Growing up, my auntie Shanice and Nia often praised me for my memory. I won't say I ever quite got it to be photographic like Wiz's. But, it still often served me well during tests or family game nights. Outside of Jasmine's incessant ramblings, it was probably the only thing that kept me sane during all those months I stayed in the Arabian Desert.

As the years passed, though, what was originally a blessing quickly became a curse. The past, which I once did anything to travel back towards, has morphed into an inescapable prison of my own making. Being free from its unchanging gaze hasn't happened for even a moment. Medicine, alcohol, or sleep seems to drive back the horrid whispers my past specters give me.

This is why I often reflect on how terrifyingly little I recall from this part of the story. Only it's brutal end. Inside my little soundproof room, time for that brief period lost its effect on me entirely. Trapping Asad and me in my self-made limbo. At that point, whatever remaining bits of decency remained had utterly vanished, devolving me into nothing more than my baser instincts.

My hand hovered over various tools as a child would muse over the playthings in his toy chest. My possibilities were limitless. I commanded an impressive arsenal from red hot flares to rusty kitchen cutlery, sturdy brass knuckles, sizzling tasers, and hardy construction tools, so I finally asked my prisoner for help.

"What do you think we should try next? I already used up all the battery acid I could find, so don't bother. I'm sure salt could be a decent substitute, though," I said amusingly.

I got met with an oppressive silence for half a minute straight. Forcing me to dominate the conversation for once.

"Answer me now, Asad. I know you're not dead. This is the eighth time you have tried this trick."

Then again, I couldn't exactly blame the bastard for not wishing to speak. While Asad wasn't the first or last person I tortured, he was undoubtedly my magnum opus. Held together by filth-ridden bandages and coarse stitches, I had reduced Asad into nothing more than Frakenstein's monster.

So many first and second degrees burns lined up his bare chest from the corrosives, flames, and electricity you'd think I was spit-roasting him. With how bruised I left his upper body from the bludgeoning and beatings, I left him tenderized at the very least. The lower half, though, was where I concentrated most of the lacerations and piercings. Slit ligaments, torn-up tendons, and cut hamstrings ran so deep now his feet were practically hanging on by a thread.

Yet through it all, I calculated each blow so he would be present for all of it. To make especially sure this monster would understand the pain I suffered a thousand-fold. And as I watched my carefully crafted corpse twitch its remaining right arm and flex fingers long since I had their nails violently ripped out, he began to coarsely wheeze out his next words amidst the canvas of his dried blood.

"D-does it e-even matter?"

"Of course it does. It's a choice, after all. That's more than you ever gave me."

"A-as if I ever dealt cruelty this harsh."

"No, I can safely say you didn't even come close to the amount of carnage I've caused you. And yet I still think you unleashed far more significant pain. Because whether it be through fate or luck, you allowed me to live with mine. I must persist in this dreaded world with a constant reminder of everything you've stolen from me till I get put in the ground. So for the remainder of our time together, I think it's more than fair to teach you physically, mentally, and spiritually precisely what it's like to be the only one left standing. To spend every waking moment haunted by scars you can't ever quell. To wretchedly live on with a survivor's burden. Whether this continues for one day or one decade makes no difference. Because as long as you are my prisoner, I'll lock you away from even Death's sweet embrace," I said with peaked bloodlust.

My tortured words seemed to echo within the blank room before giving away to another damning silence. Only to be unexpectedly replaced with stirring sounds from Asad. Like his namesake, it started as low rumblings, stirrings I could barely hear, growing steadily in power before, soon enough, it erupted in a literal roar of raucous laughter. Every horrid cackle pricked at my skin like tiny needles. Surprise and anger took over in equal measure.

"Why are you laughing?! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING??!!"

In response, an unearthly aura started overtaking Asad, filling his shattered physique with so much vigor his wounds didn't seem to exist.

"HOW COULD I POSSIBLY NOT, SARAH!?"

The utterance of my name struck with more force than the multistory fall. So much so that I took a step back, a detail the lion seemed to relish as he started to maul my now mousy stature.

"When you revealed yourself, Sarah, I felt respect, not despair. Meeting my end against a worthy opponent is all I can ask for in this uncertain underworld. Now that I see you up close, I realize all I see is cowardice,"

Before he could say another word, I kicked him straight in his collapsed right lung, leading him to fall with my boot to his throat.

"You want to talk about cowardice?! First, you stalked people and picked them off at their weakest. Then, pouncing in and out of the shadows like the fucking felines you're named after," I said ruthlessly.

"Because I was free to do so! I gathered allies and hunted enemies since no one else dared to do so. Every action I've carried has been through my lionheart while you feast on nothing but fear and dread. When I die, it will be without regrets and with all my comrades. So tell me, Sarah, what exactly do you have even after victory?"

Asad's damning question raked across my body, shredding my composure as I dove through a frenzy of red-hot thorns. Sickening dread consumed any word I could answer with as my opponent continued to capitalize on his role reversal.

"I'm your prisoner? Don't make me laugh. The only one trapped here. I, on the other hand, am free."

As soon as he finished his statement Asad's wheezing breath was replaced with a dark pit of blood. The move was so sudden that it was already too late by the time I shook me out of shock. Against my best efforts, Asad resolved to bite through his tongue, even with chipped teeth. Instantly my medical training took over, trying in vain to treat him. Out of insanity, desperation, or villainous sadism, I couldn't tell.

"No. No. No. No. DAMN IT ALL!"

Tears formed as I saw Asad's life answer the reaper's call with a peaceful smile. Years of work eroded themselves in an instant. Forming a blackened pit within my heart so deep I couldn't but fall in. And fall further. I did, as I couldn't help but weep in my loneliness.

"I'm sorry," I kept repeating into the ether.

Whether I was saying it to Jasmine, Asad, or even myself, I still couldn't tell.