"Noooooooooo!!"
Levi woke up screaming while his body was drenched in sweat... his heart was pounding so hard it hurt, making him tighten his grip on it. He sat up in bed, gasping, shaking, and with a face wet with tears.
"No! No! No...!"
He started hitting the bed again and again with his fists, shouting until his voice went hoarse... the nightmare of the cursed night he went through this time was completed, untwisted, just the truth.
No nightcrawler manipulated it, which made it even harder for him to live it again.
To see his parents murdered in cold blood.
To experience the pain of his eyes being ripped out.
To live through that trauma from start to finish...
And so, he just sat there, shaking, crying, until his throat was raw... but slowly, he started taking deep breaths while whispering to himself.
"It’s just a dream... I have been through this before... don’t let it ruin you..."
He kept repeating it again and again until his voice steadied a bit. Only then did he finally look up, finding himself able to see normally.
But he didn’t feel an ounce of happiness... he just looked at the gray walls around him and the little-to-no furniture in the small room.
The room had nothing but a bed, a sink, and a small light hanging from the ceiling, which was flickering in and out... the air smelled of rust and mold.
Levi realized he was in a cell... no, an asylum cell. It was so small, he felt the walls closing in on him.
Before he could analyze his situation, the blue rusty metal door creaked noisily, capturing his attention.
The cell door opened, showing a guard standing in front of it, his features somehow unreadable, like Levi couldn’t make sense of his appearance.
But he didn’t focus too long on him... behind him were two figures, strapped in white straightjackets... only their faces were visible.
The guard pushed them inside and then slammed the door shut.
Levi froze instantly... his heart started pounding hard again. Every sharp breath he took felt like liquid fire coursing through his lungs.
The sight of them... the monsters who had destroyed his family... made his whole body shake in rage.
He clenched his hands as his vision turned blurry, feeling like he was slowly losing control over his body... and then, everything went dark before he knew it.
When he opened his eyes again, the first thing that pierced through his cloudy vision was the floor covered in a puddle of blood.
The Bishop and Darius were lying motionless in front of him... their white jackets were fully stained red as their throats were chomped off like someone took a bite of them.
When Levi saw this, he took a step back and tasted his saliva, finding a rusty, disgusting taste... still dazed, Levi looked at his hands, which were covered in blood to the elbows as if he used his bare hands to rip their bodies apart.
And the worst part? He couldn’t remember anything...
Before Levi could try to force himself to recollect his memories, the door opened widely and the same guard stepped inside... he glanced at the corpses in front of Levi and his monstrous, bloody appearance that resembled a true cannibal.
No words, he lifted his gun and fired.
Levi felt the bullet hit him in the chest... he looked down and touched the hole, then his vision turned blurry as he fell backward on the floor next to the Bishop and Darius.
The last thing he saw on the floor was the Bishop’s dignified face utterly mauled to death... his eyes were ripped away, his face bloodied and bitten off like his throat... he looked like a survivor of a wild animal attack.
As this memory registered in Levi’s mind, even while dying... he couldn’t help but show a short, cruel smile. He didn’t remember what he did to them, but their ending satisfied him.
Unfortunately... this wasn’t the goal of the spiritual trial.
A moment later...
Levi woke up again on the same bed... screaming, sweating, and crying. He had gone through the same nightmare from start to finish. Though this time, he kept his memories of the last attempt.
So, he managed to recollect his emotions somewhat faster this time. As he sat on the bed in silence, arms holding his knees tightly, Levi couldn’t help but smile bitterly, "All of this to make a point... so cruel."
Ka-thung!
The door opened again... the same sound, the same guard, and the same two figures... Bishop and Darius.
The moment they were pushed inside, Levi felt the panic and rage rise within him again, like a trapped animal was banging on the walls to be freed... to be released at them.
Levi swiftly looked to the other side, clutching his heart while trying his best to regulate his breathing... but he struggled immensely.
He knew that if he looked at them, if he let even a glimpse in... he would lose control.
But as he sat there, staring at the wall, thinking hard about how he was going to work this through... the Bishop’s voice resounded in the cell.
It was low, calm, and mocking.
"Your parents were delicious."
He said only four words, and yet... a single one would have been enough.
Everything stopped, the world went silent for Levi... then, black.
A short while later, Levi regained his vision, looking around him in confusion... it didn’t take him long to find the Bishop and Darius lying in the corners of the cell near a bloodied edge of the bed.
He was holding onto a steel cup, which was twisted out of shape, dripping red. This time, Levi didn’t even look in Darius and the Bishop’s direction.
He just lay on the bed with his bloody hands covering his face... tears streamed down his face as he heard the door open again.
He whispered, "So cruel..."
Then, a bullet was fired.
And once more, Levi woke up.
The same room, the same cycle.
No escape... no rest.
Every time, he killed them... every time, he told himself to stop, but his rage, his grief, they didn’t listen to reason... they never did.
They just consumed him and took over, whether he liked it or not... leaving him blacking out to wake up covered in blood.
It was like the current Levi wasn’t the one avenging his parents, but the little one... the traumatized inner child within him, who was buried in the depths of his heart.
It allowed Levi to live and survive the trauma... behaving like nothing happened. But in reality, it was all a trade.
It would behave and keep him sane... but the moment he reached the day he would have those two animals within his grasp, there was no longer reason, rationality, or such.
There was only justice and revenge.
And if he couldn’t do it... His inner child would take over in a heartbeat, uncaring if he was in a spiritual trial, if any of this was real or not... it simply didn’t care.
After what little Levi went through that night... the helplessness, the despair, the sadness, the pain; it would be a surprise if he managed to spend a single minute next to them.
No need to mention working hand in hand to free themselves from the cell.
So, Levi wasn’t in a struggle to kill the Bishop and Darius... he was struggling to fight against his traumatized inner child and what he promised it in the future.
Ka-thang!
As Levi looked at the sinister smirks of the Bishop and Darius while they stepped inside the cell, he couldn’t help but show a helpless smile. He knew what about to happen next, but he had no plans to stop it.
"No hard feelings, you said... all you gave me are hard feelings when I only wanted to live a short, but happy life with my family."
"Curse you... you ruined me."