The smell that permeated the air changed again when Kaiser walked through door number "11," this time into a foul stench of blood, sweat, and suffering. In the dark room, a single torch flickered, casting terrible shadows upon the stones of the wall. There was only one occupant: a tiny figure swinging in the middle of the room. The chains rattled slightly as the little boy, who was chained like a prisoner in a dungeon, attempted to move.

  Kaiser froze, his stomach twisted between torment and fury. Barely eleven years old, the boy was a memento mori of unrelenting pain. They had stripped away huge bites of his epidermis, or what was left of it, leaving only bloody, exposed flesh. The room reeked of disease, and his blood stained the wall behind him where it dripped—dripping, dripping—and pooling on the floor beneath him.

  The boy's bones protruded from his skin at unnatural angles, obviously broken but poorly healed, only to be broken again. His mouth was toothless, and his gums were swollen and bleeding from repeated extractions of what little remained. His throat was sore from screaming, though it was always agonizing regardless; "W-why…" he whimpers pathetically. Breath after breath came dry and wheezy, wrestling against the deathly pain that consumed him.

  Then, as if to mock the boy’s suffering, the flesh around his wounds began to knit itself back together, agonizingly slow. The child’s regeneration was more curse than gift—every cell stitched itself back painfully, like needles driving into every nerve. This agonizing process would only begin anew when another wound was inflicted. His broken bones cracked loudly as they reformed and were being pushed back into place.

  He had been molded in this way by the kingdom—not through lessons or training, but through unimaginable savagery. In order to become stronger, they had broken an unspoiled, pure boy in every possible way. Kaiser harbored no pity for the boy he once was; he just stood there, reflecting on the hurt that had been inflicted upon him.

  Blind to the barbarity and lust for power, the monarchy intent on creating an invincible warrior, no matter the cost.

  A figure emerged from the darkness, his features contorted into a ruthless grin that made the surrounding air seem colder. He was gaunt but wiry, his eyes glinting with a sadistic light that betrayed his pleasure in the suffering of others.

  Kaiser murmured to himself, "Michael Yo," with a voice filled with venom and hatred. The figure was infamous throughout the kingdom as a serial killer whose crimes were so horrific there are no words with which even he could describe it, since the monstrous man supposedly once slaughtered an entire village so as to test every imaginable way he could inflict pain on others. However, the king had kept him alive for a far darker purpose than a show of mercy.

  Michael’s voice was sickeningly cheerful as he stepped closer to the boy, holding a jagged blade in one hand and a pair of rusted pliers in the other. With mocking love, he crooned, "Ah, my little phoenix. Are we going to emerge from the ashes once more? This time, let's see how long it takes.”

  Michael's thrusted the blade across the boy's bare chest, carving deep grooves into flesh that revealed nasty-red flaps. The small body thrashed against the chain as he cried out, sounds frantic and grating, but Michael just chuckled, seeming to delight in?pulling a freshly fixed nail from the boy’s hand with the pliers.

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  “Fascinating,” Michael muttered, his voice dripping with unhinged excitement. “The regeneration gets faster with each wound. Truly, you are the king’s greatest masterpiece.”

  Another person stepped out of the darkness, a towering, hooded man who exuded authority and unconcernedness. An unidentified phantom of dread, the king's torturer, silently observed Michael's task. Although his face was concealed, Kaiser could sense the calculating coldness in his eyes—a man who saw suffering as merely as training and investment.

  “That’s enough,” the torturer finally said, his voice low and commanding. Michael hesitated but soon after his grin faded slightly as he stepped back, the pliers clattering to the floor as he let go of them.

  The boy hung limply in his chains, his body trembling as it began to heal again, slowly erasing the evidence of his suffering. But the memories would never fade, neither for the child nor the man he would become.

  Kaiser’s eyes hardened as he turned away from the scene, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. The echoes of his screams, of Michael’s laughter, of the king’s cold orders, reverberated in his mind. But he would not let them break him now, not after all this time, not after all that he survived. He simply closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw himself back in that damn empty room again.

  Kaiser stood motionless at the center of the room, his torn gloves discarded at his feet. His arms hung limply at his sides, his head bowed, and his eyes stared blankly ahead. Whatever flicker of humanity had once burned within him had been snuffed out, leaving a figure that resembled a breathing corpse.

  The stillness was suffocating. The air felt heavy, oppressive, as though the room itself held its breath, waiting for something to stir him. But Kaiser didn’t move. He remained rooted in place, his body looked like a statue carved from despair and exhaustion. The relentless tide of memories and the weight of his past had hollowed him out and left only a shell of the man who had once stepped through the numbered door.

  Then something rang out, a drop of water fell, kissing his lips gently in the silence. It was hardly a sensation, yet it was enough?to stir him, his tongue slowly and almost instinctively brushed against his dry lips, tasting salt — a taste that startled him, faintly, briefly. Gradually, his eyes rose?and his empty stare swept the ceiling of the house.

  Above him, shadows fell into place, and he saw them: two spiders dangling from the ceiling, their bodies grotesquely shaped like unblinking?eyes. Their long, lacy legs were curling in those ridiculous ways only lashes could do, twitching slightly as they took note of him being able to finally see them back.

  For a long moment, he simply stared back at the spiders, their silent vigil a mirror to his own stillness. Somewhere deep inside, a distant part of him recognized the absurdity of the scene—how creatures that embodied observation watched a man who had hardly anything to show anymore.

  And then, as if commanded by some unseen force, his body moved. It was not driven by anger or determination, nor by fear or resolve. It was an automatic motion, cold and mechanical, like a marionette pulled along by invisible strings. His legs advanced unhesitatingly, his boots clanked on?the cracked floor of the old mansion.

  He turned to face the final door, an ordinary object that was unadorned and unscarred but exuded an overpowering weight of importance. Kaiser stopped before it, his hand lingering over the handle. He looked down at his trembling fingers, but there was no feeling in them. It was as if they no longer belonged to him, detached from the man he had once been.

  He paused, and for a few fleeting seconds, a ghost of an idea passed through him. Then his icy, immobile fingers clenched around the handle. In one deliberate and practiced action, he slipped it open.

  Silently, the door opened on the outside, revealing a dark passageway. Like a far-off flame licking the rough stone walls with flickering reflections, a bright light spilled from somewhere in the distance. The room fell silent once more as the sound of his footsteps faded away. Whatever awaited him beyond that door, Kaiser no longer cared.