The Lady's Butler

Separation Arc {Part 5}

(Part 5)

He would never forget. Kyrano swore to himself that he would never forget though his heart trembled a little in fear. In his nineteen years of existence, he has never been this afraid, never been so uncertain of himself and his own sense of determination.

Even when his father died, even when his sister passed on, he had been able to wrap his head around the single-most important fact that he lived for his mistress. He had always been completely confident of himself, that he trusted the very core of him to be the one who would stick completely faithfull by his mistress's side, that all of him was hers and in service of her.

And now he was beginning to doubt himself.

Kyrano was beginning to doubt that soon, his mind might break, and that he would lose himself, and become in his most basic form –a man of needs, wants and fears.

Kyrano had never irrationally feared anything in his nineteen years of life, but now he did.

He feared everything that was coming. He feared the future.

Completely lethargic, Kyrano sagged into the hard wooden chair that he had been thrown upon. He had not have the chance to lie comfortably on a horizontal surface in an extremely long time. He no longer knew what it felt to enjoy a luxury like that. He no longer knew the luxury of sleep.

The room was filled with a low, uneven, unrhythmic buzz that was aimed at preventing his sleep. Unrhythmic sounds were enemies to an individual's sense of hearing, and even thought Kyrano was completely exhausted, he could not fall into sleep.

He knew he was close to the edge; he was going to lose his mind soon. He was going to lose himself very soon. His desperate clinging onto his mental lifeline was going to fade away very soon, and there was nothing he could do to stop it even though he saw it coming. Was he even going to be back by his mistress's side? Was he even going to survive this? Was there a way for him to die and end this torture?

The Crawfords had been ruthless and completely efficient. Even a butler like Kyrano –a man of completely healthy mental strength –was close to his breaking point upon the third week of confinement. Focusing more on breaking his mind than his body, Kyrano had been forced to go with extremely little sleep, made to endure erratic sounds, and had even placed him in a room where the oxygen levels would be regulated.

The Oxygen Room, as Kyrano now had a name for it, was completely horrifying. Placed in the small room, bound by chain on his wrists and ankles and gagged by a cloth around his mouth so that he could not bite his own tongue as suicide, the oxygen levels had been controlled so that he could barely survive, constantly gasping for air. It was not only a physical trauma that would show no bodily scars, but it also induced complete emotional stress that all humans would go through –even someone as naturally calm as Kyrano was.

No one had bothered to talk to him throughout the entire process of his torture in his three weeks. Not a single word had been uttered since he had been escorted from the Master's office, after Oscar had announced that Kyrano needed to be punished for his leading the young mistress astray. There had not been a single deadline said, not a single word uttered that he could hear.

The sound of locks clicking open, and heavy doors swinging open elicited no physical response from Kyrano, who was chained to the chair in the tiny room. He was now in complete isolation. He could see nothing, and the only sounds he heard was the erratic buzzing sounds. There was no light, no indication of time spend, nothing at all in the world.

And it was the worst type of torture by far, because they weren't doing anything to him. His mind was still reeling from the constant trauma and shock, and his body was still bracing for even more physical torture that never came. The tension in his mind and body was so high that his mind actually went into overdrive when he heard doors opening.