The world was a dark place. A cold place.
David's eyes cracked open, the weight of his eyelids heavy like slabs of metal. His body felt wrong, twisted and broken in ways it shouldn't be. His insides ached, a dull, gnawing pain that never truly went away. The light above him was harsh and white, glaring down from the ceiling like an angry god.
He couldn't remember how long he'd been here. Days? Weeks? Years? Time was just a series of endless cuts and screams.
They came for him again. They always came for him. Their faces hidden behind masks of glass and steel, their voices distorted, muffled, as if they spoke from another world. But their hands were real. Cold and merciless.
"Hold him down."
He tried to thrash, but the straps bit into his wrists and ankles. His skin had grown raw where the leather tore at his flesh, wounds reopening over and over until the blood didn't even bother to dry.
"His regeneration is still active. Good. Start the incision."
The scalpel pressed against his stomach, slicing deep. It hurt. God, it hurt. The pain tore through him like fire, his nerves screaming louder than his voice ever could. He couldn't even cry properly anymore. The sound was more of a whimper, a broken, pitiful noise that filled the sterile room.
"I said hold him down!"
The hands gripped tighter, fingers pressing into his arms with the force of iron clamps. David's eyes rolled back, his vision blurring with tears he couldn't shed. He could feel them inside him. Moving things. Taking things. His organs peeled away from him like pieces of a puzzle, pulled out and placed into cold metal trays.
"It's fascinating how quickly he regenerates. The liver's already regrowing. Move on to the lungs."
Words. Words he didn't understand. They were like knives themselves, sharp and uncaring.
And then they would leave. They always left him. Alone. In the cold.
The darkness would come next. A deep, icy coldness that crept into his bones. His body would mend itself, stitching together like threads pulled by unseen hands. It hurt. Healing was never gentle. It was a brutal, grinding force that chewed him up and spit him out, only to rebuild him again.
And when they came back, it was always the same.
"Looks like he's ready. Get the restraints."
"Let's see if the heart is as valuable as they say."
"He can't die, after all. We've tested it."
"Cut deeper."
Always cutting. Always tearing.
Sometimes he would hear their voices beyond the glass. They'd talk about him like he was nothing more than meat. Like he was something to be bought and sold. And he was. They would rip parts of him away, pieces that should have been his. And then they'd sell them to monsters who wanted his healing, his strength, his life.
But it wasn't just the pain. It was the loneliness. The way the darkness swallowed him when they left him in that cold room, his own blood pooling around him like a cruel embrace.
He would try to hold himself together. To remember what it was like to be... someone. To be David. But his name felt like a foreign word, something they stripped away along with his flesh.
And he would talk to himself. His voice small and weak.
"It's okay, David... It'll be over soon. They'll stop. They have to stop..."
But they didn't. They never did.
He wanted to sleep. To just close his eyes and forget everything. But even his dreams were filled with knives. With voices that spoke only of cutting and selling. Of taking and taking until there was nothing left.
Once, when the pain was so great he couldn't even scream, he tried to make himself disappear. He bit into his own wrists, tore at his own flesh, hoping he could bleed out faster than his body could heal. But it was useless. The wounds closed before the blood could even spill properly.
He was trapped.
Forever locked in this twisted cycle of agony and healing.
But sometimes, when the lights went out and the silence crept in, he could hear something. Someone. A voice. Faint and trembling. His own voice, speaking to him through the darkness.
"You have to be good, David. You have to be good so the pain stops. If you're good, they won't hurt you anymore..."
But he was never good enough.
And the pain kept coming.
Until the day he came.
Savan.
The man was different. His voice was smooth, his words like silk dipped in poison. And when he looked at David, it was with something worse than hunger. It was fascination.
"He's broken, isn't he?" Savan's voice drifted through the haze of pain and fear. "But something broken can always be fixed. Or... repurposed."
They dragged David from that room of knives and blood. Dragged him to somewhere even darker.
They didn't strap him down this time. They didn't need to. His body was a mess of scars and trembling limbs, his mind cracked and splintered like glass shattered on stone.
But Savan didn't care. He only wanted one thing.
"Fight."
David looked up, his gaze blurred and distant. His own voice echoed in his head. You have to be good, David. You have to be good.
But he was never good enough. And all he could do was try to survive.
"Fight."
The monsters that came for him were worse than the knives. But at least when he fought them, the pain wasn't just from them taking.
It was from him giving.
He screamed as he tore into them. Clawed, bit, thrashed, until his hands were bloody and raw. His bones broke. His muscles snapped. His skin tore open again and again. But he healed. Always healed.
And somewhere deep inside the madness, something else began to grow. Something worse than the pain.
The need to make it all stop.
The need to destroy.
The need to be good enough.