"WAKE THE FUCK UP!" A man in dark blue pte armor shouts at the top of his lungs, smacking the bck iron bars with his baton. His voice echoes throughout the pce, but the one imprisoned does not move. The warden groans, picking a bucket of cold water and spshing it on the man.
The young man jolts awake, looking around in confusion before his gaze stops on the pted man ahead of him. Although he cannot see the warden's face, the young man can imagine his face contorted with displeasure, he stands up and walks toward the cell's door. The warden does his routine job; he checks if the colr on the boy's neck is working properly, which it is. Then, he handcuffs the boy and conducts him toward the mad doctor's boratory. Once the young man's body reaches the light, one can easily tell who he is.
Can's shirtless torso bore many scars, reminiscent of his time training as a knight but a new set of fresh scars, puncture marks, and other kinds of markings covered his body. His lean and muscur physique, which he spent years to obtain, now resembled a homeless and malnourished man's. His dark-brown hair was now gray, and bags resided under his eyes.
'Another dream of that day... it's starting to get annoying.' He says in his mind. He still remembers that day vividly, like it had happened yesterday, after all, it was that day Can had been branded a criminal and thrown into the kingdom's depths to be tortured until he stopped breathing. 'Now that I think about it... it's been a year now. Eh, who cares!? I don't have family outside to be worried about and anyone I knew probably hates me.'
"Stop," the warden says, pulling the young man out of his reverie. The warden knocks on the maroon door, and a second ter it slides open. There is a short and round man with a few strands of hair left on his scalp tinkering with some machinery, humming peacefully. The warden pushes Can inside and walks toward the short man. "There he is, Dr Gelouin. I will be going now."
"Hold on a moment," Just as the pted warden is about to leave, Gelouin stands up and turns around, pointing toward a package on a table. "Could you please bring this to the Lieutenant? I think he will be pleased~"
The warden looks disgusted as the doctor holds his cheek like a little girl before taking the package and heading out, but just before he closes the door, he gnces at Can shortly and then walks away. In Can's mind, he imagines the man smirking at him but it's not like it means much to him. In the following moments, the young man lies on a table, with his every limb strapped to the table, his body is truffled with several syringes connected to pipes. "Let's begin!~" Gelouin says happily as he presses a button. The transparent pipes soon turned red as blood traveled through each one. A feeling of coldness soon assaults Can, and he falls unconscious.
***
Can jumps on his feet as another bucket of water has been emptied on his head. His eyes focus on a skinny middle-aged man holding a cane, sitting on a wooden box. The two stare at each other silently, until the man waves his hand. A smokescreen forms behind him and vanishes, revealing an army of machines. "Mechanoids, execute program H-34." The man says. His mechanoids' eyes lit red as they advanced, making the ground rumble and raising a big cloud of dust. The young man already knew what was about to come, it had occurred too much for him not to know. Instantly, he turned around and ran with everything he had. The mechanoid army also started running, turning their forearms into bdes.
The young man runs past trees, another characteristic of Navida, as the machines pursue him tirelessly, and soon one of them catches up to him, swinging its bde. Can ducks and rolls, avoiding a cut that would have left a mark on his chest before resuming his run, but his blood shortage makes itself known through lightheadedness. He falters as the army surrounds him and mercilessly hacks and sshes him. "A-ARRRRRGGGHHHH!" He screams, trying to protect himself using his arms but it achieves little and the mechanoids keep on cutting him until he is rendered unconscious.
***
This is the third bucket of water Can has received today. The young man regains consciousness and looks around him, only to slump back on the floor. He is in a dojo, in the center of which someone sits with their arms crossed. "Get up, boy," a rough voice orders him. Or do you need help?"
Can rolls his eyes and pushes himself onto his feet, knowing that no help he could get in this hell is just another form of torture. The figure stands up, cracking her knuckles as she turns around.
It was a brown-skinned woman but calling her figure feminine would be a grave mistake. Her body was almost four meters tall, her shoulders were broader than any man Can had been around, and her muscles were three times rger than the young man's current form. Her face was riddled with scars and wrinkles.
No matter how much one looked at it, there was no way to say that was a woman in front of the young man. Assuming that the towering changed gender would be valid, as that was something people with enough did, but no, she is a biological female. The reason for her appearance is simple: a Trait.
Traits are a mystery, even to this day but out of the few that had been witnessed, they all had a common characteristic: bodily modification or enhancement. Of course, not all Traits do that to one's body.
The old, towering woman takes a battle stance, sliding the right side of her body forward while raising both fists. Without warning, she lunged at the young man with such speed that she seemed like a blur.
Can hastily raised arms to protect his face, a reaction that prevented him from losing teeth as the fist nded like a sledgehammer, cracking the bones in his arms before sending him flying against a wall.
"Hmph!" The woman sneered, fshing toward the boy, grabbing his arm, and smming his thin body into the pavement. Can spat blood as pain coursed through his body, the single impact almost knocked him out again but he managed to stay conscious.
The woman raised her foot like a guillotine, ready to smash Can's skull. The young man rolled out of the way as the foot connected with the pavement, creating a deep indentation. Can payed no mind to it, swinging his cuffed hands at the woman, who caught the strike, sending a fist into the young man's rib cage.
She smirked, feeling the bone cracking as the young man flew away, embedding his body into another wall as blood leaked from his mouth and nose. His consciousness waned as the shock gave his brain a good shake but there was still light in his eyes.
The woman walked up to him, intending to sm him into the pavement once again but just before her hand could reach, a kick connected with her chin, making her take a step back.
"Not bad, boy." The woman said, cleaning the drop of blood that leaked from her nose before sending a kick back at the boy, knocking him out for good this time.
***
This is how Can's days go for the st year. He wakes up, gets tortured, and thrown back into his cell. Some may think it is far too much to punish someone like that but what the young man goes through is a sanction reserved only for special individuals, namely those who committed heinous crimes such as rape.
Simply throwing them in jail would not do much, as many would resume their activities the moment they were left out or continue while still imprisoned. Once in the dungeon, the only escape is death, but one would be lucky to die after the first day.
The warden looks down at the unconscious young man, releasing a sigh before walking away. He has seen his fair share of these individuals getting tortured with some choosing to end their own lives rather than being tortured for who-knows-how-long.
The most one before killing themselves was one month but the young man held far much longer than anyone. This was not why the warden sighed, however. There was one thing that set Can from the other scums. The boy had hope in his eyes, it burned like a huge forest fire. No matter how arduous the situation got, it refused to die down.
It was as if he believed that someone would get him out of there at some point. The warden shook his head as he hung his suit of armor on its stand and went to sleep.
