CHAPTER 3: ACCEPT THE ABYSS

  The little iron hatch slams shut as soon as he sees me, like a late guest one hastens to accommodate, he opens the door for me with a sharp motion. A stagnant smell, a rancid mix of aging pages and acrid chemicals, filters through the gap and assaults my nostrils at once. I also perceive a faint sound, a sort of metallic clicking and footsteps inside. I do not necessarily want to enter—in fact I would desire anything but being here—but the two guards push my body slightly.

  In his eyes, at last his eye, which I see clearly for the first time, I observe a certain satisfaction as he reveals himself before me in his great robe. It trails slightly on the floor, soaked with dried stains—grease? blood? I have no idea. The pressure grows ever more intense against my back, so I give in; I move forward; the robe unfolds before me, inviting me into its lair.

  I stagger. My legs buckle, my heart crashes against my chest, and my throat tightens until it cuts off my breath. The vision offered to me is no nightmare; it is something even my imagination in its darkest moments could not have envisaged. A landscape worthy—if not even madder—than Bosch’s Dante-esque paintings: a degenerate Dalí, not melting clocks, but melting bodies—a hell.

  The floor is paved with damp slabs, brackish water mixing with different fluids—blood, pus, and various lymphs. It trickles through thin channels carved in the rock, winding between stools and table legs on which tools, books, and haphazard piles rest. I glimpse a stone basin, at the far end, where organic pieces float; a young man comes to rinse his hands there. The air is even heavier, thick, as if a pump sucked the oxygen and constantly spat out putrid fumes—faint voices, muffled screams, prayers—mingling with the sound of constant ventilation.

  And there is he, the inquisitor, who reappears in the monumental frame of this infernal door. He stands on my left, one guard behind me and the other on my right, I am blocked; my body can only go toward that black hole. His smooth mask reflects the pale torch light, and I see in his sound eye a wicked gleam. He seems much more expressive than in the cell, perhaps simply a play of light.

  — Welcome, Damien. To my laboratory, my cabinet of curiosity.

  My throat rises. I sway. If I had not been emptied of everything, I would have soiled this floor as I already pissed on my suit. But now, it is even worse: I have no choice, and I have time to see, to think. My gaze stops on a shelf, to the right, covered with jars. In one, what looks like a mummified child’s hand, linked by veins to a tiny heart still beating; in another, three eyes sewn together, floating in a yellowish liquid.

  Everything in me wants to scream. Run. Flee.

  So I turn around, like a cornered animal. I try to find a gap; I know my captors are close, but perhaps I can slip between them?

  His voice pierces me, gentle and cruel, placed like a blade on my nape.

  — Why flee? Aren’t you curious, don’t you want to see my collection… perhaps it does not please you?

  I remain frozen—his question makes no sense, but the honesty with which he asks me something so absurd revolts me, and for the first time, a form of anger subtly coexists with my permanent terror. My fists clench, and I surprise myself wanting to hit him, even though my arms are too heavy, the rope’s imprint still deeply visible on my wrists.

  I do not answer, because I cannot. No speech could explain the absolute panic invading me; anger makes me clench my jaw, and fear makes my teeth chatter.

  Before me spreads the unspeakable.

  Bodies suspended from chains of silver and iron, their skin turned parchment, stretched, nailed, sculpted like sacred leather. Some moan, their mouths sewn but still alive. Others have no limbs, only stumps connected to tubes. I even distinguish a man without a jaw, whose tongue dangles and trembles at every jerk. A large glass reservoir, connected to his jugular, siphons his blood intermittently.

  Deformed children, distorted, stretched as if made of clay. Their limbs pulled by straps, their bones forced to grow in unnatural directions. Their cries are sharp, piercing, but no one pays them attention. Scribes—monks dressed in black—note, adjust, order. They seem to measure the reaction of flesh, mark the progress of distress with clinical meticulousness, as if each complaint were a number to be recorded in a register and all this served a purpose.

  As the triangle around me forces me to progress through this horror, and I keep wondering if my fate will lead me to end like these wretches, I notice multiple glass spheres. Inside: humans… or what remains of them. Their eyes are open, but their faces are empty. Tubes enter their mouths, their ears, sometimes their open skulls, fed by an amber liquid.

  I tremble. I step back. But each step brings me to another horror, another scene the mind should not be able to conceive. I feel my legs give way for an instant; my knees hit the flagstones, sliding in a puddle that seems lukewarm. A shred of flesh floats there, like a rag dropped by a distracted hand. I am disgusted, and I feel guilty; these creatures inspire me almost no pity—they are inhuman. What they endure is unimaginable, and I refuse to consider them as what they were. I cannot; it would be too awful.

  I rise with the help of one of the two soldiers, and following my logic, I start running for good, like a madman. The shock of my feet on the slabs gives me a desperate feeling of freedom; it is the first time I move of my own will for hours. Behind me, I already hear the guard curse, his armor clinking, but I do not look: I go, I rush, I strive to keep standing, as if my life depended on it. Shreds of tortured faces stick to my eyelids; I run to chase them, to wash away the growing nausea. I feel faces turn toward me—the sewn eyelids fix me, the sealed mouths speak to me—but I deny everything. I tell myself that with enough speed, I could outrun this hell.

  I refuse to stop being human; I refuse these abominations, this deadly place.

  My breath is choppy, my vision distorted by tears, fear, too bright light, too strange shapes. But I run anyway, because my instinct screams that I must leave, that this place is not meant for the living. I want to flee this place, this world.

  I swerve abruptly into a corridor opening on my left; I nearly hit a pillar around which naked women are hung—I brush a brazier. Pain flares, too minimal to stop me, just enough to remind me how much I am on borrowed time. My heart pounds my ribs as if it wanted to escape alone. A voice inside me screams at it to wait; it cannot afford to be selfish.

  I bump a human shape with sewn eyes; I graze a wall streaming with a reddish liquid; I hear screams fading behind me, others approaching, others… laughing.

  A door on the right tempts me; I stretch my arm to grab it, but it is locked. I leap forward; panic guides me more surely than reason. Voices jostle in my head but they all shout, “Get out, run!”

  And then suddenly I collapse.

  An invisible, brutal wall pins me to the ground with dry violence. No sound. No flash. Just… a sudden crushing. As if the air had become a metaphysical hand—unyielding, heavy.

  My skull rings; a sharp whistle masks sounds around. I feel my legs still throbbing with adrenaline, yet the rest of my body no longer obeys. The floor, sticky and soaked with fluids, holds me like glue. I try to turn my head, but my muscles do not respond, frozen by this inexorable grip.

  My muscles contract, struggle, but it is useless. I am nailed like a butterfly on a board, perhaps soon to be in the showcase of his cabinet of curiosity.

  And he is there again, the inquisitor. Out of nowhere, almost disappointed.

  — Come now…

  His voice does not even need to rise to dominate the instant. It is calm, almost paternal, and that makes it terrifying. He is the only one to address me like that, like a human.

  — God alone will judge your goodwill. And He alone your punishment.

  He approaches slowly. The torches behind him cast his long distorted shadow on the floor, like a crawling beast in an oversized robe.

  — If you have nothing to reproach yourself with… why flee, Damien?

  He squats beside me, as he had in the white room. His leather-gloved hand touches my shoulder with infamous gentleness.

  — Could you be guilty?

  I want to scream. Spit. Tell him it is not a question of guilt, that this place is a hell, that no one would remain here willingly.

  But nothing comes out.

  I am nailed physically and mentally. Is this an extension of his power?

  I barely attempt to lift an elbow, a futile gesture, but the invisible force redoubles, crushes me. I feel my throat dry, my tongue stick to my palate. Words jam, my teeth grind, and my breathing becomes halting. I feel as though even the air is rationed to me, that each gulp costs a reprieve.

  And somewhere, in a sick corner of my mind, another voice slips in:

  And if it were true? And if this world judged not what you do…but what you are?

  And if in his eyes, in those of this God, fleeing…was already treason?

  The inquisitor straightens up, as if satisfied with his effect.

  — Very well. We will resume. But this time…without theatre.

  He turns on his heels, and already I feel the mysterious energy lift me, like a puppet without strings.

  — I am sorry…

  The words come by themselves, strangled, drowned in my tears, in pain, in a shame I no longer understand. They are not thoughtful apologies. They are a plea. A miserable attempt to make everything stop, to halt this descent, to have someone hear that I am alive, that I am human.

  I barely taste dust and blood in my mouth. I need an answer, a gesture, something to silence this vertigo. This sense of injustice, of being tossed by a malevolent entity that wants to destroy me.

  He stops for a moment, then turns back, slowly, like a priest ready to grant absolution…or sentence. His voice is gentle, almost warm, as if what he did here were an act of love. An act of faith.

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  — Come, come…

  He approaches, his hushed step echoing on slabs soaked with murmurs and dead prayers.

  — No comedy, my son. I have just told you, have I not?

  He leans forward, very near me, and I feel his breath, peaceful, almost warm. My own breathing, by contrast, is chaotic, as if my body refused to calm. I hear him pressing his leather gloves, a dry sound, a rustle echoing my inner tremors.

  He squats again, his shiny mask just above my face dirtied by tears. I see my pitiful reflection in the polished metal.

  — Why do you apologize?

  He tilts his head slightly, like a curious bird.

  — Do you even know?

  His tone implies I have no idea why I apologize, and that I had better be ready to assume a fault I do not yet know. I see his slight smile, hidden by the lower part of his mask, but perceptible in the way his eyes narrow.

  I have no answer. I would like to say I am sorry for having fled, for being here. Sorry for being different, for existing in this world. But none of that is right, none of it is true—I chose nothing!

  I then feel his gaze weigh on me, as if inviting me to speak, to justify myself. I realize he wants me to find my own guilt. A subtle trap: he does not punish me for a specific offense, he accuses me of being guilty of anything. And I feel it, I dive into his nets, because my mind, already broken, seeks a fault to confess to ease the abominable sense of shame eating at me.

  I sob, unable to articulate a coherent thought. My body trembles because of my inner dilemma. Yet my mind shatters as his words sink me into nameless guilt, the kind one feels without knowing why. The kind that cannot be erased because it rests on nothing concrete.

  Instinctively my hands grip the floor, as if I tried to anchor myself in objective reality, to rationalize all that happens to me and surrounds me. But everything slips away, and what he offers me is an imaginary fault—the only support I can hope for. And the worst is that I reach out for it without even wanting to.

  And he knows it.

  — You apologize because your soul seeks a fault.

  He stands, hands joined.

  — We will help it find one.

  His confidence chills me; I understand that this is his supreme talent: to make me admit a crime I never committed, but whose guilt I will end up bearing. I see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the way he observes each twitch in me, assessing my level of submission.

  He signals the guards. The invisible pressure lifts me again, like an insect in a vial.

  This time, I do not even fight.

  Because he is right.

  I apologize without knowing why.

  My mind abandons logic. My heart clings to the idea that if they designate me guilty, then at least my suffering will make sense. I no longer want to endure it empty; I need at least a mental escape.

  And they will do everything to give me a reason.

  — Fear is natural, Damien, he finally says, his voice fluid, almost tender.

  — It is the soul struggling against the truth.

  I close my eyes, the light still pierces them. I clench my teeth, my tears roll in shame.

  I am naked under the hemp robe, offered, defenseless, like a puppet: my body may still move under the influence of his incomprehensible power.

  — Wh… what truth?!

  My voice bursts, broken, both a cry and a sob. A jolt of despair, frustration. Because despite everything I cannot be silent. Even if I am more afraid than ever, even if my body is nailed down, reduced to a thing, there is still part of me that screams not to sink.

  And in that scream lies a simple, terrible question:

  Will I end up like them?

  Like those suspended, mutilated creatures, emptied, exposed as trophies of horror, living sculptures of pain?

  Will I also become a nameless body, thoughtless, a residue of humanity condemned to whimper in darkness until my mind dissolves?

  Facing me, the inquisitor remains silent for a long moment. As if savoring my fear. Or perhaps… my question. It would not surprise me, given his perversity, that he is satisfied with my “curiosity,” or rather my futile attempt at revolt.

  Then he approaches slowly, like a cat that has already devoured the mouse’s legs. He stops right next to a sort of table, like one a surgeon would use for operations. Small raised rims outline the object’s purpose.

  — The truth…, he finally murmurs, leaning over me,

  — … the one you ignore yourself.

  He tilts his head slightly, like fascinated by a rare insect. He studies my face as much as he seems to ponder the deep implications of this reflection. I feel a shiver on my skin, for his attention is even more unsettling than his silence. He gauges each of my breaths, evidently enjoying seeing me struggle against his grip.

  — You are a dissonance, Damien. An anomaly. A foreign presence, there is something in you I do not grasp. You should not be here, and yet you are.

  — So we must understand. Know. Extract what can be revealed, and consume what is useless.

  His hand, gloved in black leather, strokes the table’s edge, his fingers caressing the slightly raised rims meant to retain fluids. For the blood of people dissected on it, I shiver.

  He lingers a moment, almost lovingly, on a corner where matter seems to have accumulated, a mixture of brown liquid. Then he raises his head, slowly, toward me.

  — What you are…, he pauses, almost theatrical,

  — … could be sacred. Or a stain. A heretic or a saint. You do not know yourself, do you?

  I want to scream that I am just a man. A human. That I am neither demon nor chosen nor abomination.

  Rage grips my throat, I try to shake my head but can only nod slightly, my muscles paralyzed by his invisible force.

  Can I even still be sure myself? What proof do I have, on what basis could I assert my truth with absolute certainty?

  In this world, where reality is so blurred, where they speak of magic, of gods, of bodies offered for study like sanctified meat, nothing seems sure.

  His gaze meets mine, and I read there the satisfaction of one who already knows I doubt, that my mind is virgin soil ready to be sown with his lies or his truth. I perceive how much he manipulates: he wants me to feel guilty for existing, to convince myself that everything is confusion. Every word he speaks aims to strip me of the slightest conviction, to render me docile in my own questions.

  Who am I really, to them?

  And what will they do with me, if I cannot prove that I am not against them, that I am innocent?

  The inquisitor straightens. Behind him, hooded shapes advance, carrying instruments, gloves reminiscent of latex, antiseptic vials and small scalpels.

  I see metal shine on a rolling table, curved blades, forceps, and I immediately feel a knot in my stomach. They will cut me, study me, make me confess a nature I do not even have.

  — Begin, he simply states.

  Cold bites me again, stars dance before my eyes and the shock of those simple words is so strong I nearly collapse. A silent hand grasps my arm, sinks a needle; I barely understand that I am already lying on the cold metal surface.

  In a last flash of consciousness, I wonder if I will emerge still able to think or if I will, too, join the cabinet of curiosity.

  I am held firmly, arms and legs immobilized by wide straps, as if I were an unstable thing ready to break or flee. The table itself seems to vibrate, crossed by faint pulses, almost imperceptible. Perhaps my imagination, or fear’s fruit.

  Around me they bustle, silent, efficient, methodical. The Inquisitor stands slightly back, draped in his dark mantle, the mask ever impassive.

  A murmur runs through the assembly of tormentors: a few words uttered in a sacred—or profane?—tongue that I do not catch. Their voices overlap, forming a dissonance that sets a vague echo in the room. Perhaps they recite litanies, seeing in my suffering a sacred dimension. Or I have simply lost the ability to understand. One of them—the closest to me, on my right—takes a small curved blade.

  His leather-gloved hand rests on my forearm. I feel pressure just above the wrist, where the skin is thinner. I struggle not to move, but my muscles contract instinctively. Whatever was in the syringe that pricked me—when the stars spun before my eyes—already acts.

  The blade descends and I feel the burn: not a prick, nor a mere cut—a diffuse fire, almost electric, spreading along my nerves to the shoulder. Why cut so deep?

  Blood beads immediately, deep red; I feel it run along my body onto the table. I would scream, but shock cuts my voice. Tears flow of themselves, a warmer line than blood sliding down my temples.

  A second individual, stockier, approaches with a silver rod connected to filaments from a metallic machine. He passes it over the wound, a few centimeters away, as if to capture something.

  Indicators light briefly, moving from blue to dirty yellow, as if the rod sniffed the essence of my blood or vital energy. I feel tingling throughout the arm; a dizziness threatens to make me vomit.

  Apparently what they seek is not obvious: the man clicks his tongue, sign of disappointment or query.

  He does not look away from the strange probe he holds, as if he wanted to force it to yield a secret. He straightens slightly, looks at the Inquisitor like an uncertain student.

  — I have no certainty, Father… he murmurs, voice filled with reverence.

  — But it is not excluded? the Inquisitor retorts, approaching me like a fairground beast. I sense how curiosity devours him; he seems jubilant that an anomaly resists him, that there is in me something even his degenerate science cannot explain.

  Something these twisted scientists cannot really detect in me intrigues him.

  His single eye gleams with unhealthy eagerness. He stares alternately at my skin, at the probe, then pierces me with a gaze thirsty for answers.

  The operator lifts his head towards the Inquisitor; no further words audible, and the latter makes an imperceptible hand gesture. His silence seems answer enough, for no other speech is uttered. They remove the rod, while another figure steps forward to press a cloth soaked in stinging liquid where the wound still drips.

  Pain is drilling, as if muscle tissue had been torn by a metal spur. I feel muscle spasms around the pierced area, as though refusing entry to that singular substance.

  While I struggle silently under my affliction, I almost feel the table stir. It nearly seems to grow legs, and for a moment I visualize severed limbs, creatures with curved backs perhaps, bearing this religious credence. My sight blurs, their panting flesh faces watch me with mute grins. I blink and everything disappears.

  Tingling sensations course through my whole body, a feeling of lightness seizes me—eliciting stunned amazement.

  My mind, bewildered, wavers: am I going mad? Did they inject drugs in that syringe? With that rod or at any time in this ritual?

  I hardly recall the first prick, or the moment they tore my clothes. They might have injected all sorts of poisons or stimulants. I lose the thread.

  Why this sensation now, when seconds earlier panic seized me, mind and body pained? The mind fascinates me for a few seconds in its ability to detach from the present, until my wavering gaze returns to the being who is the source of much of my misery.

  The Inquisitor, sometimes spectator, sometimes actor—interpreting at will the roles of a dramatic tour—stands there, arms crossed, giving a minimal nod to validate or reject an action.

  The delirium orchestrated by his henchmen does not stop, arguing at times among themselves, reducing me to the state of a mere receptacle. As if everything played elsewhere: through probes, fluids, needles, and what they decipher from my body.

  I hear them whisper, exchange notes, compare the variations of my pulse, the state of my skin. One mentions a “tolerance coefficient” barely audible, another evokes a “risk of metastasis.”

  I nevertheless hear him murmur a few words, barely louder than a breath:

  — There is no doubt. Yes, at this stage, it is not a simple idiosyncrasy with the serum. Continue.

  My head is heavy so that worrying about the meaning of his words seems too arduous; seconds turn into hours.

  They prick me several times along the spine, each needle vibrating with a different intensity. Sometimes I feel an electric shock paralyze my legs. Other times, it is like a numbness climbing up to the ribs. Delicate forceps lift skin at certain spots, like on my flank, and inject a warm, burning substance that nauseates me. I sweat in big drops.

  At one point they make me bite a leather rod. I do not know why. Perhaps they fear I might break my teeth when pain becomes too intense.

  I taste that rancid hide between my lips, my breath chokes there, and my throat burns in silence. With every prick, a spasm twists my muscles, but they note everything, they measure, as if they hoped for a precise reaction I do not give.

  The room fills with a mix of chemical smells, blood and sweat. The shiny black floor is now speckled with scarlet drops falling at regular intervals.

  My ears buzz: I no longer know if I hear cloth rustling, prayers, or blood pulsing in my temples. Nausea is constant. I feel my consciousness flicker at times. But they do not let me go: they apply wet cloths to my face, waft vapors that jolt me awake, keeping me in conscious pain. An ammonia-soaked glove waved under my nose, a censer shaken above my head. I would scream, flee into unconsciousness, but they deny me even that door.

  Through all this I sometimes try to murmur a word, to beg, to ask what they really seek. But no one answers. Each attempt at speech is ignored—or they order me to be silent with a single, firm and inexorable hand pressed on my mouth or throat.

  Toward the end of the “session”—after a time that seems infinite—the Inquisitor finally decides to approach in earnest. He leans over, places the palm of his hand on my sternum, above my heart, just where the skin is still intact. He smiles at me.

  His smile is almost tender, like a father contemplating a child, and the mismatch chills me more than all the physical pain. He seems satisfied with the resistance I have shown, as if my suffering filled him with strange pride.

  — We have found you, my brother.

  He glances at one of the hooded figures, who nods as confirmation.

  I perceive in that nod a tacit code: the collected measures suffice for some hypothesis to be confirmed.

  The Inquisitor’s hand leaves me. I feel it take away part of my vital warmth. His words echo in my head like a death knell:

  “my brother.”

  The straps loosen slightly, but I remain prisoner of the table, and of the words that suddenly weakened me.

  When their veiled gazes rest on me again, I understand that it is not over.