The Tiger King (Chaelisa)

91| Visits

Previously:  Rosé reunites with Ella and Jisoo at Rkive Labs. Jinyoung shows Tiger King/Lisa to Chaesoo. Rosé attacks Jinyoung and successfully negotiates for an extension on her meeting with Lisa. Jongin brags about his kidnapping of Bang Chan and Jacob and shows Jennie the manufacturing plant where he puts Children of Justice members to work for him making his own version of TK. Jongin discusses his plans for Tiger King. Jongin and Jennie clash over the Jinyoung confrontation. Jennie fears the line between Jongin and Jinyoung is blurring. Hani and Chanyeol get a breakthrough on their search for Jennie and stumble on the Children of Justice. Hani visits the compound and later talks with Hoyeon and Hyunji (now ex-cultists) to confirm that Jennie had indeed been there.

The weary monster huddled in its cell, nose and mouth leaking a steady stream of yellow. It tried to scoop it back up and lick it from its hands, desperate and clumsy. It coughed and wheezed, its whole body thrumming like a livewire without its precious supply of TK.

More. More. More...

Soon, its fingernails would dig into its sides and it would claw at flesh, dredging up howls and screams and rattling its fellow cellmates who joined in a shrill screeching cacophony.

But it would never be enough to quench the tongues of fire beneath its skin, corroding it from the inside like acid.

Every night, it had to undergo this agony until the morning, when they dunked it into the vat of TK-Ultra and it sprung back to life, reinvigorated, a phoenix reborn to do its master's bidding.

Morning was power and strength and a yellow hazy blur of rage and blood.

But night was darkness and pain and suffering as its body broke down, and it howled and moaned until they shut it up with the stingers. Sometimes, it was able to ram its knuckles so deep in its throat that it muffled the screams, biting down hard enough to gouge marks in the skin that healed when TK in its veins was replenished.

The monster oozed yellow—when they switched on the lights in the morning, it would be lying in puddles of yellow spit and yellow blood from the gashes it inflicted upon itself as it bit and tore its body for any drop of relief, any drop of TK.

"Boss, this can't keep going on every night, the men are rattled as it is. Can't you sedate it?"

"A little more, Jay-TG. It has to endure..."

Footsteps and voices approached. Heaving, the monster crawled and dragged itself to the door to wait obediently to be fetched.

Vaguely, something registered in the lucid area of its mind that this would be the second time being fetched in a short span of time.

"Two more days." Ringmaster's voice, clearer and close enough to make the monster cower but hold its position.

A sizzle of electricity was all the warning the monster got before the cell lit up with white-blue light of an electric grid wall, separating the monster and the door. The monster never flinched, partly because it was used to it but also because the stinging pain singing in its veins was already building towards a crescendo.

The sharp hum hurt the monster's sensitive ears but Ringmaster stepped into the cell with a man in black by his side, completely unaffected.

Ringmaster's face looked oddly different, puffy in places where it was usually hard lines but the monster barely noticed it because suddenly, beyond the wretched scent of sweat, blood and fear, a new scent gently caressed its inflamed nose, faint but there: floral and feminine.

Ringmaster watched it through one good eye, his smile always adoring.

"Soon, my Tiger King. Soon, you'll be free. You'll be better and stronger than anything," he whispered, barely audible above the electric thrum in the air.