Chapter 116
Virah held her throat as her eyes snapped shut, the feeling of choking helplessness started overtaking her as her mind entered a meditative state.
For a few weeks now, getting into this type of mind state had been nothing but a serene and tranquil experience for Virah, but it seems that after killing all of those grunts, indirectly or not, her "trauma" had come back to resurface.
She pushed past the miasma coiling around her throat and forced herself to breath, her mind may have no need for air but her physical body still did, and what happens here could very much influence her physical body.
And so, to ensure that she didn't actually choke to death while meditating, Virah breathed, knowing that even when she's choking in here, her body was breathing fine on the outside.
The noxious scent plugging her nose fought her all the way through but Virah pushed on, continuing her attempts at inhaling until everything cleared.
The time it took for her mind to get to this state felt like forever but she was now here, and with clarity came choices, Virah decided to work on her Aura.
Tonight had been the first time she decided to over use her Aura and the side effects of doing so only became clear after everything was finished.
The first of them came back when she was recovering inside of that bathroom, and the burn that etched itself into her skin as her body expelled the toxins present within her veins had almost left her screaming.
If it wasn't for her quick thinking, she would have announced her presence.
And in exchange for her silence? A torn hoodie as well as a mouthful of toilet paper.
What followed after that was fire coursing through her insides, melting her lungs and incerating her veins, cooking her chest and ruining her stomach.
It was like magma bubbled within her, and it might as well have been because her bathroom floor became full of the black sludge that started to seep out of her skin.
And lastly…
Virah turned her head from side to side, the melting walls that made up the hallway she found herself in reminded Virah of candlewax.
Virah looked down at the molasses like substance crawling onto the floor, the walls' viscous form slowly made its way towards her, the liquid moved across the surface like ocean water colliding against a sandy beach.
Virah turned her gaze forward, the hallway seemed to stretch on endlessly, there was nothing out there besides extreme darkness…
She shuddered when an itch started to crawl across her skin, goosebumbs intermingled with the irritation and Virah found herself walking forward just to avoid the toxic gas building up around her.
Her legs moved with a hastened beat to their steps, panic flooded her mind when the walls around her melted even faster.
A claustrophobic feeling started to envelop her mind, wrapping her slowly diminishing consciousness with a tight embrace until her mind was so confined that her vision became far sighted and narrow.
The tunnel vision overtaking her eyes made Virah feel as though the world was in a constant state of chaos, the toxic gas around her started to thicken, blocking her path and choking her mind even further.
It didn't take long for the mist to start searing her skin, and she felt like she was inside a boiling kettle with each passing second.
The walls, which once moved like shifting sand dunes on a desert, started to wane, as though they couldn't withstand the acidic bite of the mist, they collapsed, much like dunes within a sandstorm, the particulates that made up their silicate forms moved around the place with extreme fervor.
"AH!" Virah screeched when she felt something wrap around her ankles.
She looked down in horror at the rocket grunt whose facial structure have gone awry, one of the man's eyes have gone down to the cheek, while another was melting out of its sockets, Virah kicked the man away in panic, her leg doing nothing as it held onto her flesh.
The grunt's mouth opened into a silent plea, one that Virah swiftly mirrored as her knees collapsed from her weight and her body fell to the floor.
"Please- please- please-" as panic overcame her, Virah started kicking the grunt in shorter and shorter bursts, her futile attempts yielded nothing but making her cry for help as she realized that the hold would no longer budge.
More grunts emerged out of the woodwork, gas and cries seeping out of their open mouths, they held onto the panicking Virah, pinning her limbs down and holding her in place no matter how much she flailed.
"PLEASE!" Virah's desperate plea fell on deaf ears.
The gas started to fly inside her mouth as though the mist was waiting for her to cry for help, the sadistic air moved past her lips, burning her tongue and rotting her teeth before going deeper and ruining her throat.
Virah's eyes welled up in tears as she started coughing, the liquid blocking her vision choked more of her senses and setting the panic within her mind ablaze.
She started to flail wildy, her arms moved left and right, her elbows bent in unnatural angles, her shoulders got dislocated and yet the grunts holding her down wouldn't budge, they kept their hold strong, their unmoving forms careless about the cries that erupted from Virah's throat.
All sounds escaping her lips died down as Virah's throat became damaged by the gas infesting her mouth, she whined, hopeless.
After spending what felt like hours in such a state, Virah felt her eardrums rupture from her constant coughing, she had become deaf, and yet her flailing didn't stop, the panic didn't wane, and the feeling of hopelessness choking her thoughts didn't disappear.
When the melted concrete finally reached her, Virah's panic went into an all time high.
The feeling of weight pressing against her arms and legs was a wake up call that forced her mind to react, she flailed harder, enough to twist her bones and rip her muscles from the exertion, her skin tore themselves on the boney hands that held her wrists.
The gas started to move towards her wounds and a wave of pain washed over her when the mist touched her exposed flesh.
Virah's body tensed and her back arched as she let out a soundless screech, the pain seemed to never end even as she was buried alive with viscous concrete.
Even when it felt like liquid to her skin, Virah found herself unable to move, the boney hands holding her down, the toxic air burning her throat, the searing pain on her exposed flesh, all of them seemed to have disappeared and yet, in their place was something so much worse.
Numbness took over Virah's body, it was as though her nerves have been fried to bits and as a consequence, they were now unable to feel anything.
Slowly, everything disappeared, starting with the weight of the concrete pressing down on her, then the panic clouding her mind shortly followed, and lastly, the feeling of hopelessness went away.
Virah heaved, she was still unable to breath but her mind was now clear, and with ability to think now back, she focused on her Aura and started circulating it.
Virah's reaction to the inferno that started coursing through her body was to grit her teeth and she continued circulating her Aura even when pain was the only thing on her mind.
She pushed through, the fire within her fighting back against the burn melting away at her very being.
It took a long time but the pain eventually subsided, Virah started breathing, she choked on concrete and started coughing hard enough that her body jolted upright despite the weight-
Virah looked around her room, "I…"
With a heave, she collapsed down on the floor, the scent she was inhaling right now reminded her of rotten eggs and phosphorus, but her mind couldn't focus on such a disgusting smell.
Her gaze was solely fixed on the ceiling above her.
The shock was still in her system and Virah had to wait it out before she could think clearly, her eyes glazed over as the seconds went on and when her vision cleared again, she got up.
"I need a shower," she grumbled while moving to her bathroom.