@dreadwyrmtrance liked for a starter ⌈ ♞ ⌉
╰◌♞
Drifting in and out of consciousness. In and out. Over and over. After some time, he stopped trying to decipher what was real and what wasn’t. Forced, over and over, into visions of the lives of others. Their emotions bleeding into his. His own past, fractured into pieces. All the people he had loved and lost. It was hard to remember which were his and which were the countless prisoners they forced him into the minds of. His visions were impossible to control, so they tried increasingly intrusive methods to trigger it. Until they almost sucked him dry of aether. It hurt. And when he didn’t obey, it was just like at the prison camp. The abuses they all suffered bled into his mind. That fear, that despair... All his now.
When the people in vaguely familiar uniforms stormed the facility, he had just finished a session. He barely had any energy as he laid among the corpses of those they ripped the aether from. A part of him that hadn’t been destroyed kicked to life. His heart raced and a single thought spun in his mind.’I’m not dead...! Please... Save me..!’ How many times had he dreamed of rescue? Of mercy? A trembling, bruised hand reaches weakly for the people in uniform. His body is drained. Pushed to the limit. No words can manage to leave his throat. Just a whimper. He has little hope they will see him or that this is not simply a hallucination. He has survived this by the Imperials pumping him full of the aether of others to keep him alive, but he is drained. Barely clinging to awareness. His darkened and blurry vision allows little in terms of truly seeing, all he knows is that he heard sounds of battle and that he sees people not in the usual uniforms.
“He...l...p....” It is less than a whisper. A scratchy whimper, barely audible. His trembling hand reaching for whoever is closest. A person, maybe a woman, not in the uniform really. He can’t make out many details, as strained as his vision is. “....pl...eas...e...” His vision goes black for a moment, his hand crashed to the ground. Would he be just another body in this damned place...? His vision returns, still too dark and blurry. He’s fighting so hard to stay awake.












