94 Heaven Built Upon Hell (1/2)
It was late; past midnight, in fact. The peaceful city of Bella-Vel and its residents had fallen asleep…
”P-Please have mercy, sir! I don't know what you're talking about!” said a disheveled man in a ragged voice. He looked paler than a corpse as he begged on his knees to be spared.
Aside from a certain ghost.
”We'll see about that, won't we?” said the indescribable shadow as it stepped towards the kneeling man. It'd chased the man into an empty, abandoned alley far removed from sight.
The trembling man continued to beg for mercy as tried his damnedest to persuade the shadow into letting him leave. He'd give the monster anything it desired as long as it'd spare him.
”L-Let's talk this out, sir! I-I've got money — tens of millions of credits, all yours if you let me go! I can get you anything with my family's resources! Beautiful women and men, priceless artefacts, status and power — whatever you desire, I can get it for you, sir!”
…And if bribes would not work then he'd resort to threatening it, instead.
”D-Don't! Stop! I'm a member of the Dragoncrest family! Don't you get it?! My family owns this entire region! If you do anything to me, my family will hunt you down and flay you alive! My family's conquerors will make you wish for death once they catc—”
A scream echoed out of the dark alley, but it'd never reach anyone's ears. He'd been taken; spirited away into an artificial world of darkness created by the shadow.
His own subconscious. He'd been trapped… in his own mind — inside of a dream that Lu'um had constructed for Reed to use.
A false, nightmarish world where he could interrogate their targets for information without causing a disturbance in reality. They'd torture people in a way that'd never give away their identities or leave a trail.
It was an idea that Lu'um had proposed, much to Reed's surprise.
Dreams, by definition, are vague, ambiguous things in the first place and… everybody has a nightmare every once and while, right?
Most of the time, people forget their dreams after waking up, anyway.
Still, haunting people in their sleep like a bogeyman felt a bit unpleasant to Reed. He'd do it, but didn't want to get too accustomed to the act of doing it.
That was that last thing he wanted to happen — for it to become normal to him. He'd keep himself in check, remind himself why he was doing it in the first place.
Not to make people suffer. I just want answers, nothing more.
It'd be a cold day in hell before he'd needlessly abuse his powers to make others suffer without a justifiable reason. He'd rather die than let himself become a heartless tyrant, a power-tripping bastard.
He'd seen it happen all his life — how power corrupted people.
From the rich to the poor, the law-abiding to the criminal. It didn't matter. They were all the same, no matter their station in life…
Reed sighed and said, ”It seems that this one didn't know anything either, huh…” The man they had broken had been a contender and high-ranking family member of the Dragoncrest family that they'd tracked down over their hunt for information on Astrid and Sebastian.
He grabbed the broken, babbling contender and said, ”Tell me what you know or I'll show you what I'm really capable of…”
The man sobbed and incoherently said, ”Nooo!! P-Please… I can't tell you about it! I-If I do, they'll take me down there and never let me leave! I-I… I don't want to go down there!”
”Speak! Before I carve the truth out of you myself!” said Reed. He grabbed the man's head and extended one his hands, which he'd turned into a terrifying claw of rotting gore and sharpened bone.
He gently caressed the man's face with his mangled claw and then put one of his sharpened bone fingers in front of one of the man's eyes.
”A-AHHH! P-PLEASE, MERCY! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO XIBALBA!! I DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN THERE EVER AGAIN! I-I CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING!”
The man howled in desperation, sobbing incessantly in between his deranged pleas for forgiveness. Reed had finally broken the man to his core — he had completely lost his mind.
It was a terrible thing to witness and it sickened Reed deep inside. He did not want to do this, but he'd already sworn an oath. He couldn't back down from his own word, especially when he gave it to her.
He was a walking down a fine line and knew that one day, he'd have to make a choice. Naturally, he hoped that such a day would never come, but with his atrocious luck, it was all but guaranteed.
His morals and the oath he'd made were incompatible with one another and he knew that. Even so, he'd persisted to keep them both, the innocent, well-intentioned fool that he was.
One called for righteousness, fairness, and freedom — to uphold what had never been afforded to him back in his world.
The other called for him to abandon everything he held dear if it meant winning. Making sure to prioritize the safety of the people he cared about over his morals.