The feeling of cool stone on his back was the first thing he noticed, as Aran struggled to wake. Something felt… odd about it. But he couldn’t quite figure out what it was, as he still felt half asleep. His thoughts felt slow, in the same way it feels when trying to run in a dream, but your limbs are heavy and slow, like swimming in some viscous liquid. With a concerted effort, he forced his eyes open to blinding light. After several slow blinks, his eyes acclimated to the brightness. Above him was a large light, pointed straight at him. It reminded him of a dentist’s light, the one that always seems to be pointed directly into the patient’s eyes.

He shook himself mentally. His thoughts were drifting, and he was getting distracted. Why was there a dentist light pointed at him? Where was he? He tried to sit up, but his body felt distant, and weak. And it felt like he met some resistance. He tried to twist his head, to get a better look at his surroundings, but something was holding his head in place. He struggled, movements sluggish and weak, to no avail. He panned his eyes around the room, noting a high stone ceiling, which briefly pulled at his mind, as he tried to remember why that was significant. The thought flit away though, and he was left blankly looking around, unable to see anything else.

He tried moving his limbs experimentally, only to find each one held in place by something he couldn’t see. A dulled thrill of fear passed through his mind, as he slowly grasped he was bound to some sort of table. The dentist lamp above him only sharpened the fear, as some primal part of his brain grasped the danger he was in. A sharp click sound followed by the scraping of stone alerted him to two things. One, that he was no longer alone. Two, as an air current wafted across him, he realized he was naked, while bound to this table. The fear he’d been feeling kicked off his instincts, adrenaline cutting through some of the fog as he struggled to move.

He heard footsteps on the floor, and he struggled harder, twisting, trying to wrythe out of his unseen restraints. He reached for his mana, to strengthen his limbs like before, but it was gone. He panicked, grunting as his limbs moved by only millimeters. He dove deep, trying to reach for the sea of mana that was always there, waiting for him, but it was like it had vanished.

A soft chuckle made him freeze.

“Having trouble?” The sharp, predatory grin of Crenshaw moved into view above him, as the man leaned over him. “Good. That is the point, after all.”

Aran’s eyes widened. “Wha-” he coughed, his throat felt dry and cracked. “What is this? Why am I here?” His mind churned slowly, but he’d already come to a conclusion, hoping against hope he was wrong.

Crenshaw’s smile widened. “Oh, I think you already know the answer to that. You’re here, because you infiltrated our town, ambushed our rangers, and killed them. Then you had more of your monstrous compatriots attack our home, then had the temerity to waltz right back in.”

“WHAT?! I didn’t do any of that! You think I’m working with all the monsters out there?! That’s fucking crazy! I’m human!”

The man’s smile vanished, replaced by a flat mask of impassivity. “I’m not here to listen to your tales. I’m just going to figure out what you are, and how you look so human.” He leaned close, breath hot on Aran’s face as his voice turned from clinical monotone to almost manic fervor. “I don’t care what you say, or how loud you scream. I’m going to drain every drop of information out of you. Then I’m going to harvest your parts, and depending on what I find, hook you up to pump, and continue harvesting you until you burn out. Then, I’ll kill you. Nobody cares that you’re down here. The whole town knows what you did. What you did to the rangers, and to Alice.” As he finished, his eyes took on an even more crazed look, as his arm whipped out of Aran’s sight, then reappeared with a scalpel. He plunged the small blade into Aran’s shoulder, forcing him to cry out.

“That was just a taste. From now on, I’m going to carve you up slowly. We’ll get to questions later.” He stood straight, face impassive once more. Aran’s eyes watered with the pain, as Crenshaw left the scalpel impaled in his shoulder. The man turned away, as the noises of tools scraping on metal and latex stretching sent panic screaming through Aran’s mind. He bucked, letting out a howl of fear and anguish.

“Please! Please listen to me! It wasn’t me! I didn’t do any of that! I promise!”

Crenshaw returned, moving to Aran’s left side, face now covered by a surgical mask, with another scalpel in hand, as he grasped Aran’s arm. Aran screamed, trying to pull away. He felt the bindings constrict across his arm, holding it very firmly in place.

Aran screamed again, begging for mercy, but the man simply ignored him, as if nothing in the world was the matter. He felt the cold steel of the scalpel draw a line of fire across his forearm, splitting his skin. He kept screaming, begging. Promising anything for the man to just listen to him. He told him about the elf, about how the elf killed the others, but the man just chuckled quietly, shaking his head, plunging the scalpel deeper.

Aran screamed himself hoarse, but the man never reacted another time, never looked up, only cutting and writing in a notebook as he did.

---------

Ben stared hard at the grey flesh before him, as he took quick notes. The muscles were nearly identical to humans, though the coloration was strange, of course. Even the muscle fiber was grey, with dark green streaks of blood through it. That was the truly odd part, however. There was so little blood, and none had leaked as he cut into the creature. He cut a sample of the skin, a small square of flesh, removing it to inspect it more closely. He took it to his microscope, feeding just a bit of mana into the device to power the bulb as he did.

The creature continued to scream, but Ben easily blocked the noise out. It wasn’t even close to the loudest creature he’d dissected, and he found its ravings didn’t bother him nearly at all. Placing the skin sample on a metal tray, he used his scalpel to scrape a thin layer of skin off, depositing it onto a slide which he placed in the microscope. He stared through the lens of the microscope, frowning beneath his mask. He adjusted the focus, to be sure he was seeing correctly. The cells appeared to be completely empty, with no microcellular structures within. He tapped a finger on the table. Perhaps these were simply the outermost layer of skin and already decomposing? He returned to the skin sample, turning it over and scraping from the softer, inner layer.

He placed the scraping under the scope and looked again. His eyes widened fractionally. These cells were identical, just an empty cellular membrane, though a few of these had some of the dark green blood remaining on them. As an experiment, he took his scalpel and placed it against the scraping, sending a pulse of his own mana into the flesh. The cells didn’t react, but the blood shimmered, giving off a small trickle of light before dimming. Ben frowned, disappointed. No discernible change, then. He considered. Perhaps a larger sample was needed, then.

He turned to the blades neatly arranged on the table beside him.

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Aran breathed deeply, trying to remain calm. He’d continued screaming, all the while trying to dig deeper, to find his mana. He felt certain it was still there, but whatever was making him so tired and foggy was making it hard to reach. His captor had turned away, after having flayed his arm open, so Aran took the chance to focus on reaching for his core.

He closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain still coursing up his arm, slowing his breathing. He reached inward, mind seeking that feeling of his mana. Within his core, it felt empty and cavernous, but he persevered. If he could just reach his mana, he could escape. A doubt crept in, how was he going to escape? He quashed it, blocking out everything except the grasping hand in his mind, reaching for his power. He reached and reached, ignoring the burning pain that now resumed at his arm, eyes squeezed tight. He focused his will, cutting through the fog, and finally felt a twinge of warmth. He renewed his efforts, mind seeking in the same way, as the fog seemed to dissipate and the glow of his mana reached him once more. He grasped it, feeling it rouse within him, though strangely he couldn’t push it out of his core.

He frowned, pulling harder. There seemed to be a barrier, something keeping his mana contained within his core. He yanked with all his will, tearing through the barrier with a tiny tendril of power, that leaked power into him at a painfully slow pace. This was no good. He barely had any idea how to use his mana, and he only had the barest scrap to utilize for escape. His mana was slowly, ever so slowly widening the gap in the barrier, burning it away as he realized it was a sort of foreign mana blocking his connection to his core. But this mana felt… dead, like old bones, not like when Narcin had tried to control him at all. No this was entirely different, like a corruption of mana. Aran focused his mana on burning away the invading barrier, but this would take hours. At the current pace, it would be days before it was gone. No, he needed to figure out a plan utilizing his tiny reserve of power. He slowly circulated the drop of mana through his body, carefully avoiding his left arm. He had to avoid the pain for now, or he’d lose his concentration and his mana would be used up healing his injuries. As he slowly moved his mana over his body, he stopped. In his right hand, he could still feel the intricate imprint of Naya’s power. He tentatively felt over it with his senses. The imprint was faded, but still there, though he hadn’t studied it enough to know if it was still complete.

His breathing accelerated. This could be his only chance. If he could get a message to Naya through the bond, she could help. He had no idea how it worked, or if it even would, but it was his only shot. He fed his mana slowly through the delicate design, feeling it flare with power, and focused on pushing a message into the bond. She’d called it a bridge, and he hoped that it was still working. He felt his mana crystalize in the imprint, dissipating as he hoped some part of his message was sent. He heaved a breath, shuddering as his mana ran dry. He could still feel the crack in the barrier widening slowly, but he wouldn’t have anything more than what he’d managed for hours at least.

His eyes fluttered open as he let his physical sense return, and more pain than he thought possible flushed through his arm. His eyes watered as he arched his neck, a whimper escaping his lips. He scrunched up his face. He had to hold out until Naya arrived. He just had to hope she’d come. She would come, he told himself. She had to. Otherwise he was going to die here, beneath this demented man’s tools. He tried to block out the pain, turning his eyes to Crenshaw’s back, as he turned away. Lances of pain sheared up his arm, but whatever the man was doing he had stopped, at least for the moment.

Aran’s breaths came in ragged gasps, as he tried to breathe through his nose to help control them. He was vaguely aware that he was hyperventilating, but his momentary clarity of finding his mana had gone, and he couldn’t think beyond the pain. When Crenshaw returned to the table, he had a small towel that he used to wipe his sweat covered brow. Aran took some small satisfaction in making the man sweat so much, though he was confused as to what was so difficult about this. The man sighed, catching his breath before looking into Aran’s eyes, his own unreadable. Then he reached for something Aran couldn’t see, and began again.

This time, to accompany the pain, Aran heard it. The shkkkkkkkkkk, shkkkkkkkkkk sound of steel teeth on bone, as the man sawed through his arm. Aran screamed like never before. Not just in pain, but abject horror. He screamed until he thought his eyes would bleed from the force of his terror. The sound continued, scraping not just on bone, but his psyche. Aran’s conscious mind began to shut down, unable to cope with the pain. He never stopped screaming, but it was like watching a movie from someone else’s perspective. His consciousness retreated, until he was only dimly aware when the sawing stopped. He watched as if from down a long hallway as the diabolical surgeon lifted his left arm from the elbow down away from his body up to the light, twisting the grey limb as he examined it. Exposed bone sticking out of the bottom, grey viscera clinging to it in shreds. His separated flesh looked strangely fuzzy, as Aran stared at the grey muscle and dark bone, realizing with a sort of detached logic that his eyes were covered in tears.

Aran continued to scream, until his body finally gave up and passed out, long after the surgeon had departed, taking his severed limb with him.