Tristessa woke up in a damp, very cold and dark place with a strong smell of raw meat, and no possibility of movement. Her hands and feet were tied with strong ropes so tight that with just a little effort the pressure began to cut into her skin. She couldn't see; her eyes were bandaged so tightly that not even light could penetrate those layers of black fabric. She couldn't scream and call for help; her mouth was stuffed with something soft like cloth, and a rope was tied around her jaw so that she couldn't spit it out.
"...!!!"
Not a single syllable. Everything was absolute silence, so solid and so oppressive that it was deafening.
"TIARAAAA!" she screamed inside her head, the only place where she still had any freedom. "Why?! How could I fail so quickly?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?!"
This new situation threatened to drive her towards insanity. Her failure to save the Mercer-Archeos family was so resounding that she couldn't believe it.
Hadn't Tiara believed a word of her story? Had she never intended to believe her?
"But the attack is going to happen! It's not a lie!" she thought, shouting uselessly into the darkness of her mind. "No... How long has it been? What day is it? Did they run away...? Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"
Before she could continue asking herself useless questions, the creaking of a wooden door broke the prevailing silence. She heard several footsteps and, feeling a rough handling above her head, suddenly light invaded her vision: Tristessa saw that she was locked in the underground warehouse where the family stored cured meat from the animals Jin had hunted. These chunks of meats were hung from the ceiling on metal hooks and surrounded by small crystals of power that emitted a faint white light but a very strong aura of extreme cold that, fortunately, didn't fully reach the ground where she was immobilized.
A silhouette passed by her and leaned against a large wooden barrel: arms crossed and wearing the same dress as always, Tiara regarded her prisoner with disdain and perpetual loathing.
"You're awake. Fine, we can start right now."
"¡STUPID, FUCKING BITCH! YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR FAMILY AND RUN!"
That's what Tristessa tried to scream, alongside more insults and warnings of the doom that was coming, but everything said was muffled against the clumped bundle of scraps of old clothing Tiara had blocked her mouth with.
With almost bulging eyes, she saw the woman coming towards her: tiara grabbed her cheeks tightly, digging her nails in and forcing her to look up into her eyes filled with deadly ice.
"I will ask you a series of questions, and you will answer me honestly. You will only answer my questions. If you lie, I will know it, and I will break a phalanx of your fingers for each lie you tell. If you speak out of turn, I will break a phalanx of your fingers according to my discretion. After your fingers, I will continue with your toes. You don't want us to move on to the next stage after all your fingers and toes are broken."
With that, the pregnant woman freed her mouth and Tristessa coughed, spitting out saliva and shaking off the nausea she had been feeling. She couldn't even get a word out as Tiara went to where her hands were tied at her waist and took the top of her right index finger.
"What is your name?"
"…T-Tristessa Irandell," she replied, feeling her heart pounding desperately as Tiara tightened her grip around her finger more threateningly.
"Where do you come from?"
"I don't know."
Wrong answer. Tiara recognized her lie easily and with a swift movement, snapped the upper phalanx of the finger in two. The force applied was so strong and violent that the broken bone pierced muscle and skin.
And Tristessa's agonized screams echoed throughout the house, followed by her inconsolable wailing.
"Are you a Stranger?"
"Ugh…ugh… I-I don't…know…"
Mercilessly, Tiara closed her hand around the lower phalanx and performed the same brutal movement, leaving that part of the finger also fractured and provoking another high-pitched scream from the girl.
The pain was so unbearable, setting fire to her nervous system and attacking her consciousness with such impunity, that her mind was unable to continue, and everything faded away. But Tiara had no intention of stopping there, and she brought a small vial with white liquid to her nose, and when she breathed in, it instantly reactivated Tristessa's brain.
"W-what...? Ah...Ahhh...AHHHHGGGGH!!"
Just as her mind began to work at breakneck speed, so did the nerve signals coming from her useless, blood-covered finger.
"Fainting from that... You're so pathetic," the woman told her, without a hint of guilt in her voice.
"SCREW YOU, YOU CRAZY FUCKING BITCH!" Tristessa shrieked in return, her bloodshot eyes spilling tears. She squirmed, kicked, and did everything she could to free herself from this confinement where only more pain awaited her. "HELP ME! JIN! SEVERUS...!"
Grabbing the girl by the hair, Tiara slammed her head against the ground, effectively silencing her. Tristessa felt extreme heat flow into her broken nose, as well as the inside of her mouth, quickly numbed by several of her broken front teeth.
"Do you know anyone by the name of Daiana?"
"N…n-no…" she replied, her words laced with foamy saliva, bubbles of blood, and bits of teeth escaping between her lips. She felt Tiara's hand encircle her middle finger, and panic gripped her. "Wait! I know that name!"
Tristessa thought like never before, feeling drops of sweat running relentlessly down her face from all the fear she felt and the pain emanating from her hand.
"Where did I hear that name?! Where?! …Ah…"
She remembered: Tiara was the one who said that name, back when she went mad, in that nonexistent past in which Tristessa had learned the hard way that revealing her ability to return from Death was fatal: those who heard that truth went mad, and before taking their own lives, they tried to kill her by any means necessary.
"Where did you hear that name? Do you even know Daiana?" Tiara's voice suddenly filled with inhuman fury, shattering that face of an indifferent torturer. She gripped her finger so tightly that Tristessa thought she would break it with just a squeeze. "Tell me!"
But Tristessa remained silent, a trickle of blood falling from the center of her lower lip, unable to come up with an excuse: she knew perfectly well that she had no way of telling Tiara that she had revealed that name to her, back in a temporal line that existed no more.
Therefore, her punishment was more pain. Another broken phalanx, more screams, and more tears.
"Enough… I beg you, Miss Tiara…p-please…"
At her plea for mercy, Tiara pushed Tristessa with her foot, leaving her face up. So that she could see her face, sweaty, breathing with some fatigue, but completely determined to continue until the end.
"You will tell me the whole truth. I will beat it out of you if necessary, I will wake you up as many times as necessary," the woman warned, pushing Tristessa deeper into despair with each word she spoke. "Until you tell me who you really are and what your goal is… Servant of the Dark Lady."
That accusation again. Tiara again coming to that same conclusion, no matter what Tristessa does differently… In every loop, in every reality, was there no way to break the trend? Was Tiara always going to be her enemy, without exception?
Tristessa broke down in sobs, her tormented soul forcing her to scream at the top of her lungs:
"I WANT TO SAVE THEM ALL! EVERYTHING I SAID ABOUT THE ATTACK WILL HAPPEN! IT'S NOT A LIE! WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?!"
Spitting out words, saliva, and blood alike, the black-haired girl opened her heart. Frustration ate at her from the inside. How powerless she felt, how weak and useless she saw herself, unable to overcome this first obstacle that had presented itself in front of her.
That obstacle that had regarded her with contempt and animosity from the moment she set foot in that house, after her first Death.
"WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?! WHAT DID I DO TO EARN YOUR HATE?!" she shrieked. "I NEVER ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS! JUST STOP HATING ME, PLEASE!"
Tristessa cried before her immutable torturer, and her screaming soul, shattered and beyond repair, kept seeking deliverance that it would never found.