AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s one thing to feel pain; it’s another to watch its physical manifestation right in front of you.
And as the receptacle continued to fill, I felt a part of me diminish, my life force waning.
The world around me began to blur, sounds became muffled, and the weight of what was happening pressed down on me, threatening to snuff out the little fight I had left.
But my thoughts kept drifting back to Violet.
To the promise I had made her, to protect her, to be with her.
She was my anchor, my lighthouse in this storm of pain and despair.
I had to hold on, if not for me, then for her.
The agony intensified with each pulse of the machine, each droplet of plasma filling the receptacle.
I was being drained, my very essence being extracted.
And all I could do was watch, feel…
And endure.
* * *
“Just a little more…”
Ikhax’s voice repeated the phrase like a broken record, echoing endlessly in the cavernous chamber of the facility.
Every time he said it, it was like a sharp knife to my already shattered psyche.
The machine’s extraction was slow, deliberate, and unyielding.
Each “little more” felt like an eternity, and I could sense my life force ebbing away, bit by bit.
I tried to focus, to ground myself, but the world around me felt distant, as though I was watching everything through a foggy pane of glass.
My body shook uncontrollably, the violent tremors echoing my internal turmoil.
Every cell within me felt raw, scraped clean of vitality.
The once unyielding straps that bound me now groaned and strained against the convulsions that wracked my frame.
In this moment of unparalleled pain, my thoughts went to the days before the infection.
Days when I had been dispatched to work in this very facility, before it became the catalyst for all that followed.
Days when the power that now defined me was just an abstract, a curious anomaly they were researching — and I was secretly planning to steal.
The irony was not lost on me.
Here I was, years later, being drained of that very power, my life teetering on the brink, in the heart of where it all began.
Despite the haze of pain and memories, my ears honed in on a sound that broke my heart: a soft, suppressed whimper.
It was Violet.
I mustered every ounce of strength to lift my head slightly, straining against the leather that held our gazes locked together.
Her eyes, usually so full of life, now mirrored my own pain and helplessness.
