She did somewhat enjoy the reaction of him freezing up in response to her attention, and spoke, "Oh come on, I'm not that scary am I?" while bringing a small finger to her pouting mouth to emphasize an innocence so far disregarded that he felt slightly sick at imaging her as a child and how she became this monster in front of him.

 

She smiled at his lack of response, enjoying the moment, before speaking again, "Don't you know it's rude to stay silent when an adult asks you a question?"

 

"Maybe I would if you didn't take my fucking memories," He spat back, he absolutely abhorred this game she was playing with him. It made him frustrated to feel looked down on and babied by someone who had robbed him of all dignity, humanity, and nearly even his sanity. 'Or maybe she even took that and I haven't even realized that yet...' A haunting realization occurred to him but was interrupted by a poke on the forehead.

Her smile grew slightly at his anger, it was expected, but she also needed to reinforce who was in control. So she poked his head and sent a shred of magic to cause some issues.

 

He didn't feel the magic and only felt her nail hitting his head so was completely unprepared for the sudden bout of soul-sucking loneliness that plagued him for half a second. He didn't know why but felt betrayed by the act, maybe it was because this room was supposed to be the place where they talked in between the torture sessions. But she didn't continue with any action afterward, just that small emotional jab in retaliation for his response.

 

Her eyebrows raised in surprise, she didn't expect betrayal to appear in his eyes when she corrected his behavior. "Aw, poor thing, was that mean?" She riled him up again.

 

He felt the anger rise inside of him, he knew that she was pissing him off on purpose and that only made him angrier. But a sudden, natural, emotion of confusion and fear arouse. He no longer knew if this anger was truly his or if it was another test from her...

 

Her smile developed into a smirk, she was happy with her choices of torment. Just enough damage for self-doubt and emotional dysregulation, which allowed her to read his emotions appearing on his face like a book while keeping him healthy enough to retrieve information. She could feel her chest swell with pride at her handi-work.

 

He saw that smirk and felt his stomach squirm in disgust at how a human could look at someone in his circumstances and be proud. His anger rose to the point of coolness that comes after boiling rage. This simmering fury is calculating and poisonous, so he decided on limiting anything and everything that she could ever want from him.

 

She saw this transition and her smile died because he was not following her plan. A blank slate human is usually too scared to be spitefully resistant after torture. So she made a mental note that the energy must have caused some change that she was unable to foresee.

 

So she squinted her eyes and thought for a second before sending another "behavior correcting" magical jab for loyalty into his mind. As loyalty is as complex as it is deep, she would be unable to get him to such a point where he would be signing over his existence to her without the laws of nature rejecting the contract out of hand for one of its requirements is a thing willingly handing over its existence. 

 

But an emotional jab of loyalty would be a fierce confusing attack that would disturb his willingness to resist her.

 

And as he saw her hand move his fear and dread were back into full gear and he unwillingly shrunk to the ground, as if trying to avoid an arrow shot at him. Nevertheless, her magic struck him, and immediately he was overwhelmed with doubt.

 

'She is the strongest person I have ever seen, why are you resisting her?' - 'Because she is torturing me!' - 'She is only torturing you because you aren't signing a simple piece of paper!' - 'I am not going to sign over my entire life to someone so willing to abuse it' - 'What could you even do with your life anyway? You're a no-one. Literally. You do not know who you are and here is someone who could bring you anything you ever wanted just as long as you sign the paper... That's the best deal anyone will ever offer you for something as worthless as your life.'

 

As soon as the emotion came, it went, and his anger died just a little. Even after realizing that she wanted this from him, it was more and more difficult to rise this anger. His fury was coming and going as he thought about it but seeing her small grow as she realized it was working was enough to drive two emotions forward. The joy that he was causing a beautiful woman he wanted to be loyal to happy, and then anger that the bitch that was torturing him was winning.

 

And he felt something from his depths charge that anger back into hatred, which started a back and forth between anger at her, and her retaliating with emotional torture for resisting. A feedback loop that he never thought would stop if she had not found a particular emotion to prod with her magic.

 

His confidence was building as each time he suffered some attack, his anger returned to him from his soul and allowed him to resist her. But then she sent an emotion that harshly disgusted him and sadly excited whatever in his soul that was giving him the anger to resist her.

 

She felt a pattern emerge with trust and excitement and started experimenting until she hit a soft spot that caused an emotion within herself. One specifically that she did not naturally generate, which frightened and angered her as she blamed the boy. Her anger rose to such a point that she turned and hit him in the face with a fully cocked slap to the cheek.

 

He was as surprised as she was, he could feel the pulse travel through him and into her and he watched with joy seeing how it bothered her so much. But then he watched her overcome that emotion with absolute control and her face became stone, but then her curiosity was peeking through her eyes.

 

'How did he do that? That was that thing in his soul again, wasn't it?' She thought to herself before recalculating her plans.