The smoke crawled beneath his skin like molten steel, burning deep. Spreading throughout his body. Gabriel tried to scream, but only a strangled gasp escaped. Panic rose in his chest. Not from the pain, but from the realisation that something inside him was changing.
He began violently convulsing against the wall, the chains and the swords kept him firmly in place. The pain spread with the smoke. It was as though a thousand daggers were stabbing him at the same time. Cracks began appearing all over his body. Some small, some large.
Ariya, whose face had now gone back to normal, walked close to Gabriel and whispered in her soft, gentle voice into Gabriel's ear. "Please, Gabriel just tell me what you saw and what you heard."
Gabriel, still writhing in pain, didn't have the strength to muster any words.
Tears began sliding down Ariya's cheek. Her voice trembled with false pity. "I hate to see you like this. I am a creature of righteousness and mercy. Have I not shown you already how merciful I am?"
Gabriel wanted to believe her, wanted to believe she had a shred of decency. But every word dripped with the same false innocence as her smile.
The smoke from Gabriel's body slowly began to dissipate, and the pain began to dull.
"No more," he muttered with his head slumped towards the floor.
He closed his eyes tightly. Hoping he would wake from this nightmare.
When his eyes eventually opened, he was still staring at the cold basement floor.
Gabriel slowly lifted his head to look at Ariya.
Tears began to well up in his eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?" he cried "Whatever you want to know, I don't know"
Ariya's tears stopped, almost as if she could stop them on demand. She looked at the young Paladin with a sweet and innocent smile, "Oh, Gabriel, we know who you are. We know everything about you".
Gabriel's mind began wandering, "If they know who I am, why do they have me? I'm a nobody, a Paladin student.
Gabriel slumped his head in defeat. It was as though the innocent, sweet woman in front of him was the devil.
How could someone commit such acts with an innocent look and a gentle smile on their face?
Gabriel looked up in defeat again. His eyes were darting around the room, looking for a means of escape or any form of reprieve from what he was currently going through.
He drew a deep breath as he tried hard to calm himself.
He looked again at Ariya, his heart racing, feeling as though it would burst from his chest any minute.
A memory triggered as his eyes met hers.
He was sitting in the library with one of the nuns from the church. The nun Melissa, who wasn't older than 20, was lecturing Gabriel about his lack of effort in learning Elvish. Her beautiful, innocent eyes stared at Gabriel whilst scolding him. Gabriel was a typical young man who just wanted to train in magic and swordcraft. Gabriel rolled his eyes at Melissa, who instinctively picked up the book she was trying to get Gabriel to engage with and hit him on the side of the head with it.
It wasn't a hard hit. Just enough to remind him of respect.
"Knowledge will save your life, Gabriel"
"You can be a master swordsman or a sage-level mage, but if you lack knowledge, you will be no better than a common bandit."
"If you're facing a threat which you can't muscle your way out of, what will you do?"
Gabriel looked at Melissa silently for a moment. "How will Elvish save me, sister?"
Melissa again instinctively picked up the book and hit Gabriel in the side of the head.
"I'm not talking about just Elvish you silly boy, I'm talking about all knowledge. Putting in the same amount of effort into your studies as you do with your Sword and magic training."
Gabriel and Melissa both stared at each other for a second, and both burst into laughter.
Gabriel was snapped back to reality by Ariya's innocent chuckle.
Back then, the library smelled like old parchment and incense. Melissa's laughter was the only thing he loved to hear more than the clanging of steel. He couldn't figure out why this memory had come to him at a time like this.
He felt like he was dishonouring Melissa by remembering her in this place of blood and stone.
Staring eye-to-eye with Ariya.
"Who are you?" Gabriel muttered a little more defiantly than before.
Ariya smiled gently as she put her hand on Gabriel's chest.
"I've already told you."
Still smiling, Ariya muttered something Gabriel couldn't make out.
The sinister feeling from before washed over Gabriel again.
His chest began to light up in a Dark red glow. The red smoke again began spreading all across Gabriel's body.
Gabriel's body began convulsing again this time, the pain was excruciating.
"This is it. This is my end." Gabriel said inwardly.
His eyes began to haze over; everything was getting darker.
Gabriel was sure he was dying. He was trying to force his eyes open.
But the excruciating pain all over his body was stopping him.
Then just nothing. No Pain, no light, only the echo of Ariya's voice reverberating in his skull.
…
A deep voice came from behind the door of the basement.
"You've killed him. The Commander will not be pleased."
Ariya turned towards the door, smiling gently
"No, he's not dead."
"I'll heal him and leave him to rest"
Ariya turned back towards Gabriel, tilted his head back and poured a liquid from a small glass bottle into his mouth. Ariya caressed both of Gabriel's cheeks.
"You don't realise how special you are." She said revelling "To have seen him, to have heard him."
She placed her lips on Gabriels.
Pulling back just a little.
She whispered, "Righteousness begets cruelty"
Ariya gently began removing the swords from Gabriel's hands.
"Get Dannis to put him in a room with a bed. I think Gabriel will be with us for a long time."
…
"Ouch!"
"My body, my head"
Gabriel felt a throbbing pain all over his body, as if he had just been training for days without rest. No, it was more like Master Arthur had been hitting him with a training sword for 3 days.
Without opening his eyes fully, Gabriel tried turning over, but the pain he felt stopped his body from doing what he commanded it to do. He needed to put in more effort just for his body to obey him.
"What happened yesterday?" his eyes finally opened, but his head was still filled with disorientating confusion.
He had finally rolled over and opened his eyes fully. "Why am I in so much pain?"
"Why does my body feel like this?"
Gabriel's vision cleared and he realised he didn't recognise the room he had woken up in.
Then suddenly, as though a hazy fog in his brain had been cleared, he remembered.
"F*ck, I need to escape."
Gabriel suddenly shot up from the bed, in his fighting stance that had been trained into him by Master Arthur for the last 5 years.
He was searching around the room, inspecting every inch of the place, making sure no one else was in the room with him.
No one else was there. The room was clear, there was only Gabriel, a bed, and a desk with a single candle on it.
Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. He began analysing everything that had happened previously before he fell unconscious. Then he remembered all the cracks and wounds that were all over his body. He began inspecting his arms, chest, and legs, but there was nothing there.
It was as though nothing had happened.
"Was that just a dream?"
"My body hurts, but there are no wounds. It feels as though I've been through tough training. That's it.
Knock, Knock, knock
Gabriel jumped so high he almost hit his head on the ceiling.
Once he had regained his composure, he just stood there staring at the door in his room.
Knock, Knock, Knock,
Gabriel began to timidly walk over to the door. He reached out and grabbed the handle.
He slowly pulled the door open, just as it was opening.
Bam! Gabriel flew back a few metres. Someone had pushed the door open with enough force to knock Gabriel off his feet.
He regained his composure and looked up.
In the doorway was a small, innocent-looking woman with a beautiful, gentle face. Pitch black hair and illuminating purple eyes.
It was Ariya.
She looked at Gabriel with her innocent, gentle smile. "Shall we begin?"
…
Gabriel shot up into a sitting position. Sweat was dripping from all over his body. He swept his legs out of his bed and placed his feet on the ground. He put his hands on his knees and hunched over.
"I'm not back there, I'm not back there," he whispered to himself.
He reached down his hand and grabbed the pail of water that was next to him. He picked it up and placed it on his knees.
Staring into the water, the reflection stared back, not the boy from the Paladin academy, but something else, something carved by trauma and stitched back together with rage. The man had ruby red eyes, and his hair was half black and half silver. With two scars on the left side of his head, going from his hairline, through his eyebrows, onto his cheek and finishing at the bottom of his jaw. On the right side of his face was a scar that was shaped like a star.
The innocent boy who had dreamed of becoming a Paladin knight and protecting the continent was gone. What looked back in the water was a demon. One that the former Paladin would've sworn to destroy.
A memory flashed into Gabriel's head. It was of him standing in front of the mirror when he was around 15 years old. His hair was a beautiful silver, and his eyes were sapphire blue. All the nuns at the church used to tease him and tell him he looked like an angel. Gabriel used to pretend to hate it, but secretly he loved the compliment. As the memory faded, Gabriel began to get angry. He threw the pail of water across the room at the wall.
"I will find you, Ariya, I will find you and kill you," he began shouting.
"I will kill you for what you've done to me".