Chapter 58: Anna and Jason's Interaction

  The dimly lit corridor echoed with the hum of machinery, a sound that had long become a part of Anna’s new existence. It had been weeks since her transformation, weeks since Dr. Machinist had claimed her, shaped her into something that no longer resembled the woman she had been. The memories of her old life were fading, slipping through her mind like sand through her fingers. But some things remained—the flicker of rebellion, the remnants of who she once was.

  She stood in the hallway, motionless, like a sentry guarding the depths of Dr. Machinist’s lair. Her movements were mechanical now, smooth but devoid of grace or emotion. She wasn’t human anymore—not really. Her once soft features, the warmth of her skin, the pulse of her heartbeat—gone, replaced by cold metal and circuits that hummed and buzzed with life. But there was still a spark inside her, a faint ember of resistance that refused to be extinguished, no matter how much Dr. Machinist tried to bury it.

  As the sound of footsteps approached, Anna turned her head, her red, glowing eyes locking onto the figure that came into view. Jason. He was a new arrival—a test subject like she once had been, though his circumstances seemed to be different. He was human—at least, still largely human. Unlike Anna, he hadn’t been completely remade. He still had the semblance of a man, but there was something about him that made her question everything. His eyes held a flicker of defiance, something she hadn’t seen in so long that it took her by surprise.

  He stopped in front of her, his gaze searching her face, his expression unreadable.

  Jason: “You’re different. What happened to you?”

  Anna didn’t respond right away. Her mind buzzed with the question—what had happened to her? She was no longer the woman she had once been. She was a weapon, a tool forged by Dr. Machinist’s twisted hands. But there was a part of her—no matter how small—that still remembered what it was like to be human. What it was like to feel.

  Anna: “What do you want?” Her voice came out in a cold, mechanical rasp, the sound of metal scraping against metal. It wasn’t her voice anymore—not the one that had once been warm and full of life. It was a voice that was nothing more than a tool, an instrument for Dr. Machinist’s bidding.

  Jason studied her for a moment, his brow furrowing as he seemed to weigh his words carefully.

  Jason: “I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to understand.” His voice was hesitant, but there was a quiet strength to it. He wasn’t like the others. The other test subjects, the ones who had been here before him—they were broken, submissive, willing to bend to Dr. Machinist’s will. But Jason was different. He was fighting it, though Anna couldn’t quite tell if it was out of fear, defiance, or something else entirely.

  Anna felt something stir inside her—an emotion, maybe? It was fleeting, but it was there, a reminder of the human side she was losing with every passing day. She could still feel something, a remnant of what she once was. But was it enough? Would it be enough to break free from Dr. Machinist’s grip?

  Anna: “Understand? There’s nothing to understand. I’m not... I’m not even human anymore. I’m his creation. His weapon. And so are you, if you don’t stop fighting.”

  Jason’s eyes softened, though the wariness never left them. He took a step closer, his presence a stark contrast to Anna’s cold, mechanical form.

  Jason: “I’m not like you. I won’t just let him do this to me. I won’t become his... thing.”

  Anna could see the resolve in his eyes, the fire that burned within him. It was the same fire she used to have, before everything had been taken from her. Before she had become Dr. Machinist’s experiment, his perfect creation.

  But that fire—it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to escape the chains that bound her, that kept her tied to Dr. Machinist’s will.

  Anna: “It’s too late for me. Don’t waste your fight. You can’t win. Not against him.”

  Jason’s face tightened, but he didn’t back away. He stood firm, as if willing himself to break through the wall Anna had built around herself.

  Jason: “Maybe I can’t win alone. But I’m not going to let him keep you like this. I can see it, Anna. I can see you still have something left inside you. A part of you is still human. And I’m not going to let it die.”

  Anna looked at him, the flickering ember inside her chest growing just a little brighter. She felt a strange pull toward him—his words, his determination. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that there was still hope, that there was a way out of this nightmare.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she realized the truth. There was no way out. Not for her.

  Anna: “You don’t know what you’re asking for. I’m already gone. There’s no coming back from this. I’m his now. And you’ll be too, if you keep fighting.”

  Jason stepped closer, his hand reaching out, as though he could somehow touch the last remnants of her humanity. Anna recoiled, but not in fear—she recoiled because she wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched her. Would it hurt? Would it remind her of the woman she had once been?

  Jason: “Then let me help you. Let me be the one to show you that you don’t have to belong to him. Not completely. You don’t have to give up everything.”

  For a moment, Anna didn’t know how to respond. She felt lost, adrift in a sea of conflicting emotions. Part of her wanted to trust him, wanted to believe that maybe there was still a way to fight back, to reclaim some of what had been stolen from her. But the other part of her—the part that Dr. Machinist had molded, that was cold and unfeeling—knew the truth. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t escape him.

  Anna: “You don’t understand. I’m... I’m broken. I can’t be fixed. Not by you. Not by anyone.”

  Jason’s hand dropped to his side, but his expression remained unwavering.

  Jason: “Maybe not. But I’m not giving up on you. You’re not just a machine. You’re still Anna. And I’m not going to let you forget that.”

  Anna didn’t know what to say. The words were stuck in her throat, trapped by the weight of her own transformation, her own despair. She wanted to scream at him, tell him to run, to save himself from Dr. Machinist’s grasp. But for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn’t want him to leave.

  And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want to give up either. Not entirely.

  For the first time in weeks, a flicker of hope—however small—began to grow within her.

  the torture

  Anna’s gaze hardened as Jason spoke his words of defiance, the small ember of hope that flickered inside her threatening to burn out. She had been there before—had tried to resist, to fight back against Dr. Machinist. She had believed once, long ago, that there was a way out. But that was before the relentless torture began. Before the days of unending electrical torment. Before Dr. Machinist’s mechanical mind had twisted them beyond recognition.

  Anna's fingers twitched, the faintest echo of a movement that hinted at the humanity she had once held. But those days, those moments of rebellion, were gone. She had been broken long ago—along with everyone else who had been subjected to Dr. Machinist’s cruel whims.

  For over a month, they had been confined to metal chambers—bodies bound and restrained, unable to move. Electrodes attached to their skin, pumping them full of 500,000 volts every second, 24/7, with no break. The pain was unimaginable, but it wasn’t just the physical torment that had shattered them. It was the utter, soul-crushing certainty that there was no escape. No salvation. No hope.

  The voltage coursing through their bodies had been designed to prevent their death. Their mecha bodies—enhanced with technology far beyond human understanding—could withstand it. They were designed to endure, to suffer, to break. And break they did.

  Their wills were shattered over time, the constant barrage of electricity wearing them down until they no longer knew where the pain ended and they began. The metal walls of their chambers closed in on them, a constant reminder that resistance was not an option. There was no fighting Dr. Machinist—no fighting an immortal, country-level doctor who had control over their lives, their fates.

  It had been weeks of torture. Weeks where Anna had been pushed beyond her limits. She had tried. She had begged. But Dr. Machinist was relentless. His cruel experiments were never meant for them to win. He had known, long ago, that their resistance was futile. That they could only endure. And when endurance wore thin, when the screams of pain and the sounds of begging filled the sterile rooms of the lab, he would remind them—remind them that they were nothing.

  Now, as Jason’s voice cut through the silence, Anna found herself torn. She wanted to believe in his words—wanted to believe that he was different. That his fight against Dr. Machinist could somehow awaken something within her. But as her memory recalled those dark days—those endless hours of electric torment—it became clear. Resistance was pointless.

  Her body, once filled with warmth and human emotion, was now a shell. Her mind, though still capable of thought, had long since been reduced to numbness. She had learned the hard way: there was no defeating Dr. Machinist. No standing against him.

  Anna: “You don’t know what you’re asking for.” Her voice, hollow and strained, barely rose above a whisper. “You can’t fight him. You can’t win.”

  Jason’s eyes never left hers, his face set in a determined expression. But he had no idea. He had never experienced the hell that Anna and the others had. He had never felt the weight of the electricity coursing through his veins, the pain that would have driven any normal human to insanity. He didn’t understand what it meant to be broken, to have every ounce of hope torn away until only the hollow shell of a person remained.

  Jason: “I don’t care about him. I care about you. You’re not just a weapon, Anna. You’re more than this. And I won’t let you believe you’re not.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t get it. He has everything. He has control over us. Over everything we are. And you want to fight him? To what end? To suffer more? To die in some meaningless rebellion?”

  For a moment, the silence stretched between them, thick and heavy. Anna could see the frustration building in Jason’s expression. He wasn’t backing down. But she could feel the inevitable conclusion of this conversation creeping closer. She had seen it in so many others before him—the naivety, the belief that somehow they could outsmart or overpower Dr. Machinist. It never worked. And it never would.

  Anna: “This isn’t a fight you can win. Not against him. He’s immortal, Jason. His reach is beyond anything we can comprehend. Resistance is... pointless.”

  Jason’s eyes flickered with something close to sadness, as if the weight of her words had finally begun to seep in. But still, there was that glimmer of hope, a stubborn refusal to accept defeat.

  Jason: “I’m not giving up. And neither should you.”

  Anna let out a bitter laugh, a sound that felt foreign to her, as if the laughter itself didn’t belong to her. “You’re still clinging to hope, aren’t you? Hope that somehow, things will change. That there’s a way out. But there isn’t. We’re nothing more than experiments. We were never meant to escape. Never meant to be free.”

  Jason’s fists clenched at his sides, his jaw set in determination. He wasn’t backing down. But Anna knew—it didn’t matter. They were trapped. She had tried so many times before to defy Dr. Machinist, but each time had ended in more suffering. Her body, her will, her spirit—had all been bent to his whims.

  Anna: “It’s over, Jason. The fight is over. There’s no way out.”

  But then, something shifted. A faint, barely perceptible flicker of something inside her—the smallest inkling of defiance that refused to be extinguished.

  Perhaps it wasn’t the fight against Dr. Machinist that mattered anymore. Perhaps it was the fight for herself—for whatever little piece of humanity she could still hold onto.

  But was it enough? Would that small flicker be enough to break free from the chains that bound them all?

  For the first time, Anna wasn’t so sure anymore.

  The Breaking Point

  The world around Anna faded into a blur of painful memories, suffocating her like a vice. The cold, sterile chambers where she had once hoped for an escape were now prisons of her own mind. The relentless shock therapy, the 500,000 volts coursing through her body every second, was a constant presence—an ever-present reminder of her inability to escape.

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  The first few weeks had been torture—truly. But a month in, something had shifted. Her body had started to adjust, though ‘adjust’ was a cruel word to use. It was not adaptation—it was simply a numbing of the senses, a dulling of the pain, because there was no way to endure something so unrelenting without some form of mental shutdown. The electroshock had stripped away any semblance of her former self, of her will, of her humanity.

  And then came the poison.

  Dr. Machinist, in his infinite cruelty, had introduced a substance into their veins—something he had designed himself. A toxin that amplified the electrical pain a thousandfold. The poison didn’t just enhance the physical agony—it twisted every nerve in her body, every muscle, every bone. Every shock, every surge of voltage, was accompanied by a deep, burning sensation in her cells, as though her very body was being eaten away from the inside.

  For one full year, it had been this way. Day in, day out. There was no escape. No respite. Not a single moment of relief.

  The poison took hold of Anna’s body—filling her with waves of nausea, dizziness, and weakness, as if she were dying slowly, over and over again. Her every movement felt like an insurmountable task. Even the act of breathing, of blinking, became an excruciating exercise of endurance.

  But it was more than just the physical torture. It was the mental strain—the brokenness that crept into her mind, her soul, each second she was subjected to this hellish existence. She was aware, at all times, of her helplessness. Of her utter insignificance in the grand scheme of Dr. Machinist’s plans. He controlled her. Controlled them all.

  And she knew it. She had always known it.

  But what hurt more than the poison, more than the electric currents scorching her insides, was the crushing truth that seeped into her every thought: this was her life now.

  She had been so naive before. She had hoped. She had fought. She had believed that there could be an end to this, that there could be a moment of release. But each attempt to resist, each desperate cry for help, was met with only more pain.

  Jason... His presence was the one remaining shred of humanity that made her question everything. His voice, though tinged with anger and frustration, still carried the smallest echo of hope. He hadn’t been broken yet. He hadn’t lost himself entirely. But Anna had seen the cracks in his resolve. She had watched the way his eyes began to dull with each passing day. She knew it wouldn't be long before he broke, just as she had.

  The problem was, the fight didn’t matter anymore. There was no rebellion to lead, no war to win. There was only the endless, suffocating agony of their existence.

  Dr. Machinist had made them all into living weapons, but he had also made them into living corpses—a hollow shell of humanity, forced to endure without purpose. Without a future.

  And then came the final break.

  The moment when the mind can no longer endure. When the spirit is broken beyond repair.

  It didn’t happen all at once. It was a slow, creeping erosion. But there came a point—after a year of this hell—when the light in Anna’s eyes finally went out. She no longer felt the sting of the shocks, nor did she feel the poison flooding her veins. She had become numb, utterly indifferent to the torment. Her body was still there, still enduring—but she, Anna, had ceased to exist as she once had. She was no longer human. She was just a machine—one of Dr. Machinist’s creations. Another broken tool.

  The smallest flicker of resistance she had clung to, even when Jason first entered her life, was now nothing more than a forgotten memory. The hope that once had burned so brightly in her heart had been extinguished by the poison, the volts, and the never-ending torture.

  She was done.

  And when she met Jason’s gaze that final time, there was nothing left to say. He was still trying—still holding onto that fragile hope, that belief that there could be something more. But for Anna, that spark was gone. There was nothing more. Not for her. Not for any of them.

  She spoke, her voice hollow, her eyes void of any emotion. “You’re wasting your time.”

  Jason’s eyes widened with shock, his face etched with pain as he took a step toward her, reaching out to her. But Anna, in her apathy, barely reacted. Her body had become a machine, and her mind—a dead, cold thing that couldn’t be reasoned with. “There’s nothing left. There’s nothing to fight for.”

  It was a death sentence, not just of her body but of her soul. She had given up.

  And the worst part? She no longer cared.

  The final break had come. And it was the quietest thing in the world.

  Anna was gone.

  The scent of burning flesh never faded. It clung to the air like a ghost, thick and rancid, filling the chamber with the stench of charred meat and seared nerve endings. The walls, sleek and metallic, reflected the grotesque spectacle unfolding beneath the relentless floodlights.

  Anna’s body no longer resembled something human. Her flesh had split open in places where the voltage had cooked her from the inside, leaving behind blackened scars that wept a mix of blood and liquefied fat. Her fingers had curled into unnatural positions, locked by the sheer force of muscle contractions that refused to cease. Every inch of her skin was a battlefield of agony—some patches hardened into cracked, necrotic husks, others raw and pulsing where the regeneration tech had forced the wounds to reopen again and again.

  The agony had long transcended pain. The electric currents, now surging at over a billion volts, danced through her nervous system like a thousand microscopic knives, slicing through every sensation, every thought, leaving her mind a smoldering wasteland of torment. Her teeth had shattered from the sheer force of her own seizures, her lips burned away where arcs of energy had kissed them. The fire was a cruel new addition. The searing tongues of flame licked at her exposed muscle, the heat making her blood bubble and pop. Her screams had eroded into something beyond human—a high-pitched, warbling wail that didn’t even resemble language anymore, just the sound of a creature begging for an end that would never come.

  And Dr. Machinist watched it all, with the serene fascination of an artist observing his masterpiece.

  He stood above them, his pristine white coat untouched by the carnage, hands clasped behind his back as he admired the efficiency of his own devices. Jason, still strapped down, convulsed under the same unbearable torment, his eyes rolling back as another blast of molten fire and raw electricity surged through him. His flesh peeled, blackening and crisping, only to be forcefully regenerated by the cursed machines keeping them alive.

  Machinist tilted his head, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” His voice was smooth, almost warm, as if he were discussing a fine piece of art. “The human body is truly remarkable. It was never meant to withstand this, and yet, here you are—enduring.”

  He crouched beside Anna’s quivering form, reaching out to stroke what little remained of her hair, the strands crumbling to ash beneath his touch. “Do you feel it, Anna? The gift I’ve given you? You should have died a hundred times over, and yet… you persist.”

  Her mouth opened, but no words came. Only a sound—raw, gurgling, something between a sob and a scream. Tears had long stopped flowing; her tear ducts had burned away.

  Machinist sighed, feigning disappointment. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You were so full of fire once. So defiant. But now?” He smiled, his teeth gleaming like scalpels. “Now you understand. Resistance is meaningless. You belong to me.”

  He turned his gaze to Jason, who managed, through the hellfire coursing through his veins, to lift his head. His lips trembled, his breath came in ragged gasps, but the hatred in his eyes still burned bright.

  Machinist grinned. “Ah, and you, Jason. You still think you can resist. How adorable.” He motioned toward the control panel, and the machines responded with a monstrous hum. The voltage increased. The fire flared, an inferno consuming flesh and bone alike. The room filled with the sizzle of burning tissue, the crackling of nerves bursting like overcooked wires. The smell was unbearable—sickly sweet, like roasting pork but tainted with the undeniable reek of death.

  Jason’s body arched against the restraints, his spine bending at an unnatural angle as another surge crashed through him. Anna made no move. She had no fight left.

  Machinist simply watched, eyes glinting with pleasure. “Yes,” he murmured, almost to himself. “This is perfection.”

  Anna’s ordeal deepened with every agonizing moment, a relentless nightmare that refused to let her escape. What began as a slow, creeping descent into madness soon spiraled into a living hell where each second was a fresh reminder of her unraveling sanity. The pain was not a mere sensation—it was an all-consuming, brutal force that carved its signature into every fiber of her being. Over the course of weeks, the agony became so pervasive that hallucinations emerged as both her tormentors and companions. At first, these spectral visions were slight—a flicker of movement in the periphery, a shadow that vanished when she turned. But gradually, they transformed into something unspeakably horrific: Anna began to see Jason’s once-familiar face morph into unsightly, contorted shapes that mocked the very notion of human compassion. His features, now twisted into a macabre mask of despair and dehumanization, became a constant, grotesque reminder of the shared suffering that defined their existence.

  In the grim theater of her torment, every sound and every whisper carried a vicious intent. The voices that seeped into her mind were not kind; they were acidic, scathing, and relentlessly cruel. They whispered vile secrets, ridiculing her shattered memories and erasing the remnants of the person she once was. With each pulse of searing pain, fragments of her past were obliterated, leaving behind only an echo of emptiness—a void where her identity should have been. In these moments of unbearable clarity, Anna questioned if the unending torment was all she had ever known, and whether death, the ultimate relief, had become as elusive as a phantom in the mist.

  Dr. Machinist, the mastermind behind this infernal spectacle, reveled in his perverse artistry. With a smile that sent shivers down the spine and eyes as cold as the void, he leaned in close to his broken subjects, his voice dripping with disdain as he delivered caustic taunts. His methods were as inventive as they were cruel. In one horrifying display, he forced his victims to endure the replay of their own suffering on a cracked screen—a relentless loop of torment that was as much psychological as it was physical. The images were accompanied by a cacophony of sizzling flames and tortured cries, a brutal symphony that underscored his unyielding contempt for human life. Every adjustment of the voltage, every flicker of the flame under his control, was a calculated move designed to push them to the precipice of death, only to snatch away that final, merciful release.

  Jason, once a pillar of strength, found himself ensnared in this unholy web of torture. The relentless barrage of pain gnawed at his resolve until he was but a shell of the man he had been. His once-powerful voice now vacillated between desperate pleas and maniacal laughter—a stark, jarring dissonance that betrayed the depths of his inner collapse. There were times when his cries for mercy were so raw and ragged that they seemed to tear the very air apart, a primal outpouring of agony that resonated in the hearts of any who were forced to listen. Other times, an unsettling silence enveloped him, as though the excruciating torment had stolen not only his voice but his very will to fight. In these moments, Jason transformed into a ghostly figure—a mere remnant of humanity, his body numbed and his mind trapped in a perpetual state of shock.

  The physical transformations wrought by the ceaseless torture were nothing short of monstrous, especially in Anna. Her once-beautiful body was transformed into a gruesome tableau of horror. The relentless flames had seared through her flesh, leaving behind scars that glowed with a demonic red intensity, as though her bones themselves were ablaze from within. The skin, once soft and warm, now hung in ragged, peeling layers, exposing sinews and muscle that throbbed with a sickening rhythm. Her lungs, ravaged by the inferno, labored with each desperate, wheezing breath—a reminder that even the simplest act of living had become a battle against her own ravaged body. Perhaps most disturbing of all were the alterations in her eyes; those windows to her soul were now perpetually dilated, as if in eternal shock, distorting the world into a surreal, nightmarish panorama that offered no solace.

  The very environment of her torment was a monument to brutality. The torture chamber was a cacophonous arena where every sound was designed to exacerbate the suffering. The incessant hiss of burning flesh mingled with the sickening crunch of breaking bones, creating an auditory assault that seared itself into the minds of all who heard it. The crackling of flames was punctuated by the metallic clatter of devices calibrated to inflict pain—machines that hissed, whirred, and pulsed with a perverse rhythm, injecting fresh doses of agony through searing bursts of electricity. The air was heavy with the acrid tang of burnt hair and scorched flesh, and the metallic scent of blood permeated every breath. Every noise, every murmur in that desolate space, conspired to reinforce the brutal reality that there was no escape from this hellish purgatory.

  Within this relentless storm of violence, a horrifying revelation began to take shape in Anna’s fractured mind. In a moment of crystalline, soul-shattering clarity, she recognized that the torment was not just a physical affliction—it was an existential annihilation. As she caught a fleeting glimpse of Jason amid the haze of her own suffering, she saw in his eyes a void of acceptance, a resignation to the endless cycle of pain. It was as if the agony had consumed him entirely, leaving behind a being stripped of all hope, where the concept of death was as distant and intangible as a long-forgotten dream. This realization, as brutal as it was undeniable, drove home the merciless truth: in the depths of this relentless suffering, there could be no salvation, no reprieve—only the slow, inevitable disintegration of the self.

  Every gruesome detail of this macabre scene stands as a testament to the depths of human despair and the unbridled cruelty that can be unleashed when malice takes form. Even now, as I recount these horrors, a profound shudder grips my heart—a mix of shock, disgust, and an almost paralyzing fear of the evil that can be wrought by a mind unburdened by compassion. This is not merely a tale to be told; it is a descent into a world where brutality reigns supreme, a reminder that in the shadow of such relentless terror, the very fabric of humanity is left in tatters, echoing with the unending screams of agony.

  Dr. Machinist’s cruel ingenuity knew no bounds. As if the searing flames and unrelenting voltage weren’t enough, he now introduced a new layer of suffering—spikes, cold and merciless, designed to impale with surgical precision. His voice, dripping with condescension, slithered into their ears like venom.

  “Oh, you must be growing numb to the pain by now,” he mused, feigning sympathy as he ran gloved fingers over a polished panel of switches. “Let’s see if we can... reinvigorate that dying spark of agony, shall we?”

  With a flick of his wrist, the hidden mechanisms within the room whirred to life. From the rusted metal flooring, jagged spikes shot upward with brutal speed, impaling their broken bodies with the sharp efficiency of a butcher’s knife slicing through flesh. The sound of steel punching through meat and bone filled the air—a sickening, wet crunch, followed immediately by a cacophony of screams that had long since been stripped of anything human.

  Anna arched violently as the spikes drove through her legs, her already ruined muscles tearing apart like wet paper. Blood gushed in thick, sluggish streams, pooling beneath her in a growing lake of crimson. Her hands, instinctively seeking escape, clutched at the spikes protruding from her thighs, but the metal was serrated, tearing deeper into her fingers with every desperate touch. It was a cruel paradox—every motion meant to free her only invited more suffering.

  Jason fared no better. One of the spikes had torn through his abdomen, its barbed tip emerging from his back, draped in sinew and fragments of shattered vertebrae. His breath came in jagged, wheezing gasps, each inhalation dragging his shredded organs against the relentless steel. He coughed, and a spray of blood spattered across his chest, his body rejecting the very air keeping him alive.

  Dr. Machinist watched with an almost childlike fascination, tilting his head as he admired his work. “Beautiful,” he whispered, as if the suffering before him was a masterpiece. “You are such fascinating subjects, you know that? The way your bodies convulse, the way your minds teeter between resistance and surrender—it’s truly inspiring.”

  He leaned in closer, his breath warm against Anna’s ear. “Tell me, Anna, does it hurt? Or have you finally learned the secret?” He chuckled, the sound laced with cruelty. “Pain is just a lesson. And you, my dear, are an excellent student.”

  Anna’s lips trembled, her mind shattered beyond recognition. There were no words left—only raw, guttural noises, the sounds of something that had once been human but had since been reduced to a mere vessel for agony.

  Jason, despite the unbearable torment, forced himself to glare at the doctor, his bloodshot eyes seething with something between hatred and complete surrender. He wanted to speak, to curse, to defy—but every word drowned in the blood pooling in his throat.

  Dr. Machinist smirked. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Jason. You should be grateful. I’m giving you purpose. You and Anna—you’re my greatest creations. A testament to the limits of human suffering.” He sighed wistfully, as if he were reminiscing on something sentimental. “And yet, you still haven’t broken completely. How disappointing... but that just means we have more work to do.”

  With a snap of his fingers, the spikes twisted. Not withdrew—twisted. Their serrated edges wrenched against flesh, grinding into exposed nerves, shredding muscles and scraping bone in a slow, deliberate motion designed to inflict the maximum amount of agony.

  The screams that followed were unlike any that had come before. They were not just cries of pain, but something deeper—shattered souls, broken beyond repair, reduced to nothing more than raw, primal wails of suffering. It was the sound of the last remnants of humanity being ripped away.

  And Dr. Machinist?

  He just laughed.