You couldn't feel anything but pain anymore. Everything was numb, even your mind. Everything that happened around you was a blur, You could hear Hoolan talking to you, but you could never make out what he was saying. It was as if he was at the end of a tunnel, but he was right next to you.

Your leg stopped hurting, at least when it was kept still. When you tried to move it, or when Hoolan moved you. The agony would shoot throughout your body again. Every now and then Hoolan would drag you to a new part in the cave, trying to get you to stand on the leg you had left. You couldn't though, you had no strength left, not even enough to lift your head.

Hoolan tried to get you to eat as much as possible, but you had stopped eating, in general, a while ago. You couldn't keep anything down anymore. At first, it would be a couple of minutes before you would throw it all back up, but now your body rejected it as soon as it entered your stomach. It got to the point where he was so desperate for you to eat, that he even tried the whole eating it himself then regurgitating it up for you. That didn't help in the slightest

You had no Idea how long it had been since your failed escape attempt. It could have been a couple of days or a couple of weeks. You didn't know, because you were constantly fading in and out. Hoolan was constantly hovering over you like a demon. You knew he was pretty worried, but from your point of view, it seemed more like he was looking for a good spot on your neck to rip your throat out.

He would lay next to you each night. resting his head on your chest, and listening to your heartbeat. Your frighteningly slow heartbeat. Thump... a long moment of silence... thump, and repeat. He probably did it out of fear that at any second it might stop completely. which was quite possible. You knew it, he knew it too.

You were dying

_ _

" Polyp." His voice sounded from the darkness " Y/N open your eyes, please," You took in a sharp intake of breath, how long had you stopped breathing? You didn't even know that you had stopped. You cracked your eyes open at a snail's pace. The room was blurry, you could make out Hoolans shape in front of you. After a moment it cleared up and you saw Him gently stroking your face. You didn't feel a thing

He let out a shaky breath that he had been keeping in. Usually waking up to those black eyes would have made you jump out of your skin. However, that was before he had taken your spirit and crushed in in his possessive grip. He moved his hand to stroke your hair but stopped as some fell off your head and onto the floor at his touch. His gaze stayed on the strands of H/C For a second before he turned around to grab something.

You saw him lift a fish to your mouth, trying to get you to eat. You didn't even move your mouth in any way shape or form. After a few minutes of this, he gave up and gently grabbed a hold of you, slowly lifting you up. You let out a heart-wrenching cry that tore his heart apart as your crippled leg was shifted. In the past, it had still hurt like Hell when he moved you. Now the pain had doubled- no tripled.

At your cry, Hoolan immediately set you back down. Usually, You would be crying your eyes out at the pain, but your body had no more tears to shed.

" I'm sorry polyp!" Hoolan whispered shakily to you. He reached down and you heard the tearing of fabric as he tore your pant legging on your left leg apart. You heard him take in a sharp, quiet breath. With what little energy you had left you were able to flick your eyes down.

From the way your head was angled, you couldn't make out much. What you did see of your leg though was absolutely horrific. Your leg was smothered in black vein marks that covered about 85% of your leg. Whawasn'tnt black was an angry shade of red.

" No no no, it's not supposed to spread like this." You heard him mutter to himself. You wanted to be worried about what was happening, but you felt nothing but the pain in your leg and your broken spirit. All you could guess from what was happening was that the venom he put in you reacted differently in your body than in the other things he injected it into. He lifted his head back up and your eyes met his.

" Don't worry Polyp... you're... you're going to be fine." He said, and you didn't miss the tear that fell out of his eye. You didn't say anything. You couldn't do anything but close your eyes and sleep, and that's exactly what you did. It was the only thing that released you from the horror of the world and the pain it caused. You couldn't fight the pain, so you slept.

And so the days went on like this. Hoolan would wake you up, and try to get you to eat, to move, to do anything. Every day the panic in him came more apparent. He didn't know how to help you from the very curse he put on you himself. If he couldn't help you, you guessed nothing could then.

- -

You were torn out of the peaceful embrace of sleep screaming agony into the darkness. Your leg was sending bolts of the worst pain you had ever felt all through your body. You heard thudding as Hoolan surged from across the cave to your side in a split second.

Once over you he gently grabbed your arms trying to sooth your thrashing form. You dug your nails into his arms, drawing thick beads of blood that ran in little streams down both of your arms, and dripped onto the floor. You kicked at the floor with the leg you could move. Hoolan threw his leg over yours to keep it from smacking the rock floor.

He kept trying to soothe your panicking form, but to no success. You were in too much pain to even really register what he was saying. What you could catch you knew was absolute crap. He himself didn't even know what was happening to you. If he didn't know what the problem, he couldn't fix it.

Hoolan had many types of venoms. You had only discovered three in the lab, but you wouldn't be surprised if there was no limit to his venom. Sometimes venom has different effects on different types of organisms. So maybe that was the problem. This type of venom did something to marine life, and maybe did something different to mammals, or something like that. Or maybe it was just solely your body. Like your body just was handling it totally different, like an allergy.

Whatever the heck it was, it had first destroyed the nerves in your leg. Now, it was doing something far more insidious to your body. It had been slowly killing you this whole time. It had just taken at least a week for it to fully kick in.

" I'm going to help you polyp... everything's going to be ok," Hoolan said in a shaky voice above you. His face was stained with tears that dripped down onto your neck.

" Ho-Hoolan." You croaked out. It felt like sandpaper all down your throat to speak. At your weak voice, Hoolan leaned down a little. A desperate look in his inky black eyes. You stopped thrashing, even though the pain in your leg was still unbearable.

" Please... Just let me die Hoolan," He reeled back as if he was just punched in the pace with a spiked glove. How could you even suggest such a thing to him? You continued though. "Please... I'm in so much pain Hoolan, I can't do anything anymore, please Hoolan... let me go... If you really love me you'll let me go,"

Hoolan looked as if his whole world was drying up right before his eyes. His grip on your arms was almost nonexistent now. His hands were just barely on your arms now, But you still held on to his in a tight grip. Although to his it was probably no tighter than his own grip.

" Y/N." Hoolan whimpered out your name in a broken tone, and it almost broke your heart, even if he was the monster who did this to you. " I can't do that, I can't do that,"

" Please Hoolan!" You strangled out. " I can't survive down here, I never could, especially not now, my kind isn't... isn't meant to live like this," At your words it was like a switch flipped on in his head, a new look crossed over his eyes, HIs grip returned again, and he leaned down and rested his forehead against your own. Looking into your eye's intently.

" I'm so sorry Y/N, I'm sorry for all the hurt I have caused you, I'm sorry I did this to you. I'll make it better for you, I promise, things are going to be better from now on. I'm going to fix this. I'm so sorry, but I have to hurt you one last time, But I will never hurt you again, It's going to be better, just hold on," He said, bringing his hands up and holding your face.

Wait, what did he mean by he had to hurt you one last time? You didn't ponder it anymore though because Hoolan crashed his lips to yours in a desperate, and pleading kiss. Begging you to not give up just yet. His beard tickled your face but you hardly even felt it. After a moment he pulled away and looked into you E/C eyes for a split second before pulling away completely and hovered over your left leg.

" I'm sorry polyp," He choked out, raising his right hand.

" Wai- Hoolan wha-," You tried to say, but before you could get anything out his had morphed into a bigger muscled claw that held razor sharp blades on the end of the fingers. Before you could cry out, the claw dug into the flesh of your left thigh. Right above the wound, and right below where you leg met your body. In one swift tug, the leg was separated from your body.

You let out the loudest scream in your life and started thrashing again. Your vision becoming blurrier by the second. As your vision faded you saw Hoolan being bathed in bright red blood that was spurting from the space where your left leg had been just a second before. The thrashing didn't last long however, for just a few seconds after the horrific event, your mind had had too much, and shut off.

- -

Sometime later, you gained consciousness again. Which was surprising, because you honestly thought you would have died from Hoolan ripping your entire leg off. However, you weren't in agony anymore. Not to get you wrong, you were still in pain, however, it was a bearable pain. And you were actually warm, and laying on something...soft. And your hair was being swayed gently.

Even though you were conscious, your eyes wouldn't open for several moments, but when they finally did, you almost thought you really were dead for a second. For instead of waking up in the darkness of the Abyssal cave. You woke up in the sun, on a warm, breezy, white beach.