Every week, the sounds of heavy footsteps and clanging of keys could be heard.

Every week.

If he caught on, he would have realised that the little torture session only lasted for a day but the guards took a new prisoner only every seven days. They were not done with him yet…

He woke up yet again from intense pain. It was a blast of impact into his right shoulder bone. The bones shattered instantly.

Hollowpoint bullets. Designed to damage with maximum casualty. But why the fuck am I thinking? I should be dead…

“Wakey wakey, prisoner.”

His attacker was playing with him. It sounded sadistic. It sounded as if his attacker was having fun.

The worn-out soldier opened his eyes. Still darkness… He was still chained up in the exact same position he died.

“How is it possible?” He murmured.

It did not make sense. He felt himself die. He let himself die.

“Feeling hopeless? Now, death is not your escape. Your suffering won’t end y’know.”

After finishing his sentence, a glaring light shone into his face. It was the first ray of light ever since that dreadful day. Yet it was piercing. His eyes were not accustomed. He preferred the dark. The dark was his form of escape. It was his perfect hiding place. Yet humans were, after all, born to see the sun. The glare felt less intense after every second. The soldier blinked. Straight in front of him was a short man in a lab coat grinning at him. The teeth were made of gold, stained with dirt and grime. In his hand was an empty syringe.

“What did you do to me?” The soldier managed to ask.

“Not so cocky now, are you? This is a little experiment which I perfected. It revives the dead, as long as their brains are in perfect condition. It may have side effects, but that’s what test subjects are for, isn’t that right?”

The mad scientist gave the soldier another crooked smile, baring his golden teeth.

Interrogation, torture and experimentation, all at the same time. What are they?

“Now, since we’ve established the fact that you can’t die without my permission, let’s have another go at my question.”

The sadistic man paused for a second before continuing, “Where are the research papers?”

After finishing his question, he immediately turned a knob on a power generator.

The soldier went into spasm, jerking his entire wasted body involuntarily. This time, it was torture by electrocution via the metal chains which restrained him. Metal was a great conductor of electricity, after all.

He knows about the research. He was just playing with me.

The soldier stared blankly at the ground. His eyes were filled with terror. His suffering would never end unless he surrendered. Despair soon crept into the black of his eyes. He was isolated from the rest of the world, stuck in an endless cycle of torment. As the cold beads of sweat slowly trickled down his maimed naked body, something overwhelming overcame his fears.

The room echoed with a cackle almost similar to the scientist’s own maniacal chortle. The eerie laugh was wild and sharp.

“If you want to know that much, I guess you’ll have to kill me more to get it out of me,” the soldier declared pointedly.

The scientist fumed with frustration. The soldier was the first to retort him, to seem to have no fear whatsoever towards him. He hated this feeling. It stripped him of all superiority. The scientist grabbed the pistol next to him and pulled the trigger consecutively with all the fervour he had until every last bit of frustration was vented out. As he did so, that ear-piercing guffaw rang in his ears.

“Do you think I’ll let you off so easily after insulting me? No! Playtime is not over! It’s only over when I say so!”

The soldier was revived again and again upon hearing the same lunatic voice. Each time he opened his eyes, he saw the glint in that crooked grin, which was then followed by a barrage of torture.

The scientist inflicted wounds after wounds onto the boy he loathed. The sole purpose of reviving him was to let him feel eternal torture. No longer was he interested in his experiments nor interrogation. This boy was now a tool to unleash his fury.

The young soldier, however, was already numbed to physical pain on the fourth resurrection. He had already embraced the fact that he could fall no deeper into this treacherous pit of despair. He went far beyond his physical limits and the only way out of this was to wear out his whole body. He would probably be a zombie by then.

The scientist was nonetheless skilled. He mended the soldier’s mangled body up well enough for his serum to take effect each time the soldier’s heart stopped. The scientist was careful not to let the brain expire. He realised after the fifteenth surgery that physical torture could no longer work on the soldier. What infuriated him even more was that he did not feel in charge at all. It seemed as if the soldier was playing with him, not the other way around. No matter how hard the scientist tried to damage the soldier, his maniacal grin never ceased. It was edging its way into the scientist’s nerves. The soldier seemed to be enjoying the torture. It seemed as though the soldier was enjoying the pathetic look on the scientist’s face when he tried to wipe the grin off his own face.

After he woke up for the sixteenth time, the soldier was left in the same dark room, hung up by chains of steel. In his semi-conscious state, he pondered on how long it had been since the professor entrusted him with a string of numbers and alphabets, which he had since committed to memory. Then, the door slammed wide open. The guards pushed several men into the blood-stenched room. The main lights turned on and the soldier could see every corner of the room clearly for once. On the extreme left, there was a surgical table stained with blood. Neatly arranged on the extreme right side were dead bodies hung up in order. Despite the faces and bodies being disfigured by various torture methods, the soldier could recognise them. They were his brothers-in-arm, his buddies in the Nebula Company.

He clenched his teeth and his fists. Seeing their lifeless bodies made him boil with anger. They had all went through this before the scientist decided to end their misery.

The short man in the white lab coat faced the anguished soldier and laughed triumphantly.

“It took me long enough to realise that you are a monster. You don’t feel physical pain any more. So I have come up with another brilliant idea. I’m going to kill each one of your friends until you tell me where those research papers are.”

Without hesitation, he shot the first in line before the soldier could react.

BANG!

ARGHHHH!!

His friend screamed.

“You tell your friend to stop making noise or I’ll start killing.”

The soldier was exhausted from the torture. He tried to gather enough breath to make a murmur, “Bro…”

BANG!

Another shot was fired. But his friend’s screaming did not stop. It took the soldier a while to realise why. The mad scientist had killed the second in line without warning.

“Tell me where those papers are!”

The soldier was distraught. Both his promise to the professor and his friends were as important to him. Seeing his friends die in front of him one by one forced him awake.

The scientist was enraged.

(Why won’t this guy give up? I’m the strongest. He can’t be stronger than me!)

He proceeded on to maim the prisoners in front of the soldier.

“Stop it…” the soldier begged as he forced back his tears.

BANG!

The last comrade fell to the ground.

“You told me to stop the torture, boy. We’ll stop here for today. Tomorrow, we’ll play again.”

The lights went off and he was once again engulfed into a sea of darkness.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” he chanted remorsefully to his comrades as his tears streamed down his cheeks.