'I'm tired of waking up in strange places!'
This one thought permeated Rhys's mind after being pulled into the door where Lenny's voice came from. To be fair, this would be the third, no, fourth time he'd awakened disoriented and lost: first the dilapidated motel in Haloway with its peeling wallpaper and water-stained ceilings, then the sterile emptiness of The Lobby with its impossible geometry, followed by the dank prison cell where Silas and Goro had greeted him with wary eyes. And now…
Where is he?
Forcing his eyes open, he took a look around. What met his gaze was familiar, uncomfortably so. The walls were carved in a fashion that made it obvious that it was a man-made structure. Of course, Rhys remembered commenting on this himself.
Lenny's cave.
The realization crashed over him like ice water. Rhys immediately stilled every muscle, controlling even his breathing to shallow, quiet draws. Better not to alert Lenny of his consciousness, not until he could assess the situation fully. His mind raced through possibilities and escape scenarios as he lay motionless on the cold stone floor.
'Let me calm down. Calm…down?'
The thought dissolved as his body finally registered what his mind had been deliberately ignoring. A phantom pain began radiating from where his left leg should be—the same peculiar sensation he'd experienced when he'd lost his arm. It started as a dull throb, distant and almost ignorable, until suddenly it wasn't.
The pain transformed, evolving into something monstrous. White-hot agony lanced through him, paradoxically accompanied by a bone-deep chill that seemed to freeze his very marrow. The contradictory sensations tore through his nervous system, overwhelming all thought.
"Ahhhh—"
The scream ripped from Rhys's throat as he shot upright, his voice breaking into a ragged gasp. Through tear-blurred vision, he watched in horrified fascination as his leg began to materialize. It started as nothing—empty space—then emerged in grotesque stages.
First came bone, cracking and splitting into existence from nothingness, assembling itself like a macabre puzzle. Muscle tissue followed, crimson and raw, slithering over the framework, weaving itself into intricate patterns that pulsed with unnatural life. Tendons snapped into place with audible pops, binding everything together as veins threaded through the mass, carrying blood that hadn't existed moments before.
Finally, skin knitted itself over the reconstruction, sealing everything beneath in one fluid, rippling motion. The entire process took perhaps thirty seconds, but to Rhys, it felt like hours of exquisite torture.
As the final nerve endings connected, an unexpected wave of euphoria washed over him, so intense it nearly sent him spiralling back into unconsciousness. The relief was primal, overwhelming, like breaking the surface after nearly drowning. For one perfect moment, pain gave way to a pleasure so profound it bordered on the transcendent.
That feeling did not last long though, as a prepubescent voice, eerily calm and soothing, came in from Rhys's right:
"Amazing, isn't it?"
Rhys twisted violently, adrenaline lighting every nerve. He fell into a crouch, teeth bared, eyes scanning. His heart thundered in his chest.
Lenny was a few feet away, seated on a low stone ledge, one leg tucked beneath him. His face, as always, betrayed little emotion. Just that faint, off-putting calmness like a storm had passed and left nothing in its wake.
"You dropped back into the Lobby months ago," he said.
"I figured you were dead."
Rhys frowned, still half-crouched, breathing hard from the trauma of regenerating.
"What…?"
Rhys could've sworn he was just in the 'in-between' seconds ago.
"Yeah. Time's weird in here,"
Lenny went on, reaching into the shadows beside him.
"You can't trust your memory to line up with it. For me, you vanished and showed up again like…a few hours later?"
Rhys blinked, mind catching on the phrasing. "Only a few hours?"
But for him, he spent around three days in Gehenna before coming back to the Lobby.
'That doesn't make sense.'
He thought back to the prison again. Silas said the guards had thrown him in the cell a couple of days prior to him actually waking up. But to him, it was almost instantaneous. What was with the time delay?
Lenny spoke again, interrupting the spiral. "Your Aspect… it's interesting. Whatever it is"
Rhys's head snapped toward him, narrowed eyes fixing on the boy.
"You know about my Aspect?"
"No."
Lenny's gaze didn't meet his. His hand moved with something wrapped in cloth—something that squelched wetly when he shifted it.
Rhys's stomach clenched.
"What are you—"
Then he saw it.
Lenny brought the cloth-wrapped bundle to his mouth and bit into it without ceremony. A thick, meaty sound, the tearing of sinew, followed by the subtle twitch of his jaw as he chewed. Blood smeared the side of his lip.
Rhys went still.
The smell hit him next—coppery. It was familiar. Too familiar.
Lenny wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and finally looked up.
"I had to test it. See how far your body could go."
Rhys's pulse thundered in his ears. His mind connected the image, the timeline, the pain in his leg, the fact that it hadn't been there before — He looked down at his newly grown limb.
Then back at Lenny.
"You didn't…"
Lenny raised an eyebrow. "I was going to do it anyway before you left. But then you came back with regeneration, so I figured…"
"You figured I'd be your food source for the next few months?"
Lenny answered matter-of-factly:
"Well, yeah,"
Rhys's breath hitched.
"You ate me?!"
Lenny tilted his head, chewing.
"Only in small pieces. You have plenty to spare. And it's not like you remember it."
The world tilted slightly around Rhys. His heart pounded, not just in fear—but fury.
"You ate me."
"You got it back." Lenny shrugged.
'Does this kid think we're talking about borrowed money or something? It's my cannibalized flesh!'
The tension hung thick between them.
"But…thank you. Thanks to you, this hell wasn't as hellish anymore."
The sincerity in the boy's voice hit Rhys like a physical blow. He didn't know what disturbed him more: that Lenny had harvested parts of his body for sustenance… or that he was beginning to feel sorry for the child-who-wasn't-a-child. There was something in Lenny's expression—a flicker of genuine gratitude beneath the monstrous pragmatism—that made Rhys's anger falter.
'Why did his childlike innocence come through now, of all times?'
Rhys's fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms. The regenerated leg throbbed faintly—as if reminding him that, yeah, that happened.
"You really don't see a problem with that?" he asked, voice low and tight.
Lenny blinked, confused, like Rhys had just asked why fire was hot.
"I was starving," he said plainly.
"I've always been starving. And you were… regenerating." He gestured at the leg with his bloody fingers.
"It grew back. Doesn't that mean it's fine?"
Rhys opened his mouth to retort, but the words never fully formed.
Because was it fine?
No. It wasn't.
Right?
He drew in a shaky breath. His thoughts refused to align themselves into coherent patterns. Too many emotions battled for dominance: anger at the violation, pity for Lenny's circumstances, disgust at what had happened, and most disturbing of all; a twisted flicker of admiration for the boy's brutal survival instinct.
"I didn't give you permission," Rhys muttered, more to himself than to Lenny.
Lenny nodded slowly, eyes distant.
"I know. I didn't ask."
Somehow, that simple acknowledgment made everything worse. There was no attempt at justification, no pleading for understanding. Just the stark admission of a boundary crossed with full awareness.
There was a pause, heavy and hollow, like the air itself was waiting to see what Rhys would do.
Then Lenny added, softer this time, "I never meant to hurt you. Actually, I did. I just… didn't want to feel that way anymore."
The words cut deeper than Rhys expected.
It was the truth, spoken in the voice of a child who hadn't physically aged in what must have been decades, trapped in a trial that seemed to have no end. There was no malice in his eyes, only the desperate pragmatism of a being who had forgotten what it meant to be human.
Rhys looked away, jaw clenched tight enough to ache. The wind whispered through the cave entrance, carrying with it scents of earth and stone and distant places he couldn't name. The sound seemed to echo something primal and wordless in his own soul.
He sighed deeply, the exhale carrying with it something undefinable—not quite forgiveness, but a reluctant understanding. He wasn't sure if he was letting Lenny off the hook, or if he was simply too exhausted to maintain his hatred. Or perhaps, most honestly, too afraid to antagonize him further.
"Next time," he muttered, turning toward the mouth of the cave, "at least cook it first."
Lenny blinked. Then gave a tiny, almost imperceptible grin.