Chapter 86: Judgment Served
The Architect stood motionless in the concrete room, watching as Firefly's body convulsed on the floor.
Garfield Lynns lay in a twisted heap, his limbs jerking at irregular intervals. His eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth. His breathing was shallow and erratic mixed with occasional whimpers that barely qualified as human sounds.
The telepathic assault had lasted seventeen minutes in real time. In Firefly's mind, it had been hours. Days, perhaps. Time had no meaning in the nightmare the Architect had constructed—a place where the laws of physics bent to psychological torment, where the worst fears of a remorseless killer could be made manifest and inescapable.
The Architect checked his watch. The neural patterns should be stabilizing soon. Firefly would regain partial consciousness within the next sixty seconds.
Right on schedule, Firefly's eyes fluttered. His pupils contracted, dilated, contracted again as his brain struggled to reconnect with his body. A low moan escaped his throat.
"Please..." The word was barely audible, slurred like a stroke victim. "Please... kill me..."
The Architect tilted his head, studying the broken man on the floor.
"Please..." Firefly's voice cracked.
His hand moved weakly, fingers scratching against the concrete as if trying to pull himself toward some imagined escape. "Just... kill me... please... make it stop..."
His eyes, now focused enough to see, found the Architect standing over him. Recognition flashed across Firefly's face, followed immediately by a fresh wave of terror.
"They're still... still inside..." Firefly clutched at his chest, his distended abdomen.
In reality, his body was unchanged—the swelling had been part of the nightmare.
But his mind couldn't distinguish between the telepathic horror and physical reality. "I can feel them... hear them..."
And indeed, he could.
Firefly could hear whispers that weren't there. He felt movement beneath his skin that didn't exist and tasted ash & burned flesh.
"Kill me," Firefly begged again. "Please, please, just kill me, I can't—they won't stop laughing—please—"
The laughter was real to him. The Architect could see it in the way Firefly's eyes darted around the room, tracking sounds only he could hear.
"Kill me!" Firefly screamed, then dissolved into sobs. "Kill me, kill me, killmekillmekillme—"
The Architect let him beg.
Let the words pour out in a stream of broken pleas.
When the begging had degraded to nothing more than repetitive whimpers, the Architect finally spoke.
"No."
The single word cut through Firefly's hysteria. Hope, that last filthy ember, died in his eyes.
"This isn't over, Garfield," the Architect said quietly.
"You will die tonight. That much is certain. But I won't grant you the mercy of a quick end. And I certainly won't let you die in a way that brings you any comfort."
"I don't—I don't want comfort—" Firefly gasped. "Just—just make it stop—"
"You worship fire," the Architect continued, as if Firefly hadn't spoken. "You've spent your entire life building an identity around flame. You call it beautiful. Pure. The ultimate expression of power and transformation."
He crouched down, bringing his face level with Firefly's.
"So yes, you'll die by fire. Your precious element will consume you, just as it consumed your victims."
Something like hope flickered in Firefly's eyes—the desperate, broken hope of a man who saw death as release.
The Architect saw it and smiled coldly.
"But I won't allow you to enjoy it. Not even in your current state. Not even for a second." He reached out, his hand hovering over Firefly's forehead. "I'm going to ensure that the fire you loved so much becomes your greatest torment."
"What—what do you—"
The Architect's fingers touched Firefly's temple, and Firefly's question became a scream.
Pain receptors. Sensory interpretation. The way the brain processed temperature, pressure, texture.
He was rewriting how Firefly's nervous system worked.
"I'm not changing what you'll feel," the Architect explained as he worked, "I'm changing how you'll feel it. Fire produces heat—that's a simple chemical reaction. But heat is just energy. And energy can be interpreted by the brain in many ways."
Firefly convulsed under his touch, but the Architect held firm.
"When the flames touch you, your nerves will still fire. Your brain will still receive signals. But instead of heat—instead of the warmth you've worshipped your entire life—you'll feel cold. The absolute, bone-deep cold of frostbite."
"No—" Firefly's voice was weak.
"And not just cold," the Architect continued. "I'm mapping in some other sensations specially for you. The acidic burn of being dissolved alive. The tearing agony of flesh being shredded. The crushing pressure of being slowly compressed. Every worst pain imaginable, all at once, in the place where you expected to feel warmth."
He removed his hand and stood up.
Firefly lay gasping on the concrete, his nervous system now fundamentally altered.
The Architect walked across the room to where Firefly's equipment lay. He picked up the flamethrower he brought back when firefly was undergoing his nightmare.
The tanks were still half-full. More than enough for what came next.
"Please..." Firefly whispered one last time. "Don't... don't do this..."
"You showed no mercy to anyone,Firefly" the Architect said, adjusting the fuel mixture on the flamethrower.
He turned to face Firefly. "Why would I show you any?"
"I'm sorry—" The words tumbled out in a rush. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I was sick, I needed help, please, I'm sorry—"
"Sorry won'tbring back the dead," the Architect said flatly. "And sorry wont extinguish the pain you spread."
He raised the flamethrower.
"No—wait—WAIT—"
The Architect pulled the trigger.
---
The flames erupted from the nozzle in a brilliant orange stream. They struck Firefly's prone form and spread across his body quickly.
And Firefly screamed.
As the fure licked across Garfield's chest, the sound that tore out of him was not human anymore. It was a raw, animal scream—an unfiltered howl of someone being reinvented into pain.
The Architect kept the flames steady, ensuring complete coverage. He didn't rush. He didn't flinch at the sounds Firefly made. He simply stood there, administering what he considered to be justice.
Firefly's body thrashed and writhed as the fire consumed him. His screams rose and fell, sometimes breaking into words—"COLD, IT'S SO COLD, STOP, PLEASE, IT HURTS, IT HURTS SO MUCH"—before dissolving back into incoherent agony.
The flames burned hotter. Brighter.
And slowly, inevitably, Garfield Lynns died.
His screams faded to whimpers. His movements became weak twitches. His body, consumed by the element he had worshipped his entire life, blackened and reduced to a charred husk.
When the Architect finally released the trigger, silence fell over the room.
What remained was barely recognizable as human—a charred husk with smoke rising from the carbonized flesh.
The Architect set down the flamethrower and approached the body. He stood over it for a long moment, his expression hidden behind his mask, his thoughts his own.
There was no joy in his face. No victory dance. Just the iron quiet of a man who had finished a task.
"May those you killed find peace now. May their suffering be balanced. May justice, real justice, finally be served."
He bent down and grabbed the charred remains by what had once been an arm.
The Architect dragged it toward the door, the sound of charred flesh scraping against concrete filling the room.
He paused at the threshold, looking back at the space where Garfield Lynns had died.
"One more filth down," he said quietly to the empty room. "So many more to go."
Then he pulled the body through the doorway and disappeared into the darkness beyond, leaving only the smell of smoke and ash behind.
Note : A short chapter to wrap up the arc. I've been getting busier lately, so the schedule might be a little chaotic — but 4–5 chapters a week are guaranteed.
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Advanced chapters on patre*n
DC : Architect of Vengeance
patre0n*c*m/Lord_Meph1sto