The Memory of Pain

Keiran let out the breathe he had been holding back as the traveler walked past him into the tavern. As the air hit him again his nose wrinkled like a wolf smelling a dead carcass. In the darkness, his eyes glittered and smoldered. Amaras! There were few things he hated more.

When he closed his eyes, he could still taste the horrible acid flavor that had contaminated ever mouthful of air he had manage to gulp between the torturous pain. He’d tried to remain conscious because that was the only way to find out information about what they were doing to his body. However, the agony had frequently made it too difficult to remember anything, and he’d often fallen unconscious before hearing the answers he needed so desperately. The blue and white cloaked demons that capture him had bound him to a board with chains, then cut open his flesh, only to pour vile substances into the wounds. The wounds were left open to bleed as long as possible while they forced more liquids into the bleeding gashes. Finally they would bind up the cuts with clothes that were kept constantly saturated with something that smelled like a combination of acid, burnt hair, and blood. The only thing that kept him alive was the thought of saving his sister and a burning desire for revenge that grew stronger with ever slash of the knife. Almost a year after escaping now, he still didn’t know enough. All he knew was he had changed drastically. He was no longer the same human or even human at all.

The rain streaming down in incessant sheets should have made it impossible for him to hear anything beyond a foot or two, yet he heard clearly the traveler speaking to the tavern proprietor. While he’d been lost in memory a local villager had entered the tavern joining the Amaras. He now focused on the strains of conversation he’d been ignoring. “...trouble in the village.....raids....” It was the same story he’d heard at the tavern in the last village. What he needed were clues, answers to the whereabouts of his twin sister. Somehow he’d thought he would find them here.

Suddenly, he caught a fresh whiff of the Amaras’s scent. It sent his blood boiling and every instinct in him wanted to destroy the owner of that scent. It was almost identical to that of his captors! He struggled to resist, but his body lunged forward towards the door before he could stop it. There was nothing for it, he had no choice! Turning with all the will-power he could muster, he fled from the tavern with a long loping stride that would have put even the fasted horse to the test. It was just another thing that was wrong with him. How’d he’d gained this ability was more frightening then any of the experiments, and it was what he feared would eventually destroy him from the inside. It had happened twice now, once with the centaur and once with the wolf. The centaur had given him speed. The wolf had transformed his eyes into those of a hideous monster. Everyone who saw his eyes feared him, and everyone who didn’t distrusted him. Much as he hated it, he was beginning to understand what triggered the changes, and he knew it would happen again. He had to find out what they’d done to him and save his sister before it killed him.