There was no calm before the storm. The torture began as soon as Midday put the bowl down.

At once he felt as though his tongue had been replaced with a million tiny eels, each slimy and out of control. It felt as though they were trying to break free from the knots which held them together in the shape of what had once been a tongue.

But that was only the start of it.

If his tongue had become a collection of eels, then his teeth were something else: crabs who hid underneath their shells, drilling relentless into the now pulpy flesh of his gums. He had no control over anything in his mouth. It felt as though an entire world's worth of disgusting creatures had colonized the insides of his mouth and throat, all of them hellbent on making him as miserable as possible. There were worms and other parasites digging into his gums, which made them extremely itchy, but there was nothing he could do to stop them.

He could see the entire ecosystem living in his mouth with perfect clarity now, the picture becoming more complex with every passing moment. Already, he wanted to puke, but such a thing seemed impossible. Midday could feel the creatures plunging down his intestines, toward his stomach, and he could tell that it was them who had control over his body now, not him. He had strong urge to drink a cup of boiling water, to purge his insides of the infestation he felt was underway, but his better judgement kept him from doing this. He knew—at least logically—that all of this was just in his head, even though all of his senses told him otherwise.

And all that was merely the texture of the Devil Peppercorn infused soup.

The taste came next, after the texture had thoroughly made itself at home in his mouth, throat, intestines, and stomach. Suddenly a series of waves—each with the might of a tsunami—flooded his mouth: deathly bitterness, followed by mind-numbing sourness, followed by overwhelming sweetness, followed by downright infernal spiciness attacked him in a never-ending and always escalating cycle. Any efforts to think were quickly overwhelmed by the assault on his senses. Romulo, Gork, and Glauster were saying something, he thought, but Midday’s brain seemed to be too overloaded with processing the taste of the soup to have anything left over for deciphering sights or sounds.

Oddly enough, his nose still worked just fine, but all it smelled was bog-standard oatmeal and lentil soup. The Devil Peppercorn had no effect on odor, he realized, though—in a way—that he wished it did: the alluring aroma of a soup untainted by the peppercorn taunted him with cruel imaginations of what could have been, of what meal he could have enjoyed had he not tainted it with truly devilish peppercorn he had once looked upon as a symbol of hope.

Midday collapsed onto the floor, squirming like the creatures he felt must have taken over his body by then, and he remained that way—unable to comprehend anything besides the torture he had inflicted upon himself—for what felt like an eternity.

♦

All traces of the Devil Peppercorn in his mouth disappeared at once. Midday laid there, unmoving for the first time in hours, for a few moments, basking in the glorious peace that that had returned to him, before Romulo interrupted his blissful rest.

“Looks like you've made it to the end.” Romulo shrugged. “That was quite the show, I’ve got to say.”

Midday sighed, his eyes still closed. “Fucking hell…”

“It looked like you were having a seizure the whole time!” exclaimed Glauster, who was in the middle of sharpening his scythe. “I knew it was going to be bad, but that was something else entirely… I’ve seen people spin the wheel and suffer less than that.”

“How long was I out?”

“3 hours,” answered Romulo. “You took 3 beads and so you were out for 3 hours. I guess that must be how it works.”

“It… It felt a lot longer than that. Like several days, at least.”

“But it was just 3 hours. Odd, isn't it? I had the same experience.”

Midday sat up. He had been laid flat out on his bed, it seemed. When did they do that? He knew for a fact that he had been conscious throughout the whole experience. “I guess it’s really over…”

“Funny it stops all suddenly like that.” Romulo was sitting at the table, helping his beetle run through some sort of exercise routine.

“Y-yeah.” Midday looked at his left hand. The old bandages had been taken off and replaced with new, fresh ones. I really didn’t notice Gork doing that? What the hell? All he could remember since eating the Devil Peppercorn was pain—a weird kind of pain that he was unsure even counted as pain because of how alien it was. “Uh, Gork, it’s probably a bit early to ask this… but how’s my health?”

“Exactly the same as it was three hours ago, I suppose.” Gork was upright sitting in his bed, reading a book he must have gotten off the black market or perhaps in exchange for his medical services. Midday was curious what it was about but, seeing as he was unable to read, it only caught his interest for a split second. “These things take time. If you eat it on a regular basis, I’m sure you’ll start seeing results soon.

“Oh god no…” Midday closed his eyes and laid himself back down on the bed. “I really don’t want to think about that right now… Actually, I think the only thing I want right now is to be unconscious… Goodnight.”

“But Midday,” said Romulo, “don’t you remember your promise?”

Midday did, in fact, remember their promise and, while he did intend to honor it, the fact of the matter was that he had just spent 3 hours straight in pure agony. He felt justified in deciding that it would wait until tomorrow. Exhausted from what had perhaps been the longest day of his life up to that point, he fell asleep in seconds. Romulo grumbled something to himself but, perhaps because he was able to sympathize with Midday since he too had tried Devil Peppercorn before, he did nothing to wake his cabinmate.