As the mind of the girl drifts through the vast darkness of unconsciousness, a sudden burst of incredible pain races through her nerve system, torturing her body and mind. Due to being accustomed to such pain, it was not strong enough to drag her awareness back into the world.

This process repeated itself several times, until a new nerve suddenly fired more pain signals into the brain of the small girl. A small moan escaped the confinements of her body, after more and more pain receptors reacted to the incredible torture.

Motivated by the reaction of his chained patient, Thramoun impales another stake into the body of his little patient. By now she has one stake in each leg and two more stakes pricking her belly. The newest stake went right through her left shoulder, further restricting the movement of the subject.

But contrary to the decreased freedom of movement, the subject starts to slowly tremble and the moans are getting louder and sound more painful. The moment when the last stake impales the right shoulder of the beautiful girl, an extreme flash of pain travels through her body and the darkness of her unconsciousness, resulting in her impaled body violently trashing around on the cold stone floor, bringing the magically enforced chains to their limits.

Even the smallest movement of the patient increase the damage done by the stakes, because they are struck directly through her body into the hard floor underneath the subject. Thus, more and more pain travels through the overwhelmed nerve system of the patient, jolting her awake in a fit of mad laughter and wicked sobs.

As Captain Thramoun gazes amazed at his patient, trashing around, gurgling blood and emitting a wicked laughter while being impaled by six wooden stakes, the small girl suddenly lifts her head, swipes her surroundings and finally gazes at her impaled body.

Time seems to freeze as the girl stares amazed at her tiny tortured belly, cut open without remorse, with her shredded insides hanging out. She remembers similar scenes from times long past, scenes about discovering together with her friend the different functions and solving the mysteries of her body parts.

As a tiny red tear starts to roll down the right cheek of the twisted girl, she gives the foreign person, who is wielding another wooden stake right next to her, a wicked smile and astonishes him with the joy visible in her old eyes.

“I can see parts of my destroyed intestines hanging out of my belly, lying around on the table. Do you want a closer look? Do you want to know more about them? I should be able to teach you all about each part of my body if you are curious and want to spend more time with me.” The girl manages to say in between her fits of laughter and drowning in her own blood, wheezing with all her might the last bits of air through her tortured lungs.

Captain Thramoun does not seem to be disturbed by the image of his patient, confidently talking to him, while every other person on this planet should have been dead by now. The only thing he can think about is that Mark’s report was correct and that she does indeed seem to harbour powers worthy of a survivor, as mentioned by the ancient guardians. The question is if it’s her power or if she somehow got her hands on it.

“Did my friend send you to teach me more about my body? Do you know him? When will he come back?” As the girl bombards him with more stupid questions than he cares to answer right now, the captain impales the last stake right through her brain, sending her back into the world of dreams.

-------------------

The next time the girl managed to drag her awareness back into the actual world, the pain was gone and she found herself chained to a wall of cold metal.

Sitting in front of her, on a wooden chair, was the serious looking guy who seemed to be interested in her body when they met the last time. It is difficult to judge while he is sitting, but he seems to be as tall as anyone else she saw around town. He also sports black short hair, in contrast to her white and shoulder-long beautiful hair. As for his current outfit, it is the same one Mark was wearing on their travels, except for some kind of weird triangular markings on his shoulder.

“Good morning. I believe I haven’t introduced myself yet. I am the Captain of the Guardians of Mankind; you may call me Captain Thramoun like everyone else.” So far this Captain left a kind impression on the girl. “May I ask your name and where you are from?” The Captain started to slowly question his prisoner.

The girl starts to uncertainly fidget under the heavy gaze of the Captain. “Umm, I don’t think I have a name. You may also call me your plaything or your student if it makes you happy. I was living down a dark hallway before I was found.”

This was an answer the Captain wasn’t expecting to hear. He was hoping to get at least some answers out of her, before he started to torture all his answers out of her. He had enough time to think about all the implications of a living survivor in their current age and time and had to make sure that no more survivors will pop up out of nowhere in the future.

“Who else called you his student and plaything? Mark also reported you repeatedly asking for your best friend.” At the mention of her friend a happy smile blooms on the face of the girl.

“Yes! Yes! My friend! Do you know him? Do you know where he is and why he left me?” She would have jumped around because of her excitement, if she was not tightly chained to the cold metallic wall.

“I know many people. Maybe I can help you out, but you need tell me a bit about your friend first?” he decides to go with the flow of the conversation and find out what she is willing to tell him.

The girl smiles at the interest the Captain shows in her friend and tells him excitedly all about their previous lessons, the singing and the beautiful pictures he used to draw for her. In her eyes, the Captain is already as close to being a new friend as he can get in such a short time. He already spent some time with her and made her sing, even before they really knew each other. And now he even shows interest in her friend and past life.

“Well, your friend certainly sounds like a nice person, but why don’t you tell me something more personal about him? Like his name, or where he used to live and what he looks like.” The Captain doesn’t let himself be so easily distracted with weird stories about happily singing and drawing weird pictures.

“Well, I think that he was living down the dark hallway and he was always wearing a black robe with a wicked mask covering his face. But he was a really nice guy and spent much time with me.” The girl answers the questions honestly.

“What about his name though?” He is still determined to get some useful information out of the survivor.

“We both have no name. There was no need for a name, because he knew me as well as I knew him. He was an important part of my small world back then. I really want to meet him again, are you sure you don’t know him?” She asked the Captain without missing a beat, with fresh tears flowing down her right cheek.

“Okay, okay. Let’s try something else. Our knowledge about survivors is pretty limited … anyway we are quite sure that you must have had at least one living parent when you were born. Can you tell me something about your parents and where they might be hiding right now? I’m not going to hurt them. I just want to inform them that we found their beautiful daughter.” He tried to convince the girl with a wink and a small smile at the end of the last sentence.

“I don’t have any parents. It was just me and my friend, for as long as I can remember.” Even though he doesn’t completely believe her, his mind relaxes at the thought of just dealing with a single wicked survivor and not with her whole family. He has to be careful of her friend, even though he has a suspicion of whom she might be talking about.

“Well, what is the first thing you remember?” He keeps on digging for any useful information.

“The first thing I remember is probably the enormous unbearable pain cursing through my body before I woke up, just to see my best friend laughing happily at my misery.” By now more and more tears drop down her cheek and she starts to sob at her first memory, while memories of the pain also release a twisted laugh out of her small mouth.

“We are getting nowhere like this and time is short for me today, I have to oversee the last preparations for the upcoming festival. Well, I got one last question before I leave for now. Do you remember Pete, the leader of the caravan you were travelling with?”

“Yes, I know Pete and Ally. Ally used to sing for me with a beautiful voice at the top of her lungs.” The girl smiles at the astonished Guardian in front of her.

“Oh, trust me, I heard all about how you attacked Ally. Luckily she survived the encounter with your hideous power. Anyway, can you tell me what you were doing before you met with Pete for the first time?” The Captain was slowly growing agitated at the useless information he keeps on receiving.

“Well, I was just looking around the room of my friend when Pete found me. Please don’t tell him?” The girl begs him with tears in her eye.

“So your friend was living inside the small wooden hut where Pete found you. That’s great.” Lost in his own thoughts, Captain Thramoun tries to figure out the secrets behind her existence. “That means, if your friend was living in the hut and you were living down a supposedly existing hallway, you two were living in the jungle all your life, in direct proximity to the main road and no one has ever even seen the mysterious hut before? If I had to guess, I’d say you are around eight years old?” He directs the last question to the girl again.

The girl blushes at him mentioning her age but doesn’t answer the question. She had no way to know how old she really was, all her past memories were merged together into a tight bundle of unbelieveable pain, mad laughter and twisted nightmares. She suspected though that she was far older than eight small years.

Captain Thramoun doesn’t seem to mind the behaviour of the girl and starts to leave the room, lost in his own thoughts. He mumbled, all the way to the sturdy thick metal door, about his theories on her and her friend’s origin and existence.

The last thing the girl heard him mumble about before he reached the door, was that supposedly only a very strong magician with incredible power could hide a hut for such a long period of time, without anyone noticing anything weird for all those years.

After the door closed, the girl was once again locked into another small dark room with only her own thoughts as her companion. Thoughts about her best friend looking for his small toy, in a world much larger than she could have imagined.