Born in Blood

Chapter 434 Mad

Liam felt like he was in the backseat of his own body.

As though his primal desire, soul and intellect had been fragmented into thousands of little pieces.

A broken piece of glass.

He could sense it within himself.

He knew he was going mad.

Parts of his brain weren't clicking together anymore.

He didn't know what his purpose was anymore.

And life without purpose was meaningless.

But the only way he could affirm that he was still alive was through feeling pain.

But over time, even pain felt fake.

It felt unreal.

Thus, Liam had to move to extreme mutilation just to feel a semblance of existence.

There was no other feeling!

There was no food, temperature, sounds or smells of any kind!

Liam ripped off his top right hand.

"It's okay," Liam said to the hand. "You'll grow back. It's no big deal. Stop crying."

Using the stump of his bleeding hand, Liam walked through the line where the wet blood met the whiteness.

It wasn't dried.

After all, there was no temperature!

He slowly whistled to himself.

More time passed.

Liam stuck a hand through the gash on his abdomen and pulled something out.

It was his entrails, slurped out of his guts like a singular noodle.

In reality, Liam was not supposed to have any guts.

They had been converted into dense muscles… and yet, for some reason, the white void had reverted some parts of his body back to a human form.

Liam looked at the guts blankly.

They say the eyes were windows to the soul.

And yet, if one looked at Liam's eyes, they wouldn't associate him with a living being.

Liam continued yanking out his entrails until his body felt half empty.

Using those entrails, he began scrubbing the white floor, like he always did.

Time passed.

Liam didn't know how long.

All he knew was that he was no longer Liam.

Liam Royce was Darius King.

Darius killed his dad.

Liam killed his dad too.

But they had also killed their moms!

It was a funny parallel.

Both times, they had caused the death of their mother's indirectly.

Liam cried.

Liam laughed.

Liam smiled.

Liam felt regret.

Liam felt disgust.

Liam felt love.

Liam felt envy.

Liam felt shame.

Liam felt anger.

Liam felt sadness.

Liam felt pride.

Liam felt humiliated.

Liam felt rejected.

Liam felt bitter.

Liam felt betrayed.

Liam felt respected.

Liam felt anguished.

Liam felt mentally unstable.

Liam felt hundreds of different emotions in quick succession.

Like wearing a mask, he could alternate between them like an actor.

Liam cut off his finger and pretended it was a cigarette.

Then, he smoked it.

Right after, he had a lengthy conversation with his therapist about the decisions he'd taken that led him to this point.

The therapist was, of course, himself.

A heated argument followed.

The conversation ended with Liam sticking his claw into the therapist's stomach.

Of course, he was the therapist, and he had stabbed himself in the stomach.

Liam looked like a donut.

He laughed at the sight.

Then, Liam sang to himself.

As his entrails and bodily organs slowly healed, he used his intestines to skip-rope!

It was actually fun!

Liam didn't know what he'd become.

Was he always like this?

Or did he become like this, through a series of self-inflicted tortures?

When would it end?

All he had was whiteness.

Yes, the whiteness!

He had to drown it all out!

Drown out the whiteness!

It felt like eternity had passed.

Liam's black hair had gotten incredibly long.

It was four times the length of his body!

He used it as a brush to spread the redness.

His body appeared rotten with blood.

Cut, open, cut again.

But eventually, there was just a circular patch of whiteness left.

Just a little bit.

Liam cried in joy!

But he didn't feel either of those emotions.

He didn't feel happiness nor did he feel joy.

He just imitated them.

The only real emotions he felt were disgust, disdain, hatred, revilement, bitter irony, sarcasm and abhorrence.

And he didn't know why he felt only those.

Slowly, only a handspan of whiteness remained!

SHIG!

Liam formed a wide gash on his forearm, then let it drip over the whiteness.

Now, there was not a patch of white ground that wasn't covered with blood.

Liam sat on the ground, waiting patiently for something to happen.

Silence.

A menacing, dark look was on his scarred face.

For one minute straight, nothing happened.

And then…

WHISH!

All throughout the 9,000,000 square meters of space, little clots of Liam's wet blood rose above the ground.

They swirled like a miniature cyclone, growing in width and height.

As they did so, a monstrous form emerged from them.

"Right, right. I'm not surprised anymore. Just quickly get on with it," Liam said with a loud yawn. "This is getting repetitive."

The little clots of blood formed versions of Liam.

As they finally formed, their faces turned into pure alarm and confusion.

So much so, they looked extremely wary of one another.

And there were thousands upon thousands of them, as far as the eye could see.

Liam raised a brow.

"You… you do realize you're all clones, right?" Liam asked a nearby version of himself. "Do you not know where you are?"

As the real Liam spoke, everyone's attention simultaneously snapped towards him.

Silence.

"We're… clones?" the Liam clone muttered with widened eyes. He looked to the side. "...All of us?"

A wave of shock passed through the Liams present.

"Awkward…" Liam said with a pained look on his face.

If all the Liams present were actually Liams… then the real Liam had a feeling he knew what they'd do.

"But…" another Liam clone said. "You're real, aren't you?"

Silence.

Liam sighed regretfully.

"Indeed I am, friend. But how does one differentiate? What if I'm fake... and you're real?"

The army of Liams suddenly had dark looks on their faces, sinister lights in their eyes.

Just what in the world caused him to become like this?!

The difference between them and the real Liam was staggering.

Unlike the real Liam, the fakes were all in pristine condition, uninjured and nourished.

And the real Liam… well, he looked like something that was born in solitary confinement, and slowly went crazy along the way.

And yet… the fake Liams felt a certain danger from the real Liam's form.

"If we kill you… do we take your place?" another asked quietly.

Silence.

Liam smiled coldly.

"Wanna find out?"