Suffering

The old man eased in closer.

*Tip*

Each step that he makes approaches closer. The noises his shoes makes, appeared louder each step.

*Thawk*

The resounding thud that came each time the cane struck the brick ground. 

Frei yelled internally, at the fact that the old man that he feared was coming straight towards him. He braced himself, gritting his teeth hard, preparing to immediately rush out of the cabinet to attack the old man once he got close enough to striking distance.

He got into striking distance, Frei thought. He forcefully pushed the cabinet doors and jumped towards the old man. Only to miss and be apprehended immediately. 

The old man grabbed Frei's bruised, twig-like arm and chained him to the wall, beside Berg. "Heh, nice try kid." He said, giggling at Frei's sad attempt at retaliation. "I dislike disobedience. What made you think you can just leave work and come here? To look for your friend perhaps?" He said as he traced his fingers all over the contours of Berg's bloodied, injured arm. Then immediately after, once his finger slid off the end of Berg's arm, his finger smoothly and swiftly changed into the form of a tiny blade, his index and middle fingers both lifted up while the others were curled in. The energy that Frei saw before formed around the fingers, molded around his fingers, into a form of a tiny blade.

Even when Frei wasn't directly touching it he could feel the same, familiar intensely dense energy formed around the old man's fingers. His eyes focused up on his fingers, trying to figure out how the old man did, to cut hard metals with ease, to form such dense energy that not even "Gloria" could do it. He looked closely, he felt closely the tight flows of mana that surrounds the old man's fingers like it's a solid yet moves like a liquid. Then unknowingly, he casted his flows of mana, each string similar but not the exact same as the old man's, Frei's was more amateurish, less-focused, less-dense, less-intense. 

The mana energy flowed towards his left hands, formless and unwilling. In that moment of casting, Frei wondered what mana truly was. Then his concentration was broken when he lifted his gaze up and caught the sight of a freakish smirk the old man had let out. The old man gazed intensely at Frei's left hands, with a freakishly smile on his face. Frei's mana dissipated. Then the man dropped his gaze and continued.

The old man stepped towards Frei, standing right in front of him. He held out his right hand towards Frei's chest. His middle and index fingers pointing towards Frei's right pecs, then he leaned in closer. Once the tip of the mana-formed blade reached Frei, the old man slowly swiped his fingers diagonally left, carving a small diagonal straight line on Frei's right pec. He continued until a circle was carved of blood and flesh, and inside the circle showed an empty skin canvas. On that canvas, the old man carved a symbol. A mark of ownership, the old man calls it.

Frei felt a stinging pain as his fleshes were inscribed and carved out into a symbol. His hands clenched into a tight fist, he bit his lower lip, trying as hard as he could to endure and hide the burning sting. He stared at the basement ceiling, trying to distract himself from the pain, but as much as he tried to hide himself from the burning sensation around his pecs, his body reacted, shaking in absolute pain as his flesh was being carved out and thrown right beside him. However it could've been worse, if the mana-formed blade wasn't as sharp or were dulled it would be excruciatingly more painful for him. 

After the carving ended, Frei could feel the openness of his carved fleshes, the air became especially chill around those parts, and his right pecs had a numb feeling to it. Frei looked down at the symbols carved by the old man, the skin surrounding it beaming bright red, and the symbols were carved quite deep into Frei's flesh, leaving out a chunk of flesh right beside him. The symbol had two layers, the inside layer and the outer layer.

The inside layer was just a straight line formed into a circle, while inside the layer had a big letter CW carved out of the fleshes. An abbreviation of the name "CornWall". However Frei didn't know it then, perplexed and befuddled by the pain, he only just saw the symbol as an act of punishment, he did not know what the significance of the symbols represents. After all, the pain was still fully ingrained into him and was not yet ready to leave.

Immediately after the marking, the old man grabbed a long rod from one of the dozens of carts in the area. Its end had a round-shaped flat disk, its width was around 5 centimeters or 2 inches thick. He grabbed the long rod with one hand, and the other was wrapped in a brown, thick cloth holding the thick, flat disk at the end of the rod. Then the temperature inside the basement rose, the disk turned bright orange with a hint of reddish tint. The old man removed his hand from the flat-disk and held the long rod in one hand with the disk facing the ground. He moved towards Frei menacingly, as steam came out from the smoldering orangish metal disk.

Frei stared terrified of what was about to come. The heat from the smoldering disk of hell eased in closer. He looked as he desperately hoped that it won't be what it thought it'd be. His body tightened up, his muscles tensed up in the suspension, desperately clinging to whatever hope he had left, as if it were preparing for what was about to come next. The carvings in his flesh itched as the blood dripped down from his smoothly carved flesh. Then all the suspense paused when he heard the old man calmly say, "Don't worry, It won't hurt that much." Followed by a quick lunge to the marking. 

The heat seared Frei's skin and flesh carvings, melting them and molding them into one. Frei yelled, he couldn't endure the pain anymore, together with the just-carved flesh and the smoldering metal increased the pain tenfold as the burning sensation of both of the heat and the markings rushed all throughout Frei's body, alerting his every sense of the concurrent pain. Once the metal was removed from Frei's pecs, the peachish skin and the bloodish flesh fused together like the green grassy ground and the blue flowing river. In the burnt area, the skin turned bright red from the heat and Frei could barely stay conscious. 

Frei breathed lightly.

His head was dizzy.

His eyes were vacant. Like the emptiness of an abyss.

Then he closed his eyes, and slept, chained to the wall, his feet not touching the ground.