"Please, don't do this. I don't know where it is, I seriously don't know." Another blow across the face made his mouth fill with blood, to which he spat it out before it choked him. He was exhausted, feeling as if his body wasn't his anymore, but the only reason he had this much energy to plead was because of the large axe that was raised above his torturer's head, aimed directly at the bicep of his left arm. They had straightened his arm to the side, pining it down with chains to a small table, and he knew exactly what was coming next.

Eric had his hands crossed behind his back, walking slowly behind him with a smug smile across his face. "I can tell them to stop but you'll need to tell me where his base is."

"I have no idea!" he cried, the tears rolling along his cheeks as he desperately pleaded for mercy. "Please, you have to believe me! He never told me where it was—"

"Cut it," Eric ordered.

"No, no...please no!" The seconds before the axe landed on his arm were the longest he had ever felt in his life. It was almost as if each millimetre it went down was another hour, until it reached his flesh and sliced his arm into two without any hindrance. When the blood began to pour and he could no longer feel his fingers, his screeching blood cry was heard across the entire basement. "Ah! My arm! AAAHH!"

"Nathan! You're fine, look at me!" When he resisted his grasp, Dante reached for his wrists and pinned them down against the bed, forcing his focus to be on his eyes. "Look at me, you're fine, I have you. We rescued you, remember? You're okay now."

It took a moment for his mind to regain its calm, but Dante noticed his breathing begin to ease as the fright in his eyes slowly dissipated. Eventually, when Nate was calm enough, he released his wrists and returned to the uncomfortable seat he had sat in for the past week, hours at a time. He refused to leave Nate's side, not letting anyone take him out and barely even leaving for food. The only time he did leave for longer than an hour was when his father summoned him to scowl him.

Nate's eyes returned blank as he began glancing over the bandages along his body, and the stub left as his arm. He observed the lines on his right palm, the way his wrist had gotten terribly skinny that he looked sickly and how the colour of his skin had grown a bizarre vomit yellow.

Those nightmares had been haunting him for days now; it felt as if he was still stuck in that basement where he was tortured endlessly, to which he even begged to be killed. He didn't remember how he was rescued, nor how he arrived to the base, but those weren't memories he wanted to find.

Dante wasn't surprised when Nate stayed quiet, staring at his lap and falling deep into his thoughts. This was what he had done ever since he woke up. The first day was horrendous as he continuously attempted to fight with the nurses they hired, even hit Dante multiple times. Then, he asked to be shot in the head numerous times to which Dante felt his heart clench whenever he said no and watched the disappointment cross Nate's eyes. After that, he spent days sobbing from morning to night, repeating the same wordings over and over again.

"My eye..."

"My arm..."

"My eye..."

"My arm..."

"My eye..."

And even though Dante had been there to console, he was only there in presence because he had no idea what to even say, as he was the one to have caused all of it. Even worse, none of them amongst the Hercules brothers had come remotely close to the brutality Nate had faced; how could they ever even understand how it felt to be tortured to that extent?

It was after the fourth day that he stopped crying, but instead went mute. He didn't say a word, barely ate, didn't look anyone in the eye and didn't even make any motion to let people know he had heard them. He was practically dead in a living body, not a single trace of emotion or even soul in his eyes. Dante tried to make conversation, even brought a random novel he found to read to Nate. But Nate never really made a sign that he was hearing him, or cared to.

It was as if he was trapped in his own mind.

"How are you feeling?" Dante asked quietly, leaning forward and placing a palm on the bed. "I know the nightmare must've been tough, but they'll go away soon. Are you hungry?" He reached for the pasta their chef had warmed for them, but Nate had been sleeping when he brought them and Dante didn't let him wake Nate up. "You should eat, it'll give you energy. I got some pasta."

He removed it from the brown bag and opened the container, seeing the freshly shredded Parmesan on top of the meat sauce; it even still smelled delicious. When he leaned in with a fork, Nate turned his head the other way without a word, which made him sigh. "You need to eat Nate." There was no response from Nate, which made Dante set the container aside and return to his seat, biting his bottom lip. He didn't even realized that the side of his thumb was grazed by how much he nitpicked at it from the nervousness of being around Nate. "I'll leave it here if you're hungry later."

The door's to the room opened and Dante smiled at Sara, a woman they had hired not only apart of their medical team but also engaged in sexual endeavours with a few of their famished men.

"How's he doing today?"

Dante shrugged his shoulders, tilting his head from side to side before exhaling, "He's not engaging very much."

"I mean health wise," she corrected, reaching for Nate and observing the bandages around his stub. Then, she began touching his body at different regions on his stomach and chest, seeing if any of them hurt when she did.

"I haven't noticed anything different."

She removed the blood pressure cuff from the wall and wrapped it around his arm. Dante had heard that sound multiple times, the one of her blowing up the cuff and then slowly letting the air out until it completed depleted. "His blood pressure is still pretty low, but he hasn't been very active." She then removed the stethoscope from around her neck and listened to his pulse from various regions on his chest, along with his breathing. "Everything sounds good, nothing alarming."

She grabbed her small flashlight and reached for his eye; it was a surprise that he didn't flinch or make any abrupt movement from her touches, considering what he had gone through. It was almost as if there was no existence in that body. "His eye is responding well too, there's nothing that's worrying me."

"When can he leave this room?"

Sara shoved her palms inside the front pockets of her scrubs, biting her bottom lip. "Mentally, I'd wait a month. But physically, if you can get him to eat, then I'd say a week but he'll need a wheelchair. He's definitely too weak to walk at this point; he needs to get a little muscle back on those bones." When she saw the guilt flash through Dante's eyes, as if what she said stabbed him through the heart, she placed a palm on his shoulder. "Recovery isn't a linear route; it takes time. Don't worry, he'll be back to his original health soon enough. Besides, with the way he is now, he'll definitely be there for the funeral."

"Thanks Sara," Dante whispered, forcing a smile as she returned it with one of her own before leaving the room.

The moment she left, that was the first time Nate engaged in a conversation with Dante.

He asked, "What funeral?"

His voice was raspy and cold, barely even above a whisper but it had been clear enough for Dante to hear. He didn't even look at Dante, keeping his eyes focused on the wrinkly bed sheet on his lap. This was not something he had wanted share yet with Nate as he was unsure how he would react again to the news, however it was going to be mentioned sooner or later.

After a short sigh, scratching the side of his chin, he bit his bottom lip uneasily before finally admitting, "For my brother Molly...his real name is Melissa but we call him Molly." There was no reaction from Nate, as that was not a familiar name. However, there was finally a reaction from him when Dante added, "And for your aunt."

Nate's eyebrows lifted, as if that was a word he finally recognized after so long. As if his brain hadn't fully processed what was truly meant by Dante, he repeated to himself, slowly and quietly under his breath, "Funeral...for your aunt..."

Dante saw the confusion on his face, as if he was trying to remember why this person was terribly important to him, and why he felt a sudden tumble in his stomach when that was said. When the realization hit and all the memories returned vividly of what happened, Dante saw it as well. His eye immediately filled with tears and his lips widened as he mumbled, "Aunt...A-Aunt Judy..."

"I'm sorry," Dante exhaled.

Nate finally remember how Eric had shot his aunt at the back of her head, how strange the blood on his hands felt, how he was dragged away from her body without any remorse, unable to save her. The past couple days that Nate had been crying, they were loud sobs, as if he was attempting to tear his soul away from his body.

However, that day was when the Nate that existed before had completely vanished.

He closed his eye, leaned backwards in his bed without saying another word. Even then, he was unable to stop the tears from continuing to leak along his cheeks, overflowing to the point that it began dripping along his chin.