Shadow Slave | School Days

Holding her hand over her mouth, Nephis supressed a silent scream as she continued to stare at the video that played through the phone in shock. Noctis had already left, leaving herself and Cassie the only ones present in the room to watch Sunny rip his mind apart.

First it was Morgan putting holes in his hands, she had stabbed him, cut him, beat him and yet none of that scared her. None of that explained the sick feeling in her stomach. It was his eyes, those empty black orbs that had once been filled with so much passion seated within his head.

Sunny sat there and took the abuse, and to say that these initial stages of his torture were the lightest would be an understatement. Nephis watched as Morgan ripped Sunny's world to shreds, ripped apart everything he believed in. Even while he was being tortured, he still found enough strength to defend her.

And then, came the silence.

She watched as the room fell into silence, the ticking of a distant clock resounding in the background as Sunny forced himself to sit upright. He didn't move, only staring into his reflection emptily for hours on end as he soon tried to raise himself to his feet.

Shakily, the man she came to love stood up, looking around the room weakly for an escape route. But all he could see was himself. All he could see was the vile image which Morgan was training his mind to hate. Sunny's screams caused her phone to vibrate so much that it shook, yet she couldn't take her hands off it.

"Neph... where are you? Someone, anyone, save me, kill me."

Sunny's groans came to her attention as Nephis continued to watch, hand placed over her mouth as Cassie herself could barely restrain tears upon listening to his ramblings. And yet, cruelly, insidiously, that wasn't even the worst part of his stay.

He had carved lines down his forearms with broken glass, carved lines across his body that quickly healed only to make himself feel something. Soon after, he had taken to self mutilation to a more supreme extent. Nephis threw the phone against the wall, refusing to look further as she saw Sunny motion his removed appendage to his lips.

"They made him eat himself! They made him fucking eat his own hands to survive!" Nephis wailed, collapsing where she sat into her arms as Cassie pulled her into a shaky embrace. There were no words that could be used to console her, no words to alleviate her distress as Nephis stared blankly at Sunny's cage.

Rising to her feet, she stared down at it from the same angle Morgan once had as visions of Sunny's terrified face with his back pushed towards the farthest corner came into view. Tears fell from her eyes undisturbed, yet not a single inch of Nephis' body dared show it.

Wiping her eyes for a moment, Nephis turned around and gazed upon Cassie who wasn't doing much better than her. "We need to leave, and we need to do it now before anyone else arrives here." Grabbing her gently by the arm, the two women made their way out of the room silently before they were forced to take refuge in a prison.

Someone had arrived.

The sound of footsteps erased all hope that Sunny had returned from Nephis' soul as she heard a voice that was too familiar to be faked. It was Mordret's, he was stalking through the ruined prison in search of something unknown as he pushed the door of each prison open.

"Hm, I haven't been able to find anyone to kill in a while. Shall I just kill the first person I see? That's a scary thought. Speaking of which, I should be meeting up with Effie and the gunslinger. Only after I kill someone though."

His slow, steady footsteps resounded through the clearing as he stopped to listen for the sounds of people. Cassie, who was currently pressed firmly against Nephis' body behind a door motioned for Nephis to turn down the brightness of her phone and dismiss vibrations so they could communicate.

Vehemently resisting the idea, Nephis ordered her to wait as Mordret's footsteps drew closer. "I could destroy this whole area in one go, but where's the fun in that? Maybe I'll kill the prisoners after torturing them for information." Despite his words, in the next moment Mordret's hand turned into a blur.

A thunderclap wracked Cassie's ears in pain at such close proximity to such loud noise as Mordret sent out a vacuum of air that cleaved the roof of their prison in two. Some of Nephis' hair was sent scattering across the air too as Mordret began to whistle.

"I could do that again, or I could stalk down whoever it is I'm smelling." At this, Nephis stopped. There was no point in running any further, motioning to move, she could only slowly glide her eyes upward as she saw Mordret's empty eyes shining from his head as he craned his neck into their prison.

They were caught.

In a split second, Nephis' fist lashed out towards Mordret's face as the man easily caught the blow. Moments after, she began raining blows on him, feeling like she was hitting steel with each blow as Mordret was forced out the room. In the next moment, Mordret grabbed onto her arm, unsheathing her sword as he stared at her.

"Is it that time of the month? Who goes around attacking their dear friends. Let me guess, it's because I'm from Valor. How prejudice!" He exclaimed, seemingly outraged despite the fact he had taken no damage. "What did that white haired guy say in that one show? Ah, yes. This is a violation of my rights!"

Nephis remained on guard as Cassie remained behind her, her sword drawn as Mordret looked at them with a curious expression. "I assumed you'd be here, but not this early. Did you learn how to fly?" Nephis instead threw the car keys she had stolen at him; he caught it easily as she simply stated.

"I drove. But what were you talking about, killing the first person you see. Why?" Mordret stared at her blankly for a moment before bursting out into laughter, taking a few steps back because of it before staring at Nephis. "I could smell you since I got here, I just didn't know who it was. If you were anyone else, I would have eaten you."

This time, Cassie spoke as she looked at him with a horrified expression. "Eaten us? You're a cannibal?" Mordret nodded feverishly before letting out slight laughter once more. "I'm joking, I don't eat people... often. Orion used to though! Anyways, is there anything useful here?"

Nephis shook her head, a grimace sitting upon her face as she recalled what she had seen. "Only an... unpleasant video of Sunny. You can search for the rest yourself." With this, a look of boredom arrived on Mordret's face as well as a hint of hatred.

"I see, well. I'll say this since I threatened to eat you. Song may or may not have captured Sunny." After this, Mordret simply disappeared in a black blur, the empty space he left quickly being refilled as Nephis turned her head towards Cassie.

"We need to call Eubin." Finding the woman wasn't hard, but getting the information necessary to enlighten them of Sunny's whereabouts' was. Eubin had placed herself in a position of power in comparison to Nephis right under her nose. She had done them favours, saved Rain and so much more.

Frankly, Eubin had no reason to listen to Nephis.

Despite this, Cassie had the other woman on the phone in seconds. The phone quickly being put on speaker as the two women dashed towards the northern quadrant at breakneck speeds. Finally, Eubin's soothing voice came through the phone speaker as Rain could be distantly heard in the background.

(Cassie can use a phone, you can use your phone with your eyes closed so ha!)

"Hello? What could you possibly want from me Nephis? If you don't know, I'm too busy cooking Rain dinner to come with you on any more of your semi-suicidal escapades." Nephis offered no visible reaction bar a slight clenching of her fist as she kept running forward, her voice steady and firm.

"Does Song have Sunny?" A simple, straight to the point question which had a simple answer. And yet, Eubin remained silent for a few moments before clearing her throat. "I have no idea, maybe if you joined our great family, you would be privy to such information. I'll warn you; you can never leave."

Her last words were filled with something in between hatred and utter terror as she uttered them, but Nephis had no time to analyse her speech as her lips curled into a vicious frown. "Just be fucking straight with me! Do you have Sunny!?"

Another moment of silence.

"Lets say we do have Sunny, what makes you think he'd want to see you? After all, in this hypothetical where I did see him, he wasn't doing very well."

This time, it was Nephis turn to be silent as she reminisced on what Sunny had said about her. He had called her a liar, a betrayer for abandoning him, admonishing her very name for forgetting him and abandoning him there. And yet, despite this, she wanted to see him.

"Yes, he'd want to see me. We've been through too much to let something like this break him. You didn't see what Morgan did to him, you didn't hear the words she said to him."

A moment of silence passed, the sound of strings cutting through flesh could be heard as Eubin hummed a tune. Although, despite Nephis being unable to see, she had a feeling Eubin was curious. So, she spoke anyway.

"Sunny was so... lonely. So terrified. She had self isolated him for three weeks and he had taken up self harm and self mutilation just to make himself feel something. She made him eat his own fucking arm for food! So, I'm telling you, please, just let me see him."

 A sigh escaped from the other end of the phone, Eubin rubbed her fingers across her temple idly for a moment before breathing in deeply and preparing herself for what she was about to say.

"Sunny doesn't think he's the same person as the Sunny who met you. I think he's made himself an entirely different personality and identity to escape the trauma. The only thing he can associate with himself right now is he hates and will try to kill anyone who smells of Morgan."

Another pause, Eubin steadied herself before dropping a bombshell on the last daughter of the immortal flame.

"In other words, the Sunny you knew is dead."