Seven Ways To The Abyss

TOURMENT🕸

SECOND ARC
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Damian paced the room, his frustration palpable as he sipped from a dark red liquid swirling in his glass. He had lost track of Sofia; she’d drifted too far, vanishing from his reach. The bitter taste of failure gnawed at him, and he clenched his jaw. Across the room, a woman was pinned against the wall, her arms splayed out, restrained by thick, twisted vines that pierced her wrists like hooks. She shuddered and whimpered, her eyes darting around in a hazy, delirious state.

She was trying to speak again, though her voice was now hoarse, barely more than a rasp. She had been begging for death for three days, her words broken by ragged sobs that scraped against her throat. Damian approached, watching her with detached curiosity. He’d almost forgotten what she had looked like before he’d begun his “experiment.” Her face was barely recognisable now, her features twisted and swollen from countless failed attempts to end her life. Bruises mottled her skin, and her nose had been broken, left crooked, a mere detail he barely noticed

The first time she’d begged him to end it, he had thought it amusing, even intriguing. He had injected his blood into her as a kind of test, curious to see what would happen if he blended their natures. But the result had been strange, unnerving even. Every time he inflicted a mortal wound—every time she should have succumbed—she would convulse, scream, then freeze, her body suspended in a paralysed stasis for an hour or two. Then, like clockwork, her eyes would flutter open, glassy with fresh tears, and she would start sobbing, pleading to die.

Her cries had turned from desperate to maddened in the hours since, her voice now as raw as her scarred throat. Her cheeks were crusted with dried blood and tears, her eyes rimmed red from the endless strain of weeping. Damian studied her silently, observing the way her face twisted with each fresh wave of agony. There was no spark of humanity left—only a creature trapped in an endless cycle of pain, reduced to begging for a mercy he had no intention of giving.

She screamed again as he extended a vine, this time plunging it deep into her abdomen. The mangled skin gave way with ease, and her body arched in a spasmodic jolt, but he knew better than to expect her to die. She would merely freeze, the brief silence offering him a reprieve from her sobbing, if only for a while. As she stilled, her body fell slack against the wall, held upright only by his vines. She was still alive—barely.

The house had once belonged to her. He remembered her surprise when he’d first arrived, her face brightening with a hesitant smile, probably thinking he was a lost traveller. Now, it was a ruin, its walls smeared with streaks of blood, its floors littered with shards from broken vases and furniture destroyed in her frantic attempts to escape.

Damian let his gaze linger on her for a moment, then turned away, feeling an unexpected flicker of irritation. He had hoped this experiment might hold his interest, might stave off the empty monotony he felt gnawing at him. But now he found the whole thing pointless, her continued existence a dull reminder of his inability to create anything truly meaningful. Even her pain had lost its appeal.

He returned to his training with renewed determination, ignoring the crumpled figure pinned against the wall. He pushed himself relentlessly, his muscles burning as he twisted and turned, trying to silence the maddening thoughts swirling in his mind. Kill the cursed child. The goal had become an obsession, a singular purpose that kept him from spiralling into the same helplessness he saw in the woman’s broken gaze.

As he practised, Sofia’s face haunted him, taunting him with her strength, her existence a constant reminder of his own inadequacies. His movements grew fiercer, his muscles straining, his vines vibrating from the sheer intensity of his efforts. He fought through the pain, refusing to let his body give in, even as his limbs trembled, a primal survival instinct urging him to stop.

"Why…why is she so strong?" he whispered, his voice barely audible, laced with anger and shame. He pushed himself harder, but the image of Sofia lingered in his mind, a spectre of all his failures, until his legs finally gave out. Mid-air, his body collapsed, and he crashed face-down onto the cold, blood-streaked floor.

He lay there, chest heaving, his face pressed against the ground, eyes fixed on nothing. An unbearable weight settled over him, a deep, smothering helplessness that clawed at him from within. The woman’s quiet sobs drifted to him again, but this time, the sound didn’t annoy him—it resonated, a twisted echo of his own shame.

A broken sound escaped his lips, a bitter, agonised cry that shook his entire body. In that moment, his fury toward Sofia faded, replaced by something colder, darker. She was no longer an enemy, but a mirror—a reflection of everything he feared, everything he lacked.

This wasn’t her fault. Sofia had done nothing more than exist, yet her strength exposed every one of his insecurities, every crack in the foundation of his own power. His entire life had been devoted to proving his worth, to silencing the voices that told him he wasn’t enough. But she had shown him the truth—he was weak.

He lay there, feeling the last remnants of anger drain from him, leaving only a hollow resolve. He would overcome this, not out of hatred, but because he had to. This weakness wouldn’t define him; he would face it, tear it apart, and rebuild himself stronger than ever.

As the woman’s sobbing grew faint, Damian rose, steadying himself. He would silence the doubt Sofia had planted within him—not by destroying her, but by overcoming the flaws she had forced him to see. And as he straightened, a quiet, fierce determination set in. He would become the man his family expected, the warrior his pride demanded.

No more failures. No more weakness. He would rise, no matter how much it hurt.

Hey guys!

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, I put a lot of work into it😊

I know you guys were expecting more of Sofia and Elaina and have a lot of questions.

"Is Elaina truly alive, or was Sofia hallucinating?"

Well, we'll find out in the second arc, I'm trying to open the story up as much as possible to avoid confusion along the way😁

I hope you like it, please vote and comment it really helps

Okie I love you always bbye

~~ Barakallah