aerie (bakugo katsuki x oc)

chapter 112: the devil himself

   It's torture to watch, but it's just as gut wrenching to look away. I try with everything I have to escape by turning away and squeezing my eyes shut, but no matter how hard I press my hands to my ears, the horrible sound of her screams still manages to get through. After a few moments of trying to hide from it, the guilt of letting her go through this alone becomes stronger than my feelings of emotional exhaustion, so I force myself to look again. With every sear of her skin, my heart sinks further, causing the debilitating feeling of helplessness and terror to grow until my entire body is tense and shaking. The smell of her burning flesh raids my skull, I try to keep it in, but I can't help retching my disgust and anguish all over the floor in the back corner of this hellhole. I can't stop the tears from pouring out of my eyes as I try to rid my body of the feeling in any way I can, no matter how weak it makes me feel. My body is wracked by sobs as I force myself to witness my heart be cauterized along with the gashes on her flesh with my own two eyes.

   This is the worst thing I've ever experienced. I find myself longing for the days when I laid in bed with a broken heart, a time that seems like nirvana compared to the agony that riddles my existence now. I remember how I felt when I thought she was gone for good, and not even that can compare to the knowledge that she's in misery, and the feeling of it somehow being my fault.

   If only I had never met her. If only I had seen through the facade of the hero organization instead of dedicating my life to such a selfish and meaningless cause, then maybe she wouldn't be suffering like she is now.

   Her screams are the most awful thing I've ever heard, my ears nearly bleed at the dreadful sound. The look of torment on her face is crippling, and I find myself falling to my knees as I begin to break.

   "Stop!" I cry. "Enough! Just leave her alone!"

   And just for a moment, the devil himself turns his head to me, expressionless. "Have you had enough?" he says, calmly.

   "No!" Aerie cries. "Katsuki, don't listen to him! I can take it, okay?" she says, gulping as she tries to catch her breath. "It's just pain. I can handle this. Don't let them break you."

   "I can't," I sob, shaking my head. "I can't hear you scream anymore!"

   "I'm sorry," she says, seeming much better off than I am, without a single tear in sight. "I won't scream anymore."

   "I can't just stand here and watch this!" I cry. "It's killing me!"

   "If you listen to them, they'll kill me!" she shouts back, "I don't want to die, Katsuki!" she pauses for a moment, with tears finally beginning to well up in her eyes. "Please," she says, much softer. "Just please be strong for me."

   I clench my jaw, and turn my head away from her. The sound of the metal sizzling on her open flesh is almost as bad as her screams, and I clamp my hands over my ears and break back into sobs.

~

7 days.

It's been 7 days of this torture.

Every day, the devil enters Aerie's room. He walks to her chair, serrated knife in hand, and begins.

She doesn't scream at this point, she just bites her lips and squeaks a bit, until her body pours blood from serrations on her skin spanning from her shoulders to her fingers and her hips to her knees. This part is impossible to watch, her mangled flesh from the rough knife glistens in a way that makes me sick every time. I try with all of my might not to look, although I can always hear her blood dripping into puddles that collect beneath her chair. Compared to what comes next, this part seems almost manageable to sit through.

When he leaves the first time, Aerie always tries to talk to me.

"Are you okay, Kitty-kat?" she'll say. "Don't worry, I've been through worse."

I'm never able to reply without bursting into tears, so I usually stay silent, which I can tell hurts her, but I just can't bring myself to engage with her casual conversations after witnessing something so traumatizing.

A bowl of white rice arrives around this time, although I can only manage to eat a few bites due to the debilitating sick feeling that remains in my stomach. The goons force feed Aerie, but she spits most of it out, save for a few mouthfuls just to keep herself alive.

When the devil returns, that's when the true torture begins. He first blasts her with a high pressure hose to wash off the blood that has at this point almost completely dried, then leaves again, only to come back with his sadistic tools.

   He returns with what I believe is a brand, and a small silver blow torch. He approaches her chair and lights up, beginning to heat the flat piece on the end with the blue flame until the cool black metal glows red.

   At this point, Aerie is squeezing her eyes shut and whispering to herself. I'm usually sitting against the wall with my head in my hands, wishing I were anywhere but here. 

   I've started to force myself to sit through this without a reaction, hoping that eventually he will move on and do something else, but he never seem to care about my facade of apathy.

Aerie stopped screaming all together after I almost broke the first time, but the grimaces on her face and the small peeps she makes holding her cries in seem almost even worse.

   I wish I could take her place. I'd do anything to get him to leave her alone, even if it meant going through her pain every day for the rest of my life, but that isn't an option.

   When all of her wounds are cauterized, the devil leaves, with a hint of an evil smile.

   Aerie is usually all out of things to say at this point. I'm sure that she's in so much pain that she can't bring herself to speak, so we just sit in silence, staring off into space.

   A few hours later, an angel enters Aerie's room. He puts his hand over her wounds, and the charred scars on her skin disappear in the matter of seconds. This is the best part of the day, and the only time I feel any kind of relief.

Almost immediately after he leaves the room, Aerie hangs her head, and passes out. I'm not sure if it's from relief, exhaustion, or the man's quirk, but Aerie hasn't visited me in my dreams even once, so I've started to lose hope that she's been in a state where she can.

   There aren't words to describe the way I feel. There's no phrase that can sum up the agony that I've endured, but the only thing that comes close is this:

   I'm in hell.