The sound of metal against metal tore through the silence.

Nero's eyes snapped open, his body jerking upright on instinct before the pain reminded him why that was a terrible idea.

The gate to his cell screeched as it was ripped open, the rusted hinges protesting loudly. Two Templars in crimson armor stepped inside, their footsteps heavy and deliberate. They didn't speak, didn't acknowledge him as anything more than cargo to be moved.

Nero didn't resist when they grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet. His legs buckled immediately, too weak to support his weight, and they dragged him out of the cell with the same cold efficiency as before. The iron chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, the metal biting into his already raw skin, binding him completely.

They took him through the corridors again, past the rows of empty cells and the ones that weren't empty, past the sounds of moaning and weeping that echoed off the stone walls. Nero barely registered any of it. His mind was elsewhere, floating in a haze of exhaustion and lingering pain.

The door to the procedure room opened and they threw him inside.

The lights came on immediately this time, harsh and blinding, and Nero squeezed his eyes shut against the assault. By the time he managed to open them again, he was already strapped to the stone bed, the restraints locked tight across his chest, waist, and legs.

The masked figures stood around him in their circle, silent and motionless, their steel faces reflecting the light like polished mirrors.

Then they began.

The needles came first, thicker than before, the runes carved into their metal glowing faintly as they were driven into his flesh. Nero winced and grimaced at the familiar sting, staring at the stark white ceiling whilst bracing himself for what was coming.

The liquid fire poured into his veins.

This time, it was worse. The dosage had increased, he could tell even through the haze of agony, the burning spreading faster and digging deeper. It felt like his blood was boiling, like his organs were melting from the inside out, like every cell in his body was being torn apart and reassembled haphazardly.

As the hours went by, Nero found himself deeply entrenched in the suffering and anguish. There was no difference between black and white, or life and death anymore.

If there was, then there was only a thin line dividing them. One that was extremely fragile and constantly on the verge of being snapped in half as his mind fractured more and more under the assault, his consciousness fleeing, trying to find some kind of escape or solace.

But there was none to be found.

The hallucinations continued as well, existing in the form of twisted nightmares that tore through his mind in fragments that couldn't be held onto.

Images of death and corruption, of things that should not be, and of his own body being unmade and remade over and over again. They blurred together into a single senseless, endless horror that he couldn't escape from, one that he couldn't wake up from, something that could only be endured.

Even more time went by.

Or maybe it was just a few minutes, Nero couldn't tell anymore. His sense of time had completely shattered under the weight of the medical procedures.

Now, all he knew was pain.

Endless and overwhelming pain, broken only by brief moments of unconsciousness that offered no real relief.

Until finally, it stopped.

The masked figures stepped back, their work complete for now, and one of them walked to the door to tap it twice. The Templars entered and unlocked the restraints, hauling Nero's broken body off the stone bed.

They dragged him back through the corridors, then back into his cell and threw him inside.

The gate slammed shut.

Nero lay on the straw for a long time, unable to move, his body trembling uncontrollably.

The worm in his stomach was still alive.

The damn bastard constantly shifted and squirmed within his organs, providing him no shortage of endless discomfort and pain as it sometimes nibbled on his organs, providing internal hemorrhage in abundance.

His eyes turned golden and he looked within his body.

At the moment, there was still an abundance of dark strings. They covered most of his internal organs, and his bones now. However, some of them were already bleached white.

Although the Oracle had told him Vineheart would eventually overcome the Nordian Worm parasite, he had a feeling things would not be so simple.

In fact, he suspected that the two foreign entities were battling it out in his body at the moment, and it was the winner that would prevail, gaining sole inhabitation within him.

Thinking about it that way was rather terrifying, but he felt that was the reality of it.

Vineheart really was fighting back. He could feel it now...

The warmth spreading from his chest was almost endearing,, regardless of how alien it truly was, pushing against the darkness and slowly turning the black threads white. It was a small comfort, knowing that at least some part of him was actively resisting the darkness.

Eventually, Nero managed to drag himself to the corner of the cell and curl up into a ball, his remaining arm wrapped around his knees, his forehead pressed against the cold stone wall, seeking some form of relief. With the pain bearing down on him from all sides, relentless and unyielding, he knew sleep would not come easily tonight.

It didn't.

The next day, they came for him again.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

For an entire week, the routine repeated itself until it turned into an endless cycle.

Waking up to the sound of the gate opening and the greeting scent of metal, getting dragged into the procedure room, enduring the sting of needles and injections, throwing up and pissing himself under the endless barrage of illusions and the nightmares that followed, then getting thrown back into the cell to suffer alone in the darkness.

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