[Stage Six: Mirror of the Soul – Minute 40]
"They aren't real..." That sentence spun in my mind like a cracked, ancient record, my only shield against the weight of reality. "Father is dead... charred in the hallway. Mother is dead... suffocated by the smoke. Lina is dead... I buried them in my memory long before they were buried in the earth." But... damn this cursed magic. How could an illusion be this vivid? The faint scent of Lina's vanilla perfume, somehow cutting through the stench of ash... the specific wrinkles of my father's scowling face, every single one familiar to me... my mother's tears shimmering under the harsh white light. Every detail was accurate to a painful degree, enough to make me doubt my own sanity.
The bucket in my hand was trembling, but I gripped it with every ounce of strength and willpower I possessed, my nails digging deep into the wood. Twenty minutes. That was all that remained.
The child, who had been laughing just a moment ago, suddenly stopped. He looked at me with boredom, then turned slowly toward Lina, who was weeping silently, huddling into herself. "Crying is boring..." the child muttered with annoyance. He walked toward her with small, innocent steps. He grabbed her soft hand and pulled it with a sudden, violent force that betrayed his small stature, forcing her to stand in the center of the room, right in the space between me and the clock. "Lina... come. Play with us."
The child looked at me, his green eyes gleaming with a new, sickeningly sadistic spark. "Ray... you are so resilient. It's irritating. A statue shouldn't remain standing." He raised Lina's slender, beautiful hand, spreading her five fingers in the air before me as if displaying a masterpiece. "Let's make the time pass faster." He smiled, speaking in a calm, playful tone: "For every ten seconds that pass while that bucket is in your hand... I will break one of your pretty girl's fingers." He narrowed his eyes mischievously. "What do you think? A simple equation. Drop the bucket... and her fingers survive."
I froze. Lina looked at me, her eyes wide with terror, tears streaming down soot-stained cheeks. "Ray? What is he saying? No... don't let him hurt me! I'm scared!"
I remained silent. The bucket in my hand was as steady as a rock, but my heart was bleeding. "It's an illusion... it's an illusion..." I screamed inside my head.
"You chose this," the child said coldly. He grabbed Lina's delicate pinky finger. With a quick, sudden, and lightning-fast motion... he twisted it all the way back until it touched the back of her hand.
CRACK!
The sound of the thin bone snapping was louder than anything else in the room. A dry, sharp, and revolting sound. "AAAAAAAAAAAH!" Lina shrieked. A cry of pure, genuine agony that pierced my eardrum and tore my heart to shreds. She collapsed to her knees, clutching her hand, trembling and convulsing, her face turning crimson from the intensity of the pain.
I closed my eyes for a single second, then forced them open. Stay still... stay still, you bastard. I gripped the bucket with both hands now, my muscles as rigid as stone, my veins bulging.
"One," the child counted flatly, looking at his illusory watch. Ten seconds passed. He grabbed the ring finger. He looked at me... then pressed.
CRACK!
"Please! Help me, Ray! Help me!" Lina screamed, writhing on the floor, trying in vain to pull her hand from the child's iron grip. Tears flowed, mixing with mucus and ash. She looked at me with eyes begging for mercy. Eyes that said: Why are you doing this to me?
"Stay still..." I whispered to myself, blood seeping from my lower lip, which I had bitten until it tore.
CRACK! The third finger (middle). CRACK! The fourth finger (index). CRACK! The thumb.
Lina's right hand had turned into a mangled mass of blue flesh and protruding bones at impossible angles. She was convulsing on the ground, her voice gone from the continuous screaming, reduced to a fragmented, hoarse moan that sounded like a death rattle. The child looked at me. The bucket didn't shake. Not a drop fell. "Stubborn..." the child growled with resentment. He kicked Lina in the stomach with immense force, then stepped his small foot onto her healthy left hand, pinning it to the floor. "If you want me to stop... just... drop the bucket, and I'll let her go." He looked at me defiantly. "It's in your hands, hero. You are the one torturing her with your silence."
I looked at Lina. She was crawling toward me slowly, her face pressed against the ground, her broken hand trembling before her. "Please, Ray..." she whispered, her voice choked with tears and pain. "He's breaking me... please drop the bucket... make him stop! Don't you love me? Am I not your friend?"
Her words were knives dipped in salt. "I love you..." I screamed in the locked cell of my mind. "I love you more than my own life. But you are not Lina. Lina is dead. You are just a goddamn test." I didn't move. I remained as solid as a mountain of ice. Fifteen minutes left.
The child sighed, shaking his hand in "boredom." "Fine... fingers didn't work. Let's move to the next level." He raised his small foot high in the air. He brought it down with superhuman force... directly onto Lina's fragile ribcage.
CRUUUNCH!
The sound of collective ribs shattering was terrifying, like the sound of a wooden crate being crushed. Lina immediately vomited blood. The bright crimson stained the pristine white floor. She took one last gasp, her eyes fixed on me. "Ray... save me..." She was crying blood. Her eyes dimmed, losing the spark of life. "Save me... please..."
I looked at her. A broken, dead gaze, filled with silent apology. I said in the depths of my soul, as if casting a final protection spell on my collapsing mind: "You are not real... you are not real... forgive me." I didn't move. The bucket did not fall.
The child left her there, a lifeless heap of flesh and blood, gasping her final breaths through a bloody gurgle. Then, he turned slowly... toward my father. My father, who had been watching the scene with paralyzed horror, tried to back away. "No... stay away from me, you monster!" But the child was faster. A flash, and he was in front of him. He grabbed my father by the collar of his scorched shirt and dragged him to the center of the room, throwing him beside Lina's still-twitching body.
The child looked at me with a wide, demonic grin: "Your lover was no use... let's try the dear father. Perhaps the blood bond is stronger?" The child pulled a long, shiny, and razor-sharp knife from his pocket. "For every minute that passes... I will cut a piece of him." He slid the cold blade along my father's trembling arm. "Maybe his right hand... maybe the left... or a leg... who knows?" He gave an innocent laugh. "A game of chance."
The first minute passed. SHLICE! The knife fell with lightning speed. My father's right hand flew from the wrist. Blood erupted like a red fountain. My father didn't scream immediately. He held his breath from the shock, his eyes bulging, then he let out a muffled, primal roar of pain, falling to his knees as he clutched the stump of his severed hand. He looked at me. It wasn't a look of pleading. It wasn't a look of fear. It was a look of pure malice. A look of hatred no father should ever hold for his son. "Don't save me..." my father said, gritting his teeth as blood covered his face and gray hair. "Kill me... don't let this monster save me! I want nothing from you! You are not my son!" He spat blood toward me. His words were sharper than the knife cutting him. He preferred death and dismemberment over owing his life to a monster like me.
Ray... watches. The bucket is steady. But tears stream from my crimson eyes in silence, burning my cheeks like acid. "Father... forgive me... you are not my father. My father loved me."
Another minute passed. SHLICE! The child amputated my father's right leg at the knee. My father fell on his side, unable to move. The bleeding was massive, a pool of blood expanding to reach the child's feet. A third minute passed. SHLICE! The left leg flew off.
My father was now... just a torso, a head, and one hand, lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, next to the broken Lina. He raised his head with extreme difficulty, blood leaking from his mouth with every breath. His eyes cursed me even as he drew his final breath. "Monster..." he whispered, and died with his eyes open, staring at me in eternal accusation.
I looked at him with a broken gaze. My soul was being torn to pieces, but my body was as steady as steel. The bucket hadn't moved a millimeter. The paint hadn't spilled.
The child stopped. His hands were stained with blood up to the elbows. He looked at the bucket, still filled to the brim. Then he looked at me. His childlike features began to shift. The smile disappeared. Real anger... the anger of an entity... began to take hold of him. He hadn't expected this steadfastness. He hadn't expected me to sacrifice them. He threw the knife to the floor with a metallic ring. He walked angrily toward the final corner. Toward my mother. She was standing there, trembling, covering her eyes with her hands and sobbing silently so as not to see the carnage, muttering desperate prayers.
The child grabbed her gray hair violently and dragged her to the center, throwing her on top of the corpses of those she loved. My mother screamed in terror: "Ray! My son! Help me!"
The child looked at me, his green eyes turning pitch black with the intensity of his rage and malice. "So..." he growled with a dual, demonic voice that shook the room, "You are still standing? You don't care? Has your heart died completely?" He placed his small hand around my mother's throat and began to squeeze. "Fine, Ray... you asked for this."
"Watch your mother die by your hand."