Aether Nexus: Curse of Love & Hatred

Giona’s screams grew louder, more desperate, cutting through the darkness, as she thrashed beneath the weight of the men pinning her down.

Their hands pressed harder against her in response, and soon, their patience waned. Irritated by her struggling, one of them roughly forced her head down into the black, viscous substance, muffling her voice and cutting off her airway.

The substance seeped around her face, cold and suffocating, and panic replaced the air in her lungs as she fought to breathe.

The world blurred, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she felt her strength fading, her lungs burning for air.

Just as the edges of her vision darkened, the first man—the one with the grotesque smile—spoke up. "Be more gentle with her," he commanded, his tone eerily calm, "she may be a filthy witch, but she’s still Director Tehew’s prized test subject. Don’t break another man’s toys. Only the owner has that right."

The words sent a fresh wave of dread through Giona. 'Test subject.' That’s all she was to them. An object, a toy to be used and broken at their whims.

The two men complied immediately, easing their grip on her and allowing her to raise her head.

Giona gasped desperately, her lungs heaving as she coughed and sobbed, trying to reclaim the air she was denied. Her body trembled uncontrollably, the taste of both the strange substance and blood feeling the inside of her mouth. Still, she kept struggling.

The first man stepped closer, his smile still twisted across his face. “You’re a rowdy one, aren’t you?” he murmured, his voice dripping with a mocking tone. Without warning, he placed a hand on the nape of her neck, his fingers cold against her skin, causing Giona to yelp.

The air around his hand began to hum, the faint crackle of electricity filling the silence that followed. Giona barely had time to register what was happening before a jolt of searing pain shot through her body.

She screamed, her entire form convulsing as the electric shock coursed through her. The agony ripped through her like fire, stealing her breath. Finally, her vision flashed white as her senses were overwhelmed.

When the shock finally ceased, her body went limp, her muscles twitching without control. She could barely even keep her eyes open, her mind a haze of pain and fear.

The man who had shocked her gave a satisfied nod, then ordered his companions, “Lift her up. Bring her to the director.”

The two men lifted Giona’s limp body, dragging her along in an obedient manner.

Her head, that now felt like several tons, drooped to the side, her vision blurred and unfocused. She could barely make sense of what was happening, the world spinning around her as she was brought to an uncertain fate.

As Giona was dragged along, her consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, fading in and out. Each time she slipped back into awareness, the endless black abyss around her seemed to warp and shift.

At first, there was nothing—just the suffocating darkness. But as she fell into unconsciousness and back, bricks appeared out of nowhere, floating randomly in the void. She struggled to focus on them, her vision still blurry and her mind fogged with pain.

Then, the pain reached its apex, and her head drooped—the darkness swallowing her again. The next time she woke, more bricks had materialized. They weren’t just floating now; they were forming a structure—walls, closing in around her.

Her breath hitched as she tried to make sense of it, but her body was too weak, and she slipped back into unconsciousness once more. When her eyes fluttered open again, everything had changed. She was no longer in the abyss.

The bricks had fully formed into solid walls, enclosing her in a narrow corridor lined with stone-gray bricks. Torches flickered on the walls, their red flames casting long shadows that danced along the cold stone.

The footsteps of the men echoed in the hall, each step not only reverberating through the stone corridor, but also serving as a reminder of her grim fate.

Her consciousness wavered again, yet not fully, more of a slow blink. When she came to, something was different. The once red flames of the torches had flickered and changed, turning an eerie green, casting the surroundings in an unnatural, sickly glow.

The bricks now looked moldy, like the corridor had been left to decay, and the green flames gave the space a sinister, otherworldly hue.

As they ventured deeper into the eerie corridor, the atmosphere grew colder, the air thick with the stomach-churning scent of dampness, rot, and death. Giona's nose twitched with a sense of familiarity.

It was then that Giona’s heart started to pound in her chest as a horrifying realization crept into her mind. She recognized this place. The hallway they were moving through wasn’t just any corridor—it was that hallway, the one that led to the room where she had been experimented on.

"No... This place... Not again...!" she thought as she tried to move even a single finger. Alas, her body wouldn’t respond. Her muscles were weak, her limbs heavy, her mind clouded with fear and exhaustion.

However, it was her head that was the worst off. It throbbed as memories of the cold instruments, the unbearable pain, and the cruel faces of those who had treated her like a mere object flooded her mind. It not only paralyzed her with terror, but made her eyes burn from welling up tears.

She was at the mercy of those who abused her, trapped, just like before.

Suddenly, the men stopped. Giona's head jerked forward from the sudden lack of movement, and she instinctively lifted her gaze, only to be met with a sight that made her heart drop like a one ton brick—it was the doors.

The stainless steel pair of doors she knew all too well, gleaming cold and indifferent, standing at the end of the hallway. The insignia of the Soul Divination Council was etched into the steel, a cruel reminder of the authority they held over her very life. It was what marked the threshold of her suffering, the place where she had endured countless horrors.

She started to whimper as she stared at the familiar emblem, her chest tightening with helplessness. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t beg, couldn't fight—all she could do was wait.

After a few moments, the doors creaked open, groaning as they parted. The darkness within the room seemed to spill out like a thick and oppressive fog.

There, in the heart of the darkness, a pair of crimson eyes glowed, piercing through the gloom and locking onto Giona’s tear-streaked face. The crimson gaze reflected in her wide, terrified eyes, a silent promise of the torment that awaited her once again.

But then, as silent sobs started to wack her entire body, more eyes began to open behind the first. Dozens of smaller crimson eyes blinked into existence, one by one, peering at her from the shadows. Each new pair was as cold and soulless as the first, multiplying endlessly in the darkness. The room seemed alive with them, watching her with an unsettling intensity, as if the very shadows were mocking her helplessness.

Giona's heart pounded harder, her tears streaming down like a waterfall, yet her body remained limp, paralyzed by fear. All she could do was stare, the weight of the moment crushing her spirit.

The three cloaked men who had brought Giona here simply stopped. In unison, they bowed low, their heads dipping toward the floor in reverence.

The man in front, the one who had shocked Giona earlier, straightened slightly and spoke with a voice laced with servitude. "Just as ordered, Director Tehew, we have brought the girl."

His words echoed in the dim, torch-lit corridor, reverberating off the cold stone walls. There was no immediate response from the darkness, only the oppressive silence, broken only by the soft crackle of the eerie green flames and shallow breaths from the men holding Giona,

Despite all that had happened so far, it was those two words, 'Director Tehew', that were the final nail in the coffin. Giona knew he was the reason why her body was riddled with scars, why her childhood was taken, why she was subjected to such torment.

The mere mention of his name even made the two men holding Giona tremble. She could feel their fear through the faint tremors in their tightened grip, which only deepened the dread pooling in her chest.

The weight of the moment pressed down on the poor girl, the finality of being brought back to this place starting to sink in. She was once again at the mercy of the very people who had broken her over and over.

Finally, the original pair of crimson eyes closed—disappearing into the shadows. What followed could only come from Giona's worst nightmares.

"I see. Thank you, Captain Damien..."

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Next: (Chapter 53) Giona’s Nightmare: Part 3