"Argh." Annabelle groaned as she stirred from sleep, her body protesting every small movement.
"Great, you're awake. Right on time too."
Her body stiffened involuntarily at the sound of his voice. That voice. The one that had haunted every moment of consciousness for the past five days.
"No," she muttered, her throat raw. "No... please, no! NOOOOOOO!"
The scream tore from her throat as reality crashed down on her all over again. Everything she remembered wasn't just some nightmare she could wake up from—it was real, all of it was real, and she was still trapped here with him.
At this point, Eren had tortured her so much that she had developed this strange, foreign feeling she only ever experienced once in her entire life.
Fear.
Real, genuine, bone-deep terror.
The first time she'd felt it was when she watched the imbecile before her drive his sword through the chest of her beloved. But now, just the sight of him standing there triggered that same overwhelming dread, and she hated this feeling with every fiber of her being. Despised it. But she was no hypocrite—she'd known this was bound to happen the moment he'd somehow managed to overpower her that day.
His aura, everything about him, had turned dark.
So sinister she could barely recognize him anymore.
Was he still the same weakling? Still Ashley's brother—that waste, that mere imbecile fortunate enough to be born a noble? He'd been just like any commoner out there. Worthless trash. A waste of air with no talent whatsoever.
Well... that was who he was SUPPOSED to be.
Until the day he snapped. The day he turned into this—
"Monster," she spat, panting heavily.
Drip. Drop. Drip.
Incessant and dreadful, the sound of her blood hitting the floor continued without mercy. Staining the ground a gruesome, bloody red. A pool spreading beneath where she hung suspended by chains, her arms stretched above her head, her toes barely brushing the cold stone.
She was scarred all over—cuts and bruises everywhere, layered on top of each other like some grotesque painting. Her once-beautiful face, ranked among the top beauties in the entire academy, was now disfigured beyond recognition. She had gone through hell and back in his hands these past five days, and by the looks of it, it was far from over.
"HeheheheHAHAHAH!"
Eren clutched his forehead with one hand.
His body trembled with barely contained excitement, and he had no idea what was wrong with him anymore.
Couldn't explain it even if he tried. But the moment he'd used that forbidden technique, he'd lost all trace of humanity—all compassion, all mercy, all restraint. Now he found a twisted sense of pleasure in tormenting the so-called heroine hanging before him. Oh, how he could already imagine the ecstasy he'd feel tormenting the true protagonist when he finally got his hands on Jason.
"Monster?" he muttered, his voice suddenly soft as his hand dropped from his forehead. Then—
BAM!
He seized a dagger from the table, moved with frightening speed, and stabbed it into her neck before dragging it down to her abdomen in one smooth, practiced motion.
"KYAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
Blood gushed from the wound in a torrent, but he barely registered that her death was imminent. He never did anymore. The potions would fix it. They always did.
"Oh, you haven't seen how much of a monster I actually am," he said, tossing the dagger aside with a metallic clatter. He walked toward the table in the corner where all her belongings had been laid out like instruments in a surgeon's kit.
"I've reserved these tools of yours for this very moment."
Woom!
An array of potions, daggers, even small explosives manifested from thin air, clattering onto the table's surface as he pulled them from her spatial ring. He'd taken it from her the first day and had been going through her inventory ever since, finding all sorts of interesting things she'd packed for her little interrogation session.
"Wow," he muttered, genuinely amused as he picked up one explosive after another. "You came PREPARED."
He laughed again, but this time it was lighter, almost conversational, like he was complimenting a colleague on their work.
"Torture me all you want," Annabelle gasped, her vision blurring at the edges as blood continued to pour from the gaping wound across her torso. "It still won't change the fact that Jason will find you and kill you."
She should have been dead by now. Should have died a dozen times over from what he'd put her through these past five days. But the very potions she'd brought—the highest-grade healing elixirs she'd packed in abundance to torture and extract the truth from Eren—were now, ironically, being used against her. Keeping her alive. Keeping her conscious. Forcing her body to regenerate just enough so he could start all over again.
Not only that, but he'd also forced down her throat a strange potion that completely sealed her access to mana. If she still had mana, she would have fought back with everything she had. Would have combusted her own mana core if it meant taking him down with her in one final act of defiance. But that wasn't possible anymore.
What made it even more frustrating was that she couldn't fathom how he'd concocted such a thing. Mana-sealing potions were rare—not just expensive, but RARE. Money wasn't the issue for someone of her standing, considering her family's wealth and influence. The problem was that the potion was nearly impossible to find, even on the black market, because the ingredients were so obscure and difficult to obtain. Yet somehow, some way, Eren had managed to create it using the very ingredients she'd had in stock, ingredients she'd brought for entirely different purposes.
How did he even know the formula?
"Kill me?" he muttered, his eyes widening in mock confusion as he turned back to face her. "Now, why would I do that when I could use you to torment Jason so much he'd beg for his own death?"
Spray.
She spat blood onto his disfigured face, the crimson droplets splattering across his scarred cheek.
"I would rather die than hurt him," she said, her expression resolute despite everything, despite the pain, despite the fear, despite knowing she was completely at his mercy.
"Heh. You truly have no idea what I can make you do."
He circled her slowly, like a predator examining prey.
"We have five days until the mission ends. That's more than enough time to break you." Another laugh. "And once you're broken, I'll use you to destroy everything Jason holds dear."
"I HATE YOU!" she roared, the words raw with every ounce of remaining strength she could muster.
"Hmm. What a pity," he said softly, almost tenderly, like he was genuinely disappointed. "Truly a pity."
He picked up a transparent potion from the table, one she knew all too well. Her eyes widened in immediate recognition, and pure, unadulterated terror flooded through her.
No. Not that. Anything but that.
"I SWEAR—I SWEAR ON THE MOTHER OF LIFE HERSELF, I WILL KILL YOU!" she screamed, tears streaming down her bruised cheeks as she thrashed against the chains with renewed desperation.
Deep down, she wished Jason would walk through that door right now and save her. Would burst in like the hero he was and cut her down from these chains and end this nightmare. But that was impossible. She knew it was impossible. Jason didn't even know where she was.
"You know," Eren began, his voice taking on a strange, distant quality as he stared at the potion in his hand, "from the very start, I only ever had one wish."
With each word, something darkened in his expression, something that made him look less human and more like the monster she'd called him.
"I didn't want to be special. Didn't want to be powerful. Didn't want to be loved by everyone or admired or celebrated." He popped open the vial with his thumb, and the sound was like a death knell in the silence. "I knew all that was asking for too much."
"All I ever wanted was to be... happy." His voice cracked slightly, and for just a moment, she saw a glimpse of the old Eren, the weak, pathetic brother of Ashley who always smiled despite being treated like garbage. "It didn't matter if I was alone for the rest of my life. It didn't matter if no one remembered my name. I just wanted to be happy."
With every step he took toward her, her fear deepened into something primal, something that made her want to claw her own arms off if it meant escaping these chains.
"But it seems I can never be happy. Not in this life, not in the next—not EVER." He stopped directly in front of her, meeting her terrified gaze with eyes that looked completely dead inside. "If I can't be happy, if I am always meant to suffer, to be used, to be a stepping stone for others to climb over, then so be it."
His expression twisted into something ugly and broken.
"I will kill every one of you. I will slaughter every hero and every so-called child of destiny who thinks they have the right to use people like me as fodder for their grand adventures!"
"W-what are you... talking about?" she stuttered, confused and terrified in equal measure.
"I AM A MONSTER—ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU CALLED ME?" His voice rose to a shout that made her flinch. "SO BE IT."
And then he raised the potion to her lips.