Abyssal (ManxMan)

Silent Treatment

There are over 7 Abyssal chapters available on my Patreon. If you'd like to read ahead and also support me! ;D My Patreon also has NSFW, exclusive Abyssal and other story chapters and artwork that you'll only find there if you're interested! :D

Silent Treatment

Kai cried out and doubled over in pain, clutching his abdomen. "What the hell are you doing to me?!" he growled past clenched, shuddering teeth.

"Just bear it for a second longer. Just a second longer!" Erasmus said. Sweat trickled down his brow and dripped onto the floor. The hand he was holding up pointed at Kai glowed a fierce red that cast a freaky reddish hue across the entire laboratory.

"Ahh!" Kai cried out, squeezing his eyes shut, as if that could somehow make the pain fade away. His howling cries shook the laboratory's stone walls and trembled the delicate glass apparatus. He sounded like a werewolf being tortured in a cave.

"You're hurting him!" Ryodan barked, his voice thunderous.

"That's the point!"

"If you harm a single perfect hair on our prince's head-"

"Be quiet and let me concentrate!"

Kai's heart was being ripped from his chest. Someone had shoved a hand through his ribcage, pried the ribs aside, grabbed his beating heart, squeezed and then ripped it right out of his chest cavity.

His knees buckled and he fell -but Ryodan was there to catch him before his head struck the ground.

"Shit. Stop it now!"

"Fuck." Erasmus cursed, and through the lips of a child, it sounded so very wrong.

Kai's vision blurred and then his eyes rolled back into his sockets.

****

"He didn't show." Kai said once he regained consciousness. He expected to feel the pain or some dull ache at the very least, but he felt absolutely fine.

A glance around revealed to him that he lay on a bed in one of the mansion's rooms. Erasmus sat on a high stool, elevating him to Kai's eye level. Ryodan was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that Erasmus didn't use bioluminescent jellyfish to light up his mansion, something he found to be commendable. Instead, a blue fire crackled in the hearth, warming him to a suffocating point. Kai recalled reading somewhere that a blue fire was more powerful and burned hotter than a red fire.

As if sensing his discomfort, Erasmus waved his hand and the blue fire instantly died.

Kai wanted to do magic too. If there was a way to learn it, he'd do it. It would add to his non-existent arsenal of weapons.

"It appears your connection has been severed." Erasmus said, his face grim.

Kai closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't have to ask what that meant to realize how bad it sounded.

He'd screwed up big time, though he couldn't remember much about it. Therein lay the crux of the problem. Both he and Erasmus suspected he'd done something -other than punch the golden merman in the face and command him to leave-to anger him beyond responsiveness. In other words, he was getting the silent treatment. And not even the looming threat of death could get the Spirit out of its reclusion.

"Can you remember why the Spirit is so dissatisfied with you?" Erasmus said.

Kai sat up and leaned against the headboard. "No, I don't. I've tried to remember what happened in the arena, how I'd teleported out of Nostraza, but I just... can't."